One of the biggest thrills of Rob Kolar’s music career was when his band, Lemon Sun, opened for The Killers at the Long Beach Arena in 2006.

“It was insane,” Kolar says as he drives through Hollywood. “One week we were playing at high schools in my hometown, the next week we were playing in front of 8,000 people,”

Even after getting a taste of playing in a stadium, Kolar insistes he still digs performing in more intimate venues like Jose’s, where Lemon Sun will headline on Friday night.

September of 2009 marked the release of the Los Angeles-based band’s first full-length album, Run With the Faithless, to high accolades. They were able to score producer Dave Schiffman, who has worked with legendary musicians like Johnny Cash and engineered a number of records produced by the renowned Rick Rubin.

The result: an all around gratifying, rock and roll adventure that teeters somewhere in between 1960s Kinks and Rolling Stones albums and Tom Petty’s debut record. Though the 12 tracks of catchy pop rock are easy to listen to, they still challenge those music fans who are always looking for something different.

“[Run With the Faithless] inadvertently became a concept album,” Kolar says. “There’s a love part of the album and there’s a social commentary part of the album; sometimes they work together and become intertwined.”

Hope – a common theme of both love and war – is the paradigm of “Same Old Ground.” Kolar channels the crackly vibrato of the Cold War Kids’ Nathan Willett as he unleashes the chorus: “We all come back again, to the same old ground where we began.”

“Congratulate our Thievery,” the opening number and probably one of the best songs on the album, is a vivacious tune about capitalist sh*theads in the tradition of grimy Meat Puppets, hi-fi guitar rock.

Kolar – who wrote the lyrics to all the songs on the album – says he consciously tries to infuse his own experience into the music while keeping it accessible to everyone.

“The response to the album has been great,” Kolar says. “At our L.A. shows there have been people singing along to our songs; it’s crazy.”

Even though the album has been well received and Lemon Sun’s fan base continues to grow, at least in Southern California, Kolar is uncertain about the future of the band’s ever-changing lineup – Lemon Sun has gone through 17 members. But he continues to be the common thread that keeps the band alive and debuting new material.

“You never know who’s going to be on stage,” Kolar says. “But I’m excited about the new lineup – the sound on our new album will be a mixture of all the decades that came after the advent of rock.”

Leopold and his Fiction and The Mystery Lights also play.

LEMON SUN plays 9pm Friday, Nov. 27, at Jose’s Underground Lounge, 638 Wave St., Monterey. $7. 655-4419.