Glen Phillips has strapped in for another go-round on the music industry roller coaster. This time, though, he plans to enjoy the ride.

The former lead singer of ’90s modern rock hitmakers Toad the Wet Sprocket has kept a low profile since the band broke up in 1998, battling record companies, mistaken perceptions about his career and a severe bout with depression in relative quiet from his Santa Barbara, Calif., home. With an impressive new album “Winter Pays for Summer” released by Universal Music Group’s Lost Highway Records and a national headlining tour, Phillips is ready to make some noise, working toward one of his favorite lyrical themes: redemption.

“I think I did my career in reverse,” Phillips said, laughing as he leans forward in his chair. “I had a really easy time really early and got a lot of really bizarre expectations about what life would be like. I got to pay my dues after the fact.”

Dues-paying would be the last thing on most artists’ minds on this particular morning. Hours earlier, Phillips debuted new songs and a new band at a well-received showcase at the South by Southwest Music Conference, opening for Elvis Costello. But as Phillips soaked in the sunny Austin, Texas, view from a suite at the Four Seasons Hotel, he couldn’t shake the all-too-recent memories of driving himself from one gig to the next in the cheapest rental car he could find to promote his solo albums and keep food on the table for his wife and three daughters. “I spent a lot of time after Toad feeling entitled and embittered, waiting for my old job to miraculously come back to me, trying to get a record deal at the absolute worst time the music business has ever been in,” he said. “It didn’t happen.”

Part of the problem, Phillips said, was how Toad succeeded. “We were fairly faceless and our music was — I would say now — courageously mellow at a time when people were being competitively aggressive,” he said. “We were kind of wearing our hearts on our sleeves in a way that was not cool at the time. But we didn’t have the attitude to back it up.”

The members of Toad the Wet Sprocket were only in their teens when their debut “Bread and Circuses,” recorded on their own for $650, got re-released by Columbia Records unchanged. When the “modern rock” radio format arrived in the post-Nirvana alternative explosion of 1991, Toad became one of its first stars with the uncharacteristically cheery “All I Want,” which drew legions of fans, but also a significant number of detractors. “Our particular way of expressing agonies meant a lot to a certain group of people,” Phillips said, half-joking, “but it wasn’t the hip set or the ones with a particularly loud voice.”

“Winter Pays for Summer” is a collection of songs about his attempts to break out of the depression he fell into in 1999, after the death of his father, the breakup of the band, and the collapse of his solo record deal. Songs like the first single “Duck and Cover” are reminiscent of Toad’s jangle-rock days, while “Courage” shows a more mature side, like James Taylor in the mid-’80s. With vocal help from singers Ben Folds and Semisonic’s Dan Wilson, Phillips was able to build the album he wanted.

“Being completely awake, not ignoring things, not turning into a kind of new-agey denial machine and still wanting to be happy is hard work,” he said. “This album is about working that out. A love song like ‘True’ is about marriage not being a princess story. It doesn’t get perfect and then you seal it. You work constantly at keeping it alive. These songs were reminders to me not to sink down again, because I can’t survive that way.”

With the momentum Phillips has regained, he feels like his career may finally be climbing again, with no major twists in sight. “Sometimes, I look around and say, ‘Oh, you’re getting too comfy’ or ‘This isn’t going to happen again,”‘ Phillips said. “I do get terribly excited and that’s beyond me being incredibly proud of the album I’ve done. Now I’m starting to feel vindicated. I’m thinking about redemption.”