NEW YORK — For Los Angeles trio Foster the People, much of 2011 has been spent in a whirlwind of hype. After the band emerged as one of the most talked-about bands at the SXSW festival in March, the buzz continued to build behind their Top 10 single “Pumped Up Kicks.” Even though the band’s debut full-length, “Torches,” was only released this week, several shows on their upcoming tour, which stretches into the summer and includes a performance at the Sasquatch Festival in Washington, are already sold out.

“Torches” is an eclectic blend of pop, funk and soul influences, with most songs defying conventional categorization. In fact, according to frontman and chief songwriter Mark Foster, it’s the complexity of the songs that led to the group’s formation in the first place. While writing material for what he intended to be a solo endeavor, the singer realized additional musicians were needed to bring the songs to their full potential. He recruited keyboardist Cubbie Fink and drummer Mark Pontius in 2009, and Foster the People was born.

Blast chatted with Foster in April before a sold-out show at The Knitting Factory in Brooklyn. Though the excitement surrounding the group was starting to reach a tipping point at that time, the frontman seemed to be taking it all in stride.

BLAST: You’ve said that you were on a sort of hiatus from music before forming Foster the People. What prompted you to start the band?

MARK FOSTER: Well, I’d been in bands in the past and just had a couple bad experiences. It’s so much work. It’s so hard to find the right people to play with. And you know, musicians tend to be such unhealthy people in general. It’s really hard to find people that are dedicated and healthy and just have their act together. So I guess I was just kind of burned out on it. After the last band I was in, I was just like, screw this. I’m just going to be a solo artist for the rest of my life. I just don’t want to deal with this anymore. So I did that for a few years, and really just buried myself in the studio and taught myself how to produce, and just kept writing songs. And eventually I got to a point where I was like, man, I can’t play these songs alone. There’s way too much going on. I need to put something together. But I put an emphasis on, I really want to create this band around friends. I don’t want to just go out and, like, find someone that can play. Personality was the most important thing. And we all jell really well together.

BLAST: Does that relate to your name, this sense of fostering camaraderie?

MF: Yeah, yeah. You know, our first couple gigs were for charities. We did a thing for Tom’s Shoes … and then we did a thing for Venice Beach Homeless Youth. And we were kind of just talking about, like, you know, we want to play music, sure. But we also want to help people. And my last name’s Foster. There’s that aspect of it. I think just the charity and everything that we set our sights on, it just made sense.

BLAST: Is charity still a focus for the band?

MF: Yeah. We’re just trying to figure out how to do it. You can be bleeding heart over so many different issues, but finding something that really means something to you that you kind of focus on … we’re still kind of figuring that out.

BLAST: How did you all connect and start playing music together?

MF: I met Mark (Pontius) just through a mutual friend of mine, and just really liked the way that he played. We were buddies and we just messed around. Every couple of weeks, we’d just jam. We were kind of working on this avant-electro two-man, like, weird performance art piece together. I always kind of had in the back of my mind, if I ever start a band again, I want to call this dude. (Cubbie and I) were just friends. We didn’t really play together, but we’d hang out. I didn’t even know he played bass and then (when I) saw him play, I was like, oh, that’s got a good feel. So I just kind of brought them together.

BLAST: Who are your musical influences, personally and as a band?

MF: The Beach Boys was the first band that I heard as a little kid that nobody showed me, that I gravitated towards and fell in love with. And that was a monumental moment in my musical life. Growing up, Nirvana played a big role. I started learning how to play guitar the week I heard Nirvana for the first time. And then later, New Order and The Clash. Aphex Twin early on was a pretty big influence (for Foster the People). And Motown. So just kind of pulling from a lot of different genres. That’s how I write songs.

Mark (Pontius) is just a really good pocket drummer. He understands dance music really well, but he also really understands soul and is just a very soulful drummer. And Cubbie’s background is pretty diverse too. When I met him, he was playing in, like, a country band. Pretty roots-y. But again, he’s just got a lot of soul. And he’s a multi-instrumentalist as well, so during our show he’s playing keys, and he plays bass. When we do acoustic sessions, he’ll bring his acoustic guitar and play guitar with me. It’s just nice to have a couple different tools in your toolkit.

BLAST: When did you actually know that you wanted to pursue music as a career, and were your parents supportive when you decided to move out to LA?

