When: 8 p.m. Friday
Where: Sokol Auditorium, 2234 S. 13th St.
Tickets: $25 at etix.com
Information: onepercentproductions.com or 346-9802
Oh, Of Montreal.
What a quirky group you are.
If you can’t tell by the photo above, the indie pop band can come off as a little strange.
The band itself is made up of frontman and songwriter Kevin Barnes and a few others. But with all of the other performers they bring onstage, the band’s live show includes almost 20 people.
After touring Europe, and before setting out on a tour that includes a Friday stop in Omaha, we called Barnes at his home in Athens, Ga., to ask some questions about the show and the band’s new album, “False Priest.”
Q. What kind of a production are we going to see this time?
A. It’s a very theatrical production. It’s a very interesting thing, visually. A lot of performance art happening, costume changes, props, lighting stuff. It’s a big production, for sure.
Q. How do you do such a big show on an indie budget, so to speak?
A. Every time, we play a couple of shows before we want to do the tour production and then we invest that money (from the shows) into the tour production. We play a couple shows, get some money together, build some props and take it out on the road and change things out on the road.
Q. Seems like it can be a pretty fluid performance. How often do you make changes?
A. We definitely try new things every night to keep it interesting for ourselves. It can be a pretty terrible mistake, and sometimes that mistake can turn into something cool. I think it’s fun and I think it’s important to stay spontaneous and open and not feel like we’re going through the motions.
Q. How many people are on the tour?
A. It’s a pretty big entourage. We’ve got about 19 people, I think. We have two buses and two trailers. You never get bored, and there’s always something happening or someone different to talk to or collaborate with.
Q. It’s been a while since you’ve been in Omaha.
A. I like Omaha. Omaha, it’s kind of weird that there is a scene. And it’s great that there is. There’s a lot of cities in Georgia that don’t really have much going on. A place like Omaha, Lawrence (Kan.), Athens, there’s some good stuff going on.
Q. With the new album, there seems to be some blues or R&B in there.
A. “False Priest” was definitely very influenced by ’70s soul, like Parliament, Stevie Wonder, Curtis Mayfield. But we do it in our own way so it’s not a genre piece or homage. It’s filtered through that world.
Q. Where did you record?
A. I cut most of the tracks in Athens and went out to L.A. to work with John Bryan to finish the record out there. That was cool because that was the first time I had done that work with an outside producer.
Q. What’s next for the band?
A. We have the EP that’s going to come out in the spring. We’re going to make a board game that’s going to be the album packaging. That was the original plan for “False Priest,” but we didn’t have the time.
Q. Is it leftover stuff from “False Priest”?
A. It’s stuff from that time period for sure. I was going through a pretty prolific period, and I was writing a lot. I had the choice to make this double album or to just make it a little bit more palpable as a one-time listen. “Skeletal Lamping” was a really long record, and I wanted to make something that’s not quite as epic of a journey.
Contact the writer:
444-1557, kevin.coffey@owh.com
twitter.com/owhmusicguy
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