Not until Dawson heard from his manager later in the morning did he learn what that meant: Shiny Toy Guns’ debut “We Are Pilots” had snagged a Grammy nomination for best electronic/dance album alongside the Chemical Brothers, LCD Soundsystem, Justice and Ti sto. “I didn’t think we had taken anything to that level,” Dawson said. “We’re humble, and we’re not the kind of band that shouts our name out the window. We don’t sit around and Google our band name, or bathe in any hype.

We just look ahead.” Indeed, “We Are Pilots” had the most modest of beginnings — the collection of synth-heavy, danceable rock is essentially the same album Shiny Toy Guns first released in 2005.

“We made a demo and, using one of those horrible credit cards with 23% interest, we went over to North Hollywood and had 1,000 CDs pressed.” The track list was revised the second time the band had more CDs made, then after the quartet was signed to Universal Motown Records, “We Are Pilots” got a spit-shine in the studio of production guru Mark Saunders. The album has spawned three singles (”Le Disko” had made it to L.A.

radio by early 2006) and has sold more than 200,000 copies, according to Nielsen SoundScan. The band’s stylings might seem out of place alongside the other nominees, “but I’m not going to argue with the recording academy,” Dawson said. “It’s very androgynously genre-specific. The music is just as based on guitar and vocals as it is zeros and ones. Still, it’s very flattering.