When Superdrag was one of 1,800 musical acts to perform at the South by Southwest Festival in Austin, Texas, last month, it became one of the most-tweeted acts on Twitter.

Not bad for a band that had just released its first album containing new material in seven years and whose members hadn’t actually used the Web site — on which brief messages of 140 characters or less can be posted, read and responded to — themselves.

“We were stoked,” frontman John Davis said. “None of us have ever tweeted anything.”

Incidentally, Superdrag’s first tweet came the same day as Davis’ interview with the Quad-City Times Go&Do section last week.

The need for bands to embrace social networking media isn’t the only thing that’s changed since Superdrag got back together in 2007 after a four-year break. The new album, “Industry Giants,” is faster and harder, with a larger punk rock influence coming through. And instead of playing 200 to 250 shows a year and staying on the road for nine months at a time, Davis said Superdrag tours in a “World of Warcraft” style by going out for short, strategic mini-tours and then disappearing for a while.

“Being a husband and a father, I think I can speak for the rest of the guys that it changes everything,” he said. “I have a 2-year-old son and a 4-year-old son. If I leave home for a week, they’ve grown an inch and they’ve learned 15 new words, and you just don’t get that time back.”

Now that being part of Superdrag is more of a part-time affair, Davis maintains a day job at Broadcast Music Inc., a nonprofit that makes sure musicians are paid when their works are performed or played on the radio. He recently came across a station in Seattle that was playing their music, but Davis said he really wouldn’t care if people were playing Superdrag’s music illegally.

“For a band like us, the more people you have listening to music at the end of the day, it just gets more people out to the show,” he said. “I guess if you have a global empire like Aerosmith, I guess you’re bummed about downloading.”

The crowds at Superdrag shows have been receptive to the band’s new material, he said, often singing along with the tracks from “Industry Giants” as well as their hits from the ‘90s such as “Cynicality,” “Keep It Close To Me” and “Do the Vampire.” Davis credits the positive response to uploading demos and rough mixes of their new material to the band’s MySpace.com page as they were working on “Industry Giants.”

“We wanted people to be able to feel like a part of what we’re doing,” he said. “We want to be able to provide for our families and all that, but we’re really doing that for them.”