Singer-songwriter Rhett Miller, who is in Tokyo for a few days plugging his album "The Instigator" is feeing encouraged. "I told my manager I wanted to come back in May with a band," he says between sips of green tea at the offices of Warner Music Japan. During a solo acoustic showcase the night before in Harajuku, he said as much to the excitable, mostly female crowd. One woman in the audience made him promise. "Well, technically I promised I would come back after Golden Week."

"The Instigator" has sold around 50,000 copies in the United States since it was released there in September. "The first single didn't do much when it came out, but right before Christmas it started moving up, so now I'm in the top 10 of the triple-A [Adult Album Alternative] charts, a hotly contested format because the rest of radio has either gone to full-on rock or oldies. These days, if you're not appealing to angry 14-year-olds, you're on triple-A."

Miller is 32. On stage, he could pass for 22, not so much because of his boyish good looks, which are fully in evidence on the album cover, but rather his earnest, artless performance style. Beating up on his acoustic guitar and whipping his longish hair into a swirl, he fits the stereotyped image of the teenager locked in his bedroom pretending to be an idolized punk. "Yeah, I'm kind of a spaz," he admits.