San Francisco alt indie-rock trio Geographer released their second album Myth on Tuesday. In support of the album they will be hitting the road to kickoff their largest tour to date. Having streamed the new album multiple times, I am thoroughly impressed with the eerie and dark direction the band has taken. Tuesday night, they played a short acoustic set in my neighborhood at Amoeba Music in San Francisco. Later that night, Thrillcall hosted a secret show, which ran out of tickets as soon as they were released. Fortunately, I was able to sneak in and get my fill of free alcohol and hear Myth in almost in its entirety. They only had one song from the album that they weren’t ready to perform live yet. This past weekend, I had the opportunity to discuss touring and the new album with frontman Mike Deni.

Dan Cordie: What are your feelings as you prepare to hit the road in support of Myth?

Mike Deni: I get pretty anxious before a big tour, there's a lot to prepare.  Nate and I both tripled the pedals we need to take out this time and in essence we had to relearn all the songs that we recorded to translate them the way we want to the live trio setup.  But this is our first real album release and our first really big tour and we are extremely excited to finally get out there and do it after all this preparation.

DC: Has your preparation for this tour differed from past tours?

MD: Only in so far as people care now that we have a record coming out.  I feel like I'm at SXSW with all the interviews and private shows we've been doing to lead up to it.  Also this is the first time we've learned eight new songs to play live that no one has ever heard before.

DC: What is your favorite or strangest tour memory?

MD: When we were on tour with Stars, it was Brian's birthday in San Diego, and Torq took us out to a piano bar that one of his friends knew about.  There was a guy who's hair was stuck in the 80s with a synthesizer set on top of a grand piano singing Top 40 covers by request.

DC: Have you had the chance to listen to your tour mates – The Chain Gang of 1974 and Miniature Tigers?

MD: Definitely, been to a few shows, they're great, we can't wait to hit the road with them.

DC: What experiences and artists have been influential on your new album?

MD: Feeling disconnected from the world around me and extremely confused about truth or the lack thereof.  And Bruce Springsteen and Paul Simon, mostly.

DC: Can you talk about your experience recording with Eli Crews and mixer Chris Zane (tUnE-yArDs, Passion Pit, Tokyo Police Club)?

MD: Eli is so creative and dedicated to whatever artist he's working with.  He was very gentle with us in the studio, but still kept us on track and we never fell behind or missed out the experimentation that was so important to us.  Chris Zane is amazing to watch work.  For mixing I was basically just sitting on a couch in the back of his studio while he paced back and forth crafting the sound we had talked about and the one he had in his head.  He really brought a lot of his own vision to the record, and that was exactly why we got him.

DC: Have you experimented with any new sounds on this album that you hadn’t before?

MD: We had always chiefly recorded on our own in a harried fashion.  Now we had two weeks in the studio booked, tons of gear to play with, the time to do it.  We dove a lot into phasers and distortion in ways we never had before, especially with the cello.

DC: How large of a role has the San Francisco music scene played in getting you to where you are today as a band?

MD: Seeing how much our hometown fans cared about what we were doing gave us the confidence to trust ourselves and go in the directions we wanted to go.  We knew they would follow us, and their support is like family to us.

DC: Any talks of adding another SF show once you return home from your tour in April?

MD: I don't think so.  But we plan to be touring steadily through the summer, so I'm sure we stop back here for a big one.

The upcoming year is likely going to be extremely busy for Geographer – make sure to give Myth a listen and catch them at a venue near you. Stay connected with the band on Facebook and Twitter.