The band that went down with the Titanic is still out to sea, so to speak - and loving it. Who would have guessed?

You'd think a lesson might have been learned by Gaelic Storm, the popular Celtic rockers who'll be thundering into the Bloomington Center for the Performing Arts at 7:30 p.m. Friday.

But no.

As he begins his GO! interview, founding father and chief songwriter Steve Twigger's ship has just come in - literally.

It has been several minutes since he set foot on terra firma after a week on the high Caribbean seas.

The occasion: Barenaked Ladies' Ships & Dip III concert cruise.

That's the Canadian rock band, by the way.

Twigger vows he didn't experience that sinking feeling once on the entire voyage, during which Gaelic Storm jammed and played with Barenaked Ladies and the dozen other roots-favoring rock acts on board (among them, Guster, Great Big Sea and Harland Williams).

"We've come a long way in those 10 years," he says, referencing the band's career-making role in 1997's blockbuster movie, "Titanic."

In one fell swoop, the group bounced from cult Irish bar band in Santa Monica, Calif., to key participants in the decade's biggest cultural phenomenon.

Twigger and his mates played the "party band" in "Titanic's" steerage. And their music wound up on the mega-selling soundtrack album, "Back to 'Titanic.'"

"It can be a little frustrating to still be answering a 10-year-old question," he admits. "But we realize it's an important part of our lives. And we're still happy to be that band."

Even if, in fact, they're not really that band anymore: a rowdy group of mates playing mostly other peoples' music.

"You guys are (bleep), but very entertaining," a Hollywood industry sort told them around that time.

Thanks to what Twigger calls "a very big Irish and English population" in the Santa Monica area (the coastal city about a half-hour due west from Hollywood), their regular gig - O'Brien's Irish Pub & Restaurant - was always packed.

And so what if, at musical heart, they were (bleep)?

"We became a group not to be virtuosos but for the simple motive of literally having a good time. And we wanted to share our love of music with other people," Twigger says. "We became the 'anti-look-at-me' band in what was the Hollywood equivalent of a dive bar. It became very trendy for socialites to travel from Hollywood across town to slum it for a night."

The Gaelic Storm clouds began forming fast.

Then it began raining cats and dogs.

Or should we say pennies from heaven?

Solid gold coins, in fact

One night around 1996, one of the O'Brien's patrons approached the band and identified himself as a member of the production team filming "Titanic" across town at 20th Century Fox.

In effect, he offered the time-honored offer of, "You oughtta be in pictures!"

His picture was the one getting all the bad press due to its legendarily troubled production history.

Frankly, Twigger recalls, "we were having such a great time that we were extremely reluctant to do the film. We all had full-time jobs at various industries back in L.A. We were fairly fresh off the boat and having the times of our lives night after night, weekend after weekend."

But you don't say "no" to the director who made "The Terminator" and "Aliens."

Or, as Twigger says he was called around the set, "God."

"God" - James Cameron - sent a camera crew to O'Brien's to shoot Gaelic Storm making rowdy with their mates from the hood.

"That was what he told us he wanted us to re-create for the film." But that was about all.

"We were expecting great direction from him, but he said absolutely nothing to us," Twigger recalls. "He introduced us to the actors and extras in the scene and, in between shots, he came over and asked us what would typically happen after we finished one song and began another."

They told him.

So be it, responded God.

"He was great to us," Twigger says, "and treated us with absolute respect. We felt personally responsible for that atmosphere that was portrayed in that scene, and we're still very proud of it. That may sound pretentious, but we really do try to take the party with us wherever we go."

The "Titanic" impact was immediate.

"Lines started appearing around the block (at O'Brien's) before the film was even released - we become one of the things to go and see."

After that, there was no turning, or sailing, back.

"All of a sudden, a lot of doors were opened for us, and we jumped right into this national and international folk world, with some mighty big shoes to fill."

Twigger admits that this literal overnight brand of success created some "understandable resentment" among some of the more seasoned bands that felt they should have been jamming on board the Titanic.

"But I knew we were this sort of real thing and our intention was never going to be pushing this in anybody's face," he adds. "We were totally respectful of the people we were now shoulder-to-shoulder with all of a sudden. We were fans of them."

It didn't take long, he says, for critics "to realize that we were just a regular band trying to make our way like anybody else. They took to us pretty well after that."

As did the public.

Fans have been buying the albums (a half-dozen) and filling venues the past decade, all the better to partake of the musical lightning-and-thunder that is Gaelic Storm.

Not to mention that party they take everywhere with them.

"If you don't come in with a smile, I promise we'll send you out with one," vows Twigger.