MF: Music was always very natural to me, and I always loved it and I always excelled in it. I sang for the Cleveland Orchestra Children’s Choir when I was a kid, and that was a pretty big thing, and just a big indicator of like, oh wow, there’s something here. But I always had this preconceived notion that musicians were losers. As a little kid, I remember just thinking that. Every time I’d walk into a music shop, I’d see, like, some washed-up musician shredding on his guitar, all greasy. And it always freaked me out. As a little kid, that’s what I associated with pursuing music. So I never thought about it seriously. I wanted to be, like, an attorney or something.

And then I was like 17 years old and all my friends were applying for colleges. And I had a terrible GPA and didn’t want to go to college. I didn’t know what I wanted to do, and I was just kind of freaking out about it. I mean, I was looking at the military. I was so close to joining the Air Force. I was just looking at all my options. And I was like, man, what am I going to do?, in turmoil about it.

I had that conversation with my dad one morning. He was like, “Why don’t you move out to LA or New York and pursue music, just give it a shot? If it doesn’t work out … after a year you’ll know where you sit. You’ll know whether you’ll be able to make a career out of it. And if it’s not something that you want to do, you’ll still be young enough to do something else.” And the second he said that, it was literally like he opened my mind up to something that I’d never even considered or thought was possible. I was 18 when I moved out to LA (in 2002).

BLAST: That’s great. It’s usually the opposite, with kids trying to convince their parents it’s a good idea to move to LA.

MF: I mean, it was like a light bulb went off in my head. That was the moment in my life where I realized that this is what I’m meant for. And it was so weird that it just took, like, one word to free that thought and put that into motion. Just that little bit of encouragement showed me, this is exactly what I’ve been created to do. Whereas before, it was completely hidden from me. It was just something that I enjoyed.

BLAST: So how did you spend the time between 2002 and forming Foster the People in 2009?

MF: Just growing up. (Laughs). It’s like, you leave your parents’ house and you realize, oh, food doesn’t just appear in the fridge. Your laundry. Just all the little things. I pretty much couch-surfed for the first two years. I was a vagabond in LA. I lived in so many places, just met so many people. Brought my acoustic guitar with me everywhere I went, and would go to parties and show up and start playing. Just meeting people and having crazy experiences and just kind of growing up. And then it got to a point where it was like, all right, I need to get serious about this if I’m ever going to make something of this. I can’t just fuck around and think that it’s just going to happen on its own. And so, I started to just really, really buckle down and started writing songs, and just really working at it. I eventually got a computer and a little studio set up and started teaching myself how to produce music. I started playing piano again after not playing since I was a little kid. I kind of re-taught myself how to play piano and started making more electronic music. And that was sort of the genus of where this started.

BLAST: How are you dealing with the sort of explosive fame after SXSW? Were you prepared for that at all?

MF: I don’t know. It’s kind of a blur. What’s so funny is that it’s like we’re in a glass bubble. You know what I mean? It’s like we’re in a glass bubble and it takes shape in the form of a 15-passenger van. And so, that’s our universe. Our universe is just, we’re always together and we’re driving around playing show after show, from city to city. It’s so busy. All that stuff is happening and yeah, it’s exciting. But I don’t think when you’re inside of something like this you really have any perspective on where you actually sit or what the perception of you is.

I just watched the Blur documentary (“No Distance Left to Run.”) It was a really, really good documentary. They were talking about when they were a band, starting out and starting to blow up, that they just had no idea. And I just related to that so much, because it’s like, you don’t have any idea of really what’s going on around you. We know that our shows are selling out, and we know that people are excited. But I think at the end of it, we kind of just have our sights set right in front of us. Like, how are we going to go out there and play a great show tonight? Just keeping it simple.

BLAST: Have you seen the dog skateboarding video set to your song “Helena Beat”?

MF: Yes! I love that. It’s so great. It’s become super viral. It’s just cool when people get inspired and do something. That’s the great thing about YouTube, or just about the age that we live in. Everybody has a video camera. Everybody has an idea. And everybody in their own right is a star, whether it’s a four-year-old kid that’s dancing in the kitchen or whatever. It’s like, anything can strike that human chord, and just become viral. That video’s awesome.

BLAST: You mentioned your solo material and your avant-garde project with Mark. Are there any traces of those projects in Foster the People songs?

MF: Oh, definitely. Yeah, I definitely developed a style. Even when I was doing my folk stuff on acoustic guitar, I learned the fundamentals of songwriting. And the way that I look at songwriting for this project now, it’s like, there are electronic influences, but at its bones, it’s very classic songwriting. I’m not, like, trying to reinvent the wheel with the songwriting. You could break it down to a piano and it’ll sound like a good song, just stripped down. It’s pretty classic songwriting that’s done in a way that’s more modern.

