The cover for the Pixies' 1989 album "Doolittle"

During our phone briefing yesterday with Harmonix CEO and co-founder Alex Rigopulos and Paul DeGooyer, senior vice president of Electronic Games & Music, we uncovered a slew of tidbits about their philosophy regarding future releases of albums, tracks and the overall Rock Band "platform," as term Rigopulos used on more than one occasion during our chat. We'll serve up the full text of this interview at a later date, but in the meantime, here are some of the highlights, in the form of an FAQ:

When is the next album coming out?

Next month.

What is it?

"The Cars," by, um, The Cars.

Anything after that?

In June, they plan to release "Doolittle," by the Pixies. "This is the beginning of what will be a regular flow of full albums," says Harmonix's Rigopulos.

"Who Are You"? More like "Where Are You"? Why wasn't The Who's "Who's Next" the first album release, as previously expected?

Because Harmonix does not yet have everything it needs to create all of the tracks. "We do require specialized audio mixes in the form of stems," says MTV's DeGooyer. "And to be perfectly candid, [Judas Priest's "Screaming For Vengeance'] is the first one that was ready."

Can I play "Screaming For Vengeance" as Rob Halford or Glenn Tipton?

Nope. "Rather than using licensed characters, the premise of Rock Band is that it's a projection of you, the player, into the game world," Rigopulos told us. "So we really felt it was critical to remain true to that, rather than tampering with that core premise by injecting licensed characters into the game."

So no new art for tattoos? No new costumes? Not even new venues themed to the artist?

Again, no. Think of these as downloadable tracks much like the ones you've been buying on Xbox Live Marketplace and Playstation Network. The only difference is that rather than a single or a track pack, you're getting to choose from an entire album of tracks at once.

Will $14.99 be the standard price for an album on Rock Band?

What determines the price on Rock Band is the number of songs? Harmonix and MTV Games set a wholesale price for individual tracks so that they retail for $1.99, or 160 Microsoft Points. But if you're buying packs of multiple songs, the two companies build a discount into their pricing model. That's why song packs of three tracks are wholesaled such that they can be sold to you for $5.49 rather than $5.98, or six tracks for $9.99 rather than $11.94. "It's a function of the number of songs on the album, and it extends the volume discount of the track packs up through the number of songs on the album," says Rigopulos. So because Judas Priest's "Screaming For Vengeance" has ten tracks, Harmonix and MTV Games decided to wholesale it at a price that would make it available to you for $14.99, a savings of $4.91 over buying each track individually.

I live in Europe, where Rock Band finally comes out in May. I had to wait five months for the game to ship--how much lag will there be between the release of downloadable songs in North America and the old country?

None. When Rock Band ships in Europe on May 23rd, all of the downloadable content that's currently available in North America will be purchasable by European faux-rockers. (As a bonus, the downloadable songs that have been tailored to various European markets will be available for purchase by North Americans as well. So all you Johnny Hallyday fans in the U.S. and Canada, there's still hope.) Going forward, Harmonix expects to release all DLC simultaneously worldwide.

My motto is "Dialup's Not Dead!" So I can't download any of these songs or albums. Are they ever going to release these songs at traditional retailers?

"We don't have a specific announcement about that yet," Rigopulos says. "But obviously, we're considering all of our options for making sure that the content is available to as wide an audience as possible."

That's it for now. Check back in the days to come for a full transcript of our conversation.