As Meg Frampton elaborates on her songwriting process, how much she's inspired by love and literature, her call drops. Her cell phone connection is lost three times as she tries to conduct an interview while en route to a gig in Arizona. Each time Frampton calls back, she giggles, apologizes and picks up exactly where she left off.

The 21-year-old guitarist is the songwriting half of the pop-rock duo Meg & Dia. For months, she and her 19-year-old lead vocalist sister and their backing band -- drummer Nick Price, guitarist Carlos Gimenez and bassist Jonathan Snyder -- have been on the road promoting Something Real. The CD, featuring 11 fizzy but sometimes ambitious pop-punk tunes, is the group's debut on Warner Bros. Records.

"It's the fact the authors I read, like J.D. Salinger and John Steinbeck, came up with something so creative and inspiring. That inspires me to write songs -- that and old relationships," Frampton says. She and the band play Sonar Lounge on Saturday night. "It's the stories themselves that take you away from your life. I try to re-create a certain scene or emotion, not the story. I want to be able to write descriptively, to transport the listener."

With the major-label release of Something Real, Meg & Dia have been building on the momentum the duo first garnered two years ago on MySpace. In that time, their page on the site drew more than 2 million views and 5 million song plays. All the activity led to a spot as the official MySpace House Band on the 2006 Vans Warped Tour, where they performed twice a day in a stiflingly hot tent with a dirt floor.

"It was definitely good practicing playing a show every day," Frampton says. "It was a great way to come together as a band. We watched other bands to learn what they were doing and to get ideas for what we wanted to do. It was a great learning experience altogether."

After the tour last year, Meg & Dia signed with Warner Bros. But before the mighty label came with a contract, the sisters from Utah had independently released an album, 2005's acoustic effort Our Home is Gone. The CD, which the sisters sold at shows they played in and around Salt Lake City, spotlighted their light, sugary harmonies backed by little more than Frampton's nimble guitar playing.

But soon after playing a few shows, the sisters felt they needed a bigger sound. So they recruited Price, guitarist Kenji Chan and bassist Aaron McMurray. It was with this lineup that Meg & Dia achieved the fuller, rock guitar-dominated approach heard on their MySpace page. Soon after the band established itself on the site, Chan and McMurray left the fold. They were replaced by Gimenez, whom Meg & Dia found via YouTube, and Snyder, who in late 2005 helped the group get signed to the indie rock label Doghouse Records. After releasing an EP titled What Is It? A Fender Bender through the company in early 2006, Meg & Dia started work on Something Real, whose distribution is shared with Doghouse Records.

"On the record, I think you can see that we're thoughtful and that we're inspired," Frampton says. "We were lyrically very passionate about all the things that were important to us, like the relationships we've had and changes going on in the world."

With its predictable, polished riffs and sometimes overly earnest lyrics and vocals, Something Real is far from groundbreaking or revelatory. Its clean, straightforward approach is ideal for commercial rock stations whose playlists are full of emo-inspired, punk-lite tunes. The sisters push their feathery vocals through frenzied guitars and crashing drums.

But when the music lightens up, Meg & Dia sound more natural. "Cardigan Weather," for instance, boasts a pretty, swaying melody the sisters handle well. Elsewhere, Frampton's literary lyrical ambitions ("Rebecca," based on the Daphne du Maurier novel of the same name, is a prime example) feel a bit awkward. But Dia Frampton manages to sing them convincingly.

"We have grown very close," Meg Frampton says of her sister, with whom she started performing in 2004. "We listen to the exact same music and read the exact same books. We process things differently, but we're both similar."

rashod.ollison@baltsun.com

See Meg & Dia with Angels & Airwaves at Sonar Lounge, 407 E. Saratoga St., at 7 Saturday night. Tickets are $27.50 and are available through Ticketmaster by calling 410-547-7328 or going to ticketmaster.com.