Among the more unlikely pairings to emerge in the last decade is the meeting of a British power-pop icon with a masked American surf-rock band.

Nick Lowe and Los Straitjackets first met when the British rocker — renowned for his work, going back to 1970 in Brinsley Schwarz, Rockpile and as a solo artist/producer — was producing for The Mavericks in the mid-'90s and they went to see the Nashville instrumental quartet.

In 2012, they crossed paths again, at the concerts celebrating the 15th anniversary of their shared label, Yep Roc. Then, in late 2014, Lowe recruited Los Straitjackets for a tour supporting his holiday album, "Quality Street: A Seasonal Selection for All the Family."

As he explained in a phone interview from London, it progressed from there to Lowe, now 73, writing songs for the project, starting in 2018 with an EP of his first non-holiday music in seven years and continuing with two more EPs that capture the retro-cool of this quartet plus one.

Lowe, who made his first solo venture in 1978 with "Jesus of Cool" and enjoyed his biggest chart success with the 1979 power-pop hit "Cruel to be Kind," had a stellar career behind the soundboard, beginning in the late '70s. Along with producing the very first British punk single, The Damned's "New Rose," he helmed the first six Elvis Costello albums and records by Graham Parker, Johnny Cash, The Pretenders and John Hiatt, among others.

Q. How did the one gig with Los Straitjackets escalate into this ongoing project?

A. A couple of years after the Yep Roc thing, I had recorded a Christmas record and it had done rather well, especially in the United States. Unfortunately, two of my main collaborators, and best friends, actually, who worked with me on all my records, Bob Irwin and Neil Brockbank, they died one after the other. And it rather took the wind out of my sails, you know, so I didn't really feel like going out to promote this record, but the great thing about a Christmas record is when the next year comes around, it's another opportunity to put it on people's plates.

And so, it was suggested to me after a decent period of time that I might like to consider doing a few Christmas shows and get Los Straitjackets to back me up. So, we got together in Minneapolis, where we were playing the first show, a few days early and we knocked this thing into shape, but it became apparent very quickly that, bless their hearts, they tried to sort of copy the records, and most of my records have keyboards on them and the Straitjackets, of course, don't have keyboards. So, they tried to sort of copy the parts and sometimes it was pretty cool, but it sounded a little stiff, so it took no time before I said, "Look, fellas, just throw that rule out of the car window and just play the song as if you were going to do a instrumental cover of it and I'll just sing on top." When that happened, it started to get in gear.

After about three or four years of doing this Christmas show, we had had enough of doing that and we thought that was going to be it, but we started to get offers to do shows out-of-season and that's when it really started to get good, when I started writing songs for the act. Whenever I do these tours with them, it doesn't feel at all that they're backing me up. It really just feels like it's an actual entity that exists purely in its own space, and I kind of joined their group, more than them backing me up.

Q. What kind of adjustments did you make in your writing to accommodate the project?

A. Well, not many, really, because since I started doing solo acoustic shows, encouraged by Elvis Costello in the late '80s/early '90s, my writing style changed quite considerably because I realized that if you were standing on stage with an acoustic guitar, the song has got to really stand up. You can't hide behind some little thing you put on the track in the studio, some little gimmicky noise or something, so the whole thing stands or falls on that. The song has got to be super solid and work perfectly well with just an acoustic guitar, and if you have songs like that, really, they'll take any kind of mistreatment. You can do them any way you like and it's completely foolproof. And I've got quite a lot of songs like that, so really it wasn't a problem.

Q. Do you feel like they take you back to an earlier time in your life, an earlier sound?

A. Not really, because we're very well suited. They're kind of like me: They're kind of ancient and kind of modern. There's something very up-to-date about them and yet their influences, I suppose, they're rock 'n' roll guys, like I am. Also, they're great musicians, but they're also funny. They take what they do very seriously, but they don't take themselves seriously, which is very common amongst people who like to play rock 'n' roll music, I've found. I don't think it's just a retro thing, but we certainly all like old-fashioned styles of playing music.

Q. Last thing I want to ask you: This is probably a quote that haunts you. You said at one point that you didn't see yourself rocking in the later years, after a certain age. What changed your thinking on that?

A. Yeah, I know, it's strange. I read in a magazine the other day, somebody said that rock 'n' roll wasn't designed for older people. But what are you going to do? There's people who seem to really like watching old people's rock 'n' roll music. And if people want to see it, and one is able to get there and turn in a decent show, why wouldn't you? And, actually, it does work pretty well with old people doing it. And I don't sort of feel old when I'm doing it. That old chestnut, "I just don't feel my age!" The truth is that I do sometimes, but when I'm doing that, I don't at all. It feels the same as it always has.