Zack Katz: What, if anything would you say has changed since the last album? Are you taking any new approaches stylistically?

Chris Rosenau: On the first album no one thought together because that wasn’t the point. There wasn’t writing to a band because the band didn’t exist.

Tom Wincek: We found we could get together and approach this new record as a band, which was a total 180 from the way the first record
was performed.

ZK: How did Volcano Choir come to be?

CR: We just played a ton of music with each other and that’s how it all started. Tom meeting Brad Cook and Joe Westerlund of Megafaun in Eau Claire, Justin getting a hold of me after hearing Collection of Colonies of Bees, and us coming up here. That was pretty much it.

ZK: Being that you’re from Wisconsin, and Justin in particular is from Eau Claire, what’s different about playing in this city?

TW: Six out of the last dozen shows we’ve played have been in places that I’ve lived — here too; I can’t wait, you know? You don’t know these people in the audience but you totally know who they are … It’s like you’re looking out
at yourself.

CR: It’s great playing in different places like Japan, like these totally different people get what we’re doing and that’s great. But it’s also great when I know all the people I’m playing for, the place is packed, and I’m out-of-my-mind enjoying it.

ZK: Where would you guys say you pull influence from for this new record?

TW: You know what dude? Justin and I have talked about this — honestly we are to the point where we’re not pulling influence from anything. Of course it changes, like hearing Justin sing on this record was great because he was trying a ton of different s*** … we’ve figured something out.

CR: But it’s informed by tens of thousands of things we’ve picked up on over the years. Theres no ‘oh I was totally listening to this record and…’ you know?

ZK: What’s next?

CR: Well for one, there’s concentrating on these shows which takes up a lot of mental real estate. We spent so much time on writing “Repave” and the creative process that now we’re just really focused on playing the hell out of it.

But, we actually have a lot of songs after the album that are in various states of done-ness.