Reel Big Fish was onstage at In The Venue on a sweaty August night in 2005 when they got the best news they could have ever imagined. It wasn't that their record had gone platinum or they'd been nominated for a Grammy. No, they were so excited because they found out that they'd been dropped by Jive Records.

"We were so happy. It was the best show ever," says singer/guitarist Aaron Barrett of that memorable night. "I've never see everyone in the band so happy. We were like, 'Yaaaaay, now we can do whatever we want.' "

In 1997, Reel Big Fish joked about becoming huge major label stars on their best-known hit, "Sell Out." Little did they know that just a few years later, their indie home Mojo Records would be acquired by Jive -- the label best known for acts like Britney Spears, *NSync, and the Backstreet Boys.

"We never wanted to be on Jive Records. [When] Jive acquired Mojo, we were just lost in the giant wasteland of all the bands that they suddenly owned and didn't care about," Barrett says. "They didn't know how to sell us, how to tell people what kind of music it was, or how to package it because we weren't one of their boy bands. We were too weird and unpredictable and quirky to be on a major label."

The band has been happily label-free ever since. "In the past four years, we've put out a live album, a studio album, a covers album and two live DVDs," Barrett says. "We don't have to go through all the business stuff. We get to be more creative and have more fun with what we do."

But that doesn't mean Barrett now gets to do whatever he wants. The band's latest release "Fame, Fortune and Fornication" is a collection of covers of tunes by John Mellencamp, Van Morrison, and The Eagles.

"The covers album started out as a Poison tribute album. [I said] 'Let's do a whole album of Poison songs, wouldn't that be funny? Wouldn't that be awesome? And no one thought it was awesome but me."

Though Barrett couldn't talk his band mates into the tribute album, he was able to get two Poison songs onto the track list, bookending the record with "Nothin' but a Good Time" and "Talk Dirty to Me."

Barrett says his Poison admiration is sincere. "I love Poison, that's why I started playing guitar -- probably because of the "Talk Dirty to Me" video. With all of the bright colors and hair, it looked so fun to be in a band and play guitar."

Sadly, he doesn't think that the band's love-filled covers are enough to land the band a spot on some future season of "Rock of Love with Bret Michaels."

"We're not hot girls who look like strippers," Barrett explains.

But at this point and dating and drinking, isn't there at least a slim chance that the band could fool Michaels into thinking that they were?

Barrett replies slyly, "Maybe."