Kevin Bronson on October 21st, 2008

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The drummer has some songs, or at least some sketches for songs. They’d been gathering dust, some for 10 years, but they’re his. Over a dinner in New York, the drummer gets to meet one of his rock ‘n’ roll idols and screws up the courage to ask the guy if he’d have a listen. The rock ‘n’ roller says, sure, and …

What follows is not the punchline to a drummer joke, but how Magnetic Morning — the collaboration between Sam Fogarino, Interpol skins man (and closeted songwriter), and Adam Franklin, frontman of the ’90s British alt-rock band Swervedriver — took shape. It’s a project that culminates in the release today of their debut album, “A.M.” Not that Fogarino could have dreamed that in the beginning.

• ||| Download: “At a Crossroads, Passive”

“I figured i could just sit on this material forever or take the risk of being turned down by one of my favorite songwriters,” Fogarino says, remembering his first meeting with Franklin, a dinner arranged by music writer Jack Rabid, and the trepidation he felt bringing up his own music. “When I first heard [Swervedriver’s 1991 debut] ‘Raise,’ it eclipsed Nirvana, in terms of me being infatuated by a rock band. I would have played drums to anything he asked me to.

“Of course, he’s such a great human, he never would have told me it sucked. But, as it turned out, all of a sudden we were working together.”

“What I heard were a bunch of cool ideas,” Franklin says. “It took a bit of time to figure out what the sound aesthetic would be … Instead of [the writing process] being my bringing an idea to the band, or the band jamming, this involved a lot of back-and-forth. He’d give me something, and I’d knock it into an arrangement. In terms of material, the album is about 50-50.”

Included, even, is one idea Franklin originally had the third Swervedriver album. “Thirteen years later,” he says, “there’s this song.”

“It’s been amazing — can you imagine painters collaborating over a canvas and not arguing about colors?” Fogarino says. “For the second time in my life I’ve gotten lucky with who I surround myself with musically.”

The album only slightly recalls the work of either collaborator’s main band. It’s a musical restless dream, tossing and turning on gentle swells of distortion and occasional cathartic churn, with Franklin’s pensive, restrained vocal delivery suggesting, vaguely, the futility of doing battle with the world’s disconnectedness.

Live, Magnetic Morning’s ranks have swelled to five — including Jimmy LaValle, of San Diego ambient rockers the Album Leaf, F.A. Blasco and Josh Stoddard. “We’ve developed a really great collective … almost a non-band band,” Fogarino says.

Says Franklin: “For everyone this is kind of an outside project, but it’s been refreshing and energizing.”

It caps a very busy year for Franklin — Swervedriver reunited and toured (including playing Coachella); Franklin took time to record his second solo album (due in February) in Toronto; Magnetic Morning recorded its album in Athens, Ga.; he spent time in England mixing his album and playing live dates; and now he’s on a month-long Magnetic Morning tour.

As for Fogarino’s day job, he says Interpol is “probably going to start tossing around some new ideas [for a fourth album] at the end of this year.”

||| Live: Magnetic Morning plays the Roxy on Nov. 3.