When Forrest Kline first started making music on his computer, he never thought it would launch him on a journey that would lead him to an onslaught of adoring fans and television appearances. In hindsight, he still has trouble wrapping his mind around it all.

“I have no idea,” Kline said. “It’s purely absurd. I just made some songs on the computer, so it’s ridiculous that it would have gone so far and I really don’t understand it.”

For Kline and the other members of power-pop group Hellogoodbye, the journey may seem mind-boggling. After appearing in MTV’s Real World, the band ended up winning the Dew Circuit Breakout contest and appearing on TRL. Kline says that the Real World was a big part of what propelled Hellogoodbye to a broader audience.

“That was a big deal,” Kline said. “The Real World was the first thing that we’ve done that was internationally known. It’s a big program. We got lots of e-mails and they rerun that so much that people still find out about us from the show.”

Long before any TV appearances, Kline had played in a few bands in high school. When he found himself lacking bandmates, he created music by himself and with fellow Hellogoodbye member Jesse Kurvink. The band officially formed in 2001 after the popularity of the computer-created power-pop songs began to skyrocket on the Internet.

The band is currently rounded out by Marcus Cole on bass and Chris Profeta on drums. Hellogoodbye has since put out a five-song EP and a DVD and maintained a vigorous touring schedule as part of the music scene. Kline said he tries to keep his thoughts on these aspects to a minimum.

“It’s one of those things that you try not to think about, really. I don’t really think about it in the context of a scene kind of thing,” Kline said. “I just try to make some music. I don’t know how it relates to what’s going on currently or what’s going on in the indie music scene and stuff like that. Maybe I do it on accident, I just try not to think about it.”

Kline said everything he does musically is in earnest, whether it be the music he writes or songs that he covers – such as Enrique Iglesias’ Escape.

“I really like that song,” Kline said. “It was for a radio show and just for fun.”

Kline said he doesn’t have room for guilty pleasures, but enjoys things that others might not admit to liking.

“Anything I like I would say that I am proud to like. I guess stuff that you could consider a guilty pleasure. [Escape is] really the only Enrique song that I like and Toxic is the only Britney Spears song that I like. The Vengaboys are kind of a guilty pleasure. Vengaboys are tight.”

Kline’s accidental methods and influential interests have paid off. He has crafted his own brand of pop-rock love songs inspired by his own personal experience with girls.

“I could give you a list, but you wouldn’t know them – I wouldn’t think,” Kline said. “I have a girlfriend now, so most of the new ones are about her. The rest of them are about three or four other girls from the past.”

Although writing the songs is something that Kline loves, there are other aspects that come along with the music business that Kline isn’t so fond of.

“Well, for me [the industry] just sucks, because the further this goes we spend more and more time doing various things that I don’t really want to do, that I didn’t get into [the industry] to do,” Kline said.

Kline said he feels that at this level of the business, important things like actual songwriting and personal freedom tend to go by the wayside.

“Instead of sitting at home and working on a bunch of songs for an endless amount of time, you get to go in for one month, record a record and do it. Then you get to go out on the road and tour for 10 months, do interviews and signings and weird things like that,” he said. “It just sucks because you get pushed to more and more things you don’t want to do and less things that you want to do.”

Kline remains optimistic, however, citing the current phase as a transition period.

“Hopefully if it went far enough you could make it to do the things you want to do,” Kline said. “I would like to work toward building myself a home studio. I record at my house, but just on a laptop. I would like to get a room and be able to take three or four months off, do it at my leisure and work on it that way, then tour a bit.”

In the course of Hellogoodbye’s journey, Kline has had the opportunity to tour with many of the bands that he likes, including The Rocket Summer, The Format and the All-American Rejects.

One of the tours resulted in a near-death experience when Hellogoodbye flipped their van.

“It wasn’t nearly as frightening when it happened as it started to feel more and more after it happened looking back on it,” Kline said.

“When it happened it didn’t soak in. When we were flying by the side of the road I was thinking, ‘Oh crap, we are going to dent the vehicle body.’ I wasn’t thinking that I would die, but looking back you realize you could.”

Kline said that was the craziest touring story, but the worst was the fan reaction during one of their shows.

“The worst show we ever played was with the Aquabats,” Kline said. “Their fans just hated us. They threw things and cursed at us and just totally didn’t give us a chance at all. It was kind of funny.”

Kline said Hellogoodbye has no trouble winning over a crowd – now that he has learned the secret, that is.

“You just gotta show some skin,” he said.