With the turbulent and unpredictable state of the music industry, Mae, like thousands of other musicians, have taken time to reassess their position in the business.

“One thing we began asking ourselves after the music industry started changing was how we can gauge success,” said Jacob Marshall, drummer for the band. “If we try to quantify our success by records sold, then that’s not enough. We wanted to see what we could accomplish in a given year.”

Mae’s tours have become vehicles for their philanthropic work, gaining support for charities such as Toys for Tots and Habitat for Humanity. Last year on tour, they did acoustic preshows for an additional $5, with all proceeds going to Habitat.

But besides their generosity, the group also knows how to please their audiences. Marshall and singer/guitarist Dave Elkins formed the band in 2001 in their hometown of Virginia Beach, Va. This year, the group is celebrating the five-year anniversary of their debut album, Destination: Beautiful, from 2003 with a DVD that chronicles the production of the record and other fun facts through interviews with the band.

“Destination implies momentum, evolution, progress and journey,” said Marshall. “As we sat there, we worked out the idea of the world and how music will be that vehicle to take us around the world. Here we are five and half years later, and it’s happened. It’s surreal.”

Their last album, Singularity, came out on the Capitol Record label in 2007. Since then, they have dropped the label and have gone independent. They are in the process of finishing up three EPs that they plan to release throughout the year. A new song from each EP will be put up on their Web site streaming for free, and then there will be a minimum $1 donation that will go toward charity. Each EP will represent a different time of day and be released during different times of the year: Morning at the beginning of the year, Afternoon in the middle and Evening at the end.

“We wanted to do an individual day because it’s broken up into many moments. It’s a cycle, it happens over and over again, and then you have a larger cycle. It’s directly proportional,” said Marshall. “A human life is the same thing. We wanted to show how every day can be applied to making a difference. It’ll represent the sum total of what you did, your contributions.”

While Mae is obviously making a difference in so many people’s lives already, their hope is to reach out to old fans and new who will be able to carry on that same message and have a great rocking experience at the same time. Mae will be playing the Canopy Club on Friday, Dec. 5.