Semisonic drummer Jacob Slichter is phoning from a place unheard of in the States — a place where “Closing Time” is not the most spun song on modern rock radio.

No, it’s not New Music Heaven — it’s not even Iowa.

Slichter is calling from Europe, where Semisonic is just breaking, and fans are following the new record not just the seductive pop song that has become an American bar anthem.

“‘Closing Time’ is just coming out over here,” Slichter said graciously. “They’re on a different time table than we are, musically.”

Semisonic, which formed a few years ago out of the break-up of the acclaimed Minneapolis indie band Trip Shakespeare, is touring Europe for the first time.

“Feeling Strangely Fine” hit European shelves in mid-summer, while “Great Divide,” Semisonic’s 1996 debut, was not released internationally.

So how does a Midwestern alternative rock band with little history and no hit single conjure up enough of a following to headline a major club tour in a foreign land?

The answer is “Feeling Strangely Fine,” Semisonic’s ingenious new project, praised as much for its Shakespearean lyrics as its crafty pop construction.

Recorded at Seedy Underbelly, the Minneapolis antique store-turned-studio, “Feeling Strangely Fine,” which is introduced by the radio-friendly “Closing Time,” is the record that broke the band a mere six months ago.

“[Gigging in Europe] doesn’t seem that strange,” Slichter said. “Having people recognize our material is still a relatively new experience for us. We still remember what it’s like to be introducing our songs.”

What is strange, maybe even strangely fine, is closing in on 30 and becoming a sex symbol at the same time. With “Closing Time” on heavy MTV rotation for most of the summer, Slichter and his colleagues are garnering the same Leo-maniac 12-year-old fan base whose CD collections boast Brandy and the Backstreet Boys.

“Being a sex symbol is something I have become acquainted with just recently,” Slichter joked. “All the extra sex is great.

“The real truth is, I don’t relate to bands as being sex symbols,” he later explained. “I think Liz Phair is extremely sexy, but I don’t imagine her in a sexual way. I relate to her through her music. My opinion of her is not based on my own desires.”

Semisonic can’t fight sex symbol status. It is what happens when a record as sentimental as “Feeling Strangely Fine” is heard by a mass audience.

Frontman Dan Wilson once admitted, “I wanted this record to be a bedroom record. I imagine singing to one person, that I’m whispering in one ear.”

From the fittingly-titled “Singing In My Sleep,” a sing-along number about two far away lovers who keep in touch by sending mix tapes, to “Gone To The Movies,” a ballad about a woman who leaves during a fight with her husband to see a movie and calm her nerves, the songs on “Feeling Strangely Fine” are bedroom whispers adorned by sultry pop guitar antics.

“A lot of Dan’s songs seem like they are about one thing,” Slichter explained. “But they’re actually composites of several people he knows.”

On “Feeling Strangely Fine,” both Slichter and Semisonic bass player John Munson try their hand at writing.

Munson’s “She Spreads Her Wings” is an acoustically vulnerable tune which he sings, while Slichter’s “This Will Be My Year” features Wilson jabbing through sardonically soothing lyrics about New Year’s Eve.

“It is the first song that is all mine,” Slichter said. “I’m glad it ended up making the record. It’s not like we reserved a slot for me or John. We just wanted to make the best record we could, and I was lucky enough to make the cut.”

While “This Will Be My Year” is part of the Semisonic live show that The Boston Globe described as “the best of modern rock,” “She Spreads Her Wings” and “Gone To The Movies” usually are not.

“They’re quiet songs and you need an audience that’s familiar with the music to get away with playing them,” Slichter said, adding that both tunes may pop up on the American tour that kicked off in Marshall, Minn., yesterday and hits Des Moines tonight.

Before touring Europe, Semisonic played a handful of radio station festivals and took the opening slot on a month-long bill that included Matchbox 20 and fellow Minnesotans Soul Asylum.

“It was fun to see those guys every night,” Slichter said of Dave Pirner and the crew. “I still remember seeing Soul Asylum for the first time. I think if an alien landed on earth and wanted to see rock ‘n’ roll, I would send it to a Soul Asylum show.”

But nowadays, it is Semisonic who is defining rock ‘n’ roll in the land of 10,000 lakes — the land where “Closing Time” is the most spun song on modern rock radio.

Semisonic play Supertoad in Des Moines tonight at 7:30. Norway’s Getaway People will open. Tickets are $12.