BLAST: The songwriting may be a common thread, but the range of influences that can be heard on the record is kind of astounding.

MF: That’s kind of what we set out to do. I’ve watched people try to pigeonhole us in this or that, and I think all of those labels are going to be shattered when the record comes out. I never want to be painted into a corner. I hate boundaries. I would hate to make everything sound the same. This record’s really versatile, and it gives us the perfect opportunity to do whatever we want on the second record. And I think people that are fans of something that’s different … they don’t wake up in the morning and have their same, like, turkey bagel for the last 15 years … those people are going to just be excited and want to follow us on the journey that we’re on.

Australian quartet The Jezabels’ inaugural gig together was in 2007 at a talent competition at Sydney University, where they were all students. They came in second place out of dozens of acts — and it’s pretty much been all uphill for the group ever since.

With a trilogy of EPs under its belt, and radio success in Australia, the band has toured with the likes of Tegan & Sara, and is gearing up for a small U.S. spring tour that includes a stop in Austin, Texas for the SXSW festival. They’re currently writing and recording new material, and plan to continue doing so through June. The goal is to have a full-length album ready for release in the fall.

The Jezabels’ songs are a perfect blend of signature building blocks — heavy on percussion (see: “Hurt Me,” “The Man is Dead”), densely layered and featuring intricate piano arrangements, all buoying singer Hayley Mary’s hummable, even hook-ish, singing. “Dark Storm” — their most recent EP and strongest to date — is the perfect culmination of the trio. The title track is nothing short of infectious; the moody, pensive “Sahara Mahala” allows Mary to show off her impressive pipes, and the jittery opening guitar notes on “A Little Piece” are shiver-inducing.

A mere glance at The Jezabels’ limited catalog will indicate that gender roles play a significant theme in their music — titles include “Old Little Girls,” “The Man is Dead” and “She’s So Hard,” and one song includes the line, “He was never meant to be a boy.” But upon closer examination, it’s apparent that everything about the band’s aesthetic has some sort of theoretical reasoning behind it, including the very concept of an EP trilogy and the decision to name each of the first two releases after a song that would be on the next one. Call it the thinking man’s (or woman’s?) indie.

It’s early evening on a Friday when Mary and I connect over Skype, meaning that it’s 10am on Saturday for her in Australia. But though The Jezabels deal with serious themes in their music, it’s clear they don’t take themselves too seriously. (For the record, Mary might be the only 23-year-old alive who can talk at length about anthropomorphizing feminism and not have it sound pretentious in the slightest.) Over the better part of an hour, the singer eloquently dishes on feminine icons from Virginia Woolf to Lady Gaga, the thematic concepts of each of the band’s releases, and how the band members manage to merge their diverse musical tastes.

(Responses have been edited for length.)

BLAST: How did you all meet and form the band?

HAYLEY MARY: I guess it starts with me and (keyboardist) Heather (Shannon). We went to primary school and high school together and we sort of played a bit of folky stuff. We grew up in Byron Bay, which is on the north coast of New South Wales, and we came to Sydney to go to uni and ended up still wanting to be in a band. So we met a couple of guys, Sam (Lockwood), the guitarist, and (drummer Nik Kaloper), at uni.

BLAST: Do you all have similar tastes in music?

HM: No, the opposite. We have very different music tastes, actually. Heather is a classical pianist. She did a degree in piano at the Sydney Conservatory. So she’s probably the least literate in pop and rock but the most literate in classical and jazz and every other type of music, and the theory of music. Nick is very into sort of technical drumming and thrash, and heavy music in a lot of ways, mainly because he likes the focus of the drums in music. And Sam has more of a pop sensibility, like I do, but he also likes a bit of country and folk, like Gillian Welch, that kind of stuff. And bluegrass. And I’m just really into pop, I suppose. I thought I was a pop purist, and I really like the ‘80s and that kind of stuff, which really went against everyone else’s taste in a lot of ways. I just like the general, you know, epicness of the ‘80s. Prince, Cyndi Lauper, David Bowie, Queen, Kate Bush. Bruce Springsteen’s awesome.

BLAST: Is it difficult to harness those varying tastes and form a cohesive sound?

HM: Our first EP (“The Man is Dead”) sort of seemed like we didn’t know each other, and it was kind of a war of the different elements. It was very sort of inconsistent in itself, and it’s quite naïve. But the more we write together, the more we realize where us as individuals have to compromise, and where we’re strong. Like, I really find that I like to dictate melody, but sometimes I’ll have to sort of sit back and say ok, because someone else’s feelings are stronger. We just find a way of compromising. And that’s when our best songs are written, I suppose.

