Chairlift

Apr. 30 2009, Published 5:19 a.m. ET

Whether or not you recognize the name Chairlift, you’ve definitely heard their song “Bruises,” with it’s catchy chorus “I tried to do handstands for you/every time I fell on you,” from those omnipresent iPod commercials. Though you may have assumed it was iPod alum Feist.

“It was a total surprise,” says singer-keyboardist Caroline Polacheck, whose hauntingly beautiful voice is now recognizable in virtually every corner of the nation, even if people might be hard-pressed to recognize her face. “Apple found us and started sending us contracts and we didn’t think we were going to get that spot my any means. It was only once we saw it on TV and got the check that we were like, wow, it really happened.”

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As a result, the band quit their day jobs (Caroline had four!) and signed to Columbia Records, home of another wildly popular Brooklyn-based baby band, MGMT, and got to remaster, remix and re-release their debut album, Does You Inspire You, last week with two new tracks.

Polacheck first met singer-guitarist Aaron Pfenning and drummer-keyboardist Patrick Wimberly at college in Boulder, Colorado, and named the trio Chairlift, which is not simply a byproduct of living in Colorado. “A chairlift is a slow panoramic ride over beautiful and dramatic terrain, so that’s kind of the perfect name for us,” she says. “It’s like a slow ascent.”

Appropriately, the band finds much of their musical inspiration in visuals that seem to demand a lovely backing track, like architecture, landscapes, and even garbage. “The image of the build-up of waste is really mysterious to me,” says Polacheck of the song “Garbage.” “I imagine garbage we’re throwing out in these intimate weird moments, like old razors and shit like that sitting out under the moonlight ten years from now, under the rain and under the stars.”