Jake Ward is an Athens musician: he moved to town in 2007 and started a band three weeks later.

“The Complete Adventurer existed for about a year,” he said. “I just got tired of being in this mewithoutYou band and wanted to do something different.”

Out of the ashes of The Complete Adventurer rose Eureka California. The band is a Britpop-influenced two-piece that eschews perhaps the most ubiquitous subject matter of art in general.

“None of the songs are about love,” he said. “My two biggest influences are Blur and The Smiths, and even though they wrote about love, I like that they have songs about day-to-day life and other frustrations besides not being someone’s sweetheart.”

Ward wrote the first Eureka California song, “Milwaukee,” in his hometown of Raleigh, N.C., before the band existed.

“I started Eureka California because I wanted to do something more poppy and melodic,” he said.

“Poppy” does not imply simplistic. Song structures are surprising and the band is constantly finding new ways to perform, partially due to its personnel changes. The band expanded to a five-piece at one point, but has since been cut back to just Ward (guitar and vocals) and Wyatt Strother (drums). Ward also plays bass in Strother’s venture Werewolves.

“We became friends but were in separate bands,” he said. “We have the same sense of stupid humor and we just work together and play together.”

Ward, an agriculture economics major by day, is working on an album due for release in the foreseeable future.

“Hopefully all the recording will be done in November, and if I get some colored pencils today then hopefully I can do the artwork,” he said.

-Marie Uhler contributed to this story.