We come from really different areas, and the best songs are when we manage to get a balance between those. We’ve changed each other’s tastes a lot, but that was where we started out. I mean, I’m still the only one to say I like Lady Gaga. The rest of them sort of are like, whoa, about that kind of stuff. I think she’s a genius, whereas the other ones don’t quite see where I’m coming from.

BLAST: Is there an artist that you all agree on?

HM: The National might be the only band we all like. I really relate to (singer Matt Berninger). I can’t quite work him out, but you know how he’s very aware of being the American man, like the white American man? I feel like that is the kind of person that we’re talking about when we say “The Man is Dead.” I’ve always related to him on that level, because he seems really sad and self-aware of his very privileged position.

BLAST: How did you come up with the band name?

HM: That was a childhood sort of thing for me. My dad always wanted to call me Jezabel, and it didn’t work out. My dad was a bit of an eccentric and we used to go busking and call ourselves the Jezabels. (When we formed the band) it just started to stick and made sense. It was hard at first to convince people. I think it’s cool in a really dorky way, but I like that.

BLAST: Why did you decide to release three EPs instead of a full-length album?

HM: We went with the EP thing for a few reasons. It started out as, we were just too scared to do an album. Not too scared, but we didn’t really feel prepared to do an album after the first EP. Because we were independent, a lot of the kind of financial side of it affected that decision. EPs are cheaper, and they’re cheaper to buy, and they’re shorter in the time they take up (to record). So it made sense. But we also thought that the idea of a trilogy kind of suited our sort of themes, I guess. Like our melodramatic bit, sort of pseudo-epic kind of music, I suppose. It has a bit of a “Star Wars”-esque vibe to it. We thought trilogy, perfect. It’s all over the top. Why not just be really over the top, and we’ll have a kind of coherent aesthetic throughout all the EPs? It’s all a bit conceited and stuff, but it’s kind of fun.

And I think we’ve really kind of established ourselves, at least in Australia. Because now we’ve worked out how we write, what we are in people’s minds on the musical landscape, at least in this country. And we’ve kind of just really honed our … I’m going to say art, for wont of a better word … before our debut album. We’re all very strange and sometimes shaky, sort of emotional individuals. So we feel a lot more comfortable with the platform of having three EPs under our belt.

BLAST: The songs on the first EP, “The Man is Dead,” are much more upbeat than the ones on “Dark Storm.” The single “Disco Biscuit Love,” in particular, is about club culture. The song’s central character is “with the meanest boy in the hills” who “only loves (her) when he’s on pills.” Can you talk about that a bit?

HM: From my perspective personally, the first EP was more satirical of that culture, of partying culture. A lot of people took (“Disco Biscuit Love”) as, like, embracing drug and club culture, because it was about that. But if you listened at all in detail, it was very not about that. It was a critique of that, and it was kind of a romantic critique of that, I suppose. And that was sort of a coming to Sydney thing. Those were the observations I made, coming to Sydney and seeing that culture. I was very naive and new to it, but it made me sad. We never went into it trying to make a party album. It was always meant to be with an undercurrent of commentary or questioning or sadness about the whole situation.

BLAST: How would you describe the thematic evolution, if there is one, throughout the three EPs?

HM: I think it’s an evolution, but I kind of think that everything that people are seeing now was there in the first EP. I think we got better at articulating that more critical, I guess more socially aware (aspect). There’s definitely a difference, sort of like we exaggerated certain elements that were always there, but we just took them and exaggerated them, like the tragedy side of it, in “Dark Storm.” We became more self-aware by the people we worked with and what people said they got from it. And I know I personally lyrically decided to be kind of conscious and reflected on what the themes were in “The Man is Dead,” to write “She’s So Hard” and to write “Dark Storm,” to really kind of think about what I’m talking about, about females especially, and their own role in their oppression and this kind of stuff. And I started getting really theoretical about it, so I think it just kind of got a bit darker and a bit more self-aware as we went on, and that’s probably why it’s kind of boppy at the start and then it gets really kind of heavy. Because we were just delving into it.

BLAST: You generally write all the lyrics, but do the full songs come together in a collective songwriting process?

HM: We have a very slow writing process, generally. It’s very democratic. It’s a bit different for every song. It started out, the songs were (written mostly by) me and then they’d add their instruments to it. But then it quickly evolved into a kind of conversation between parts. Depending on who comes up with something first, we kind of shape it around that, whether it’s a drumbeat or a riff or something. I tend to write (the lyrics) in gibberish first with the melody. I feel like it has to have the right sounds. But then of course I’ve got to kind of meld in the sort of message that I want as well, so it’s kind of a long process. It takes me a while.

BLAST: Your lyrics are very confessional and sometimes heartbreaking, particularly on the “Dark Storm” EP. Where does your inspiration comes from?

HM: I’ve written songs with different types of people, or lots of people that I know, or attitudes I have towards people in mind. It’s kind of more fractured than just having one person in mind. I think I’ve probably only written one song with one particular person in mind. But most of the time it’s fictional, I’ve got to say. I think I manage to kind of hide a bit in kind of some fantastical world, which is a protective thing for me. Because you don’t want it to be about you, otherwise you feel too vulnerable.

BLAST: Your vocal range is one of the most striking things about The Jezabels’ overall sound. What’s your singing background?

HM: I always sang a lot. You couldn’t really shut me up. My mum actually, when I visited her recently, gave me this picture that I’d drawn that was a business card. I was about four. It was a picture of me, and it had my address and my phone number, and it said, “Singer. If you want a singer, call this number” or something. It’s really funny. I didn’t realize that I’d wanted to be a singer for that long until I saw that. My dad was always very musical, so he’d always try and make me sing on the table when we went to parties and that kind of stuff, which was a bit embarrassing at the time. But then, when I started actually singing in a band, I actually hurt my voice a bit. I started getting laryngitis a lot. I often write songs that I can’t sing or aren’t within my range, and I push it so that I can sing it. So I had to get some vocal training to prevent that from happening. And now I can safely say I can sing everything on (the records) I think, without doing too much damage. Hopefully.

BLAST: You worked with the same producer and cover designer on all three EPs. “The Man is Dead” features a figure in an mask and the image on the “Dark Storm” EP is of a woman wading into the water. Is that a reference to a suicide mission?

HM: Virginia Woolf died that way, and I was really affected by (her) imagery in her understanding of the water. She likened it to an illness. Like, she said that being ill was like being out at sea, and you’re kind of looking at the land, wanting to come back in. And eventually she just succumbed, if that’s the word, to her illness and walked out into the water and died. And I think that that’s become a really huge kind of analogy for the feminine, and giving into your illness or your “histrionic ways” and everything.

Chris Doyle is the designer of the covers. And he came up with that first image for “The Man Is Dead.” He knew there was an awareness of feminism in our band. Not necessarily pro-feminist, but just we really (explore) that kind of, is feminism a good thing? Yes and no. That debate, and all its various forms. That kind of colors the themes. And for him to come up with that image really kind of consolidated that.  These feminine flowers on an executioner’s mask across a man, who looks like the epitome of traditional masculine sort of patriarchy. We were like, wow. Yeah, that kind of image is us in a nutshell, and it kind of shaped us from there on.

BLAST: That’s really interesting. Can you elaborate on the role feminism plays in your music?

HM: I studied a little bit of gender studies towards the end of my arts degree, and I really got interested in the stigma of feminism, and how people are kind of like, oh, get over it, and it’s just sort of a bad word. And to be a feminist is, you know, passe and negative and naive, and all that kind of stuff. And I wanted to somehow be a femme band but be aware of that at the same time, and I think my lyrics are just a process of me trying to do that. Whether I succeed or not is questionable, because most people don’t get it. With (the song) “Mace Spray,” for example (whose chorus includes the line, “She loves me / More than anyone who wouldn’t lay a hand”), it’s kind of about feminism, the “she” in it. And her as a sort of fairly fickle master, and having trouble with her because she wants to liberate you and she means so many good things to you as a woman, or as a girl. But at the same time, she makes you really scared and she makes you have a lot of anger. And trying to sort of be a modern feminist, or a contemporary feminist, or someone who doesn’t have to hate men and all the negatives of feminism. I suppose, for me, it’s an attempt to try and put feminism in your face, whilst transcending or even satirizing that attitude that it’s a negative thing. But also, I’m torn. Like, it sometimes is a bad thing for me. It makes you angry. It’s basically my ongoing struggle with feminism.

The Jezabels play at T.T. the Bear’s on March 14. For a full list of tour dates, visit thejezabels.com.

Even though Sune Rose Wagner has hundreds of finished and unfinished songs "lying around" his home studio in New York’s East Village, the prolific songwriter — one half of Danish duo The Raveonettes — finds it impossible to compose on the road. ("There’s people all over," he laments.) Wagner, along with bandmate Sharin Foo and touring drummer Leah Shapiro, have spent much of 2008 touring behind The Raveonettes’ latest release, “Lust Lust Lust,” and last month the rigorous schedule caught up with the band at Austin’s SXSW music festival. Suffering from burnout, The Raveonettes were forced to cancel one of the whopping 13 performances they had scheduled at SXSW and take a day off before embarking on the final leg of their spring U.S. tour. As their East Coast dates wound to a close in late March, Wagner spoke to Blast about his distaste for life on the road, as well as the band’s cross-country songwriting process and his impressions of America.

Do you think “Lust Lust Lust” is a departure from your previous work?
I don’t compare our albums. I don’t think of our style as being one fixed thing. It sounds a little different from some of the other stuff, but I think all our albums sound different.

Does the album have an overall theme, conceptually or musically?
It’s about the difficulties in maintaining relationships and making decisions in regard to relationships. The only thing I wanted was just, I wanted to have the album have sort of a surf feel to it because I like that. I added a lot of surf-y kind of guitar lines.

You’re based in New York, but Sharin lives in Los Angeles. How does that work as far as your songwriting goes?
I write all the songs and the songs I like, I send them over to Sharin and see if she likes them or not. And if she likes them, we’ll put them in a little folder that will go on the album. It’s very simple. It’s always been like that.

How many songs did you write for this album?
A hundred or so. I just like writing songs. I just write whenever I feel like it. Sometimes I’ll write three or four songs in a day and sometimes I won’t write anything in a month.

Do you have any favorite tracks on the record?
I have none. I like them all.

Talk about your experience at SXSW and your canceled performance.
We did 12 shows down there and that was a lot. And before that we had just come from Europe on a long tour and just did a West Coast tour, went straight down and played SXSW and then we flew right back and started an East Coast tour in Minneapolis. So at that time I think we had done something like 25 shows in a row, and we just didn’t enjoy it anymore. We just took a day off.

Did you get a chance to see any of the other artists who were performing there?
I saw Thurston Moore. And I saw MGMT. I thought (the MGMT show) was brilliant. I thought it was really good. I really like them a lot. I think they’re really entertaining.

What were some of your favorite records from 2007?
I don’t have any from last year. I rarely buy new stuff. MGMT is probably one of the newer bands I have sort of listened to. I don’t really sit at home and listen to music. It’s very rare. If I do, I put on like a classical vinyl or something. I enjoy watching movies and reading books a lot more. I have thousands of movies at home.

What are some of your favorite movies?
Hitchcock movies and (films directed by) David Lynch.

How long have you lived in America, and how do you like living here?
Seven years. I like living in New York. I think New York is really different from other towns in America. That’s why I like it. It has a certain European feel to it that I find very attractive. There are a lot of different cultures and they all seem to mix really well. There’s a lot of stuff going on. It’s a great city to walk in. it’s a beautiful city. New York has everything. It’s one of my favorite towns.

Who are some of your major influences or sources of inspiration?
It’s hard to say what influences you. I think everything you hear must influence you in some way. (I gain inspiration) just through life experience, meeting people and walking around and enjoying life and not being on tour so much. There’s nothing more uninspiring than being on tour, because it’s just a bunch of shitty cold dressing rooms all over the world. So there’s really not much inspiring about that.

Your stage show is very simplistic — just two guitars and a guest drummer (Leah Shapiro) who plays a stand-up kit consisting of only a floor tom and a snare. Is that a reflection of your approach to music in general?
I like music that’s very minimal. That’s what we’ve always done. I’ve always recorded everything at home, and it’s just very simple and that’s the kind of music we really like. We have (had) two people in the band, we have (had) five people in the band. We change a lot. We change around. We don’t like to play the same all the time. We try to make it more entertaining for ourselves. This is the best tour we’ve ever done. We have a great album out and we’re selling out shows.

Do you notice any differences between touring in America and touring in Europe?
It’s pretty much the same. It’s all about traveling, a lot of down time and a lot of waiting around. The only difference is sometimes when you tour in Europe, you get to see some really nice cities like Paris and Rome and all that stuff, and then you actually want to go out and experience the town.

You’ve been quoted as saying “Lust Lust Lust” is your best work. How so?
That was probably a misquote because I never think any of our albums is our best work I really like them all equally as much because they’re very different. They’re all equally good.