RO: I heard that your tour kickoff show went pretty well via your opening band for that night, locals Wild Moccasins. Are there any stage antics, per se, that you might do in presenting these new songs? Will you be arriving on stage on a giant white stallion this time? Perhaps a black one?

KB (laughs): Well, we're not really doing anything sort of comedic, whereas in the past couple of tours there was absurdist comedy. This, this tour is definitely more visual. It's more hallucinatory and reportive visually. We have a pretty dense and intense visual production.

So, I guess in that way it's kind of heavier, I think, just because of the subject there of the record. It's a bit heavier and more personal so we didn't want to create something that was goofy and that wouldn't really follow. It wouldn't really be of the same spirit.

We wanted to make something beneath the music in a good way and a heartfelt way, yet that was still really interesting and had a lot of dynamic. Anyway, we've done that thing; you know, so many times in the past -- that funny/party thing. You know our shows are still... a celebration of life, in a way, but it's not as superficial.

RO: Are you going to be performing some of your older albums? Would you maybe lighten the mood to perform some of your older songs?

KB: Yeah, we are definitely including songs from previous albums. I'm trying to pick songs that, you know, sort of fit the mood so it's not completely jarring, because some of the stuff from previous records would definitely be. They would feel out of place up next to Paralytic Stalks.

So we're trying to take songs that fit the mood of Paralytic Stalks, but we also don't want it to be a downer so it's not just sadness, sadness, sadness. There has to be some kind of positivity and enjoyment. So we're trying to make them blend.

You know, it's funny, because the show that we did with the Wild Moccasins felt interesting for me because whenever we played any of the Paralytic Stalks songs next to other album tracks, it felt almost like I had like a personality crisis. I was kind of telling myself, "God, who am I?" And then I had this realization that all this stuff is just coming from my brain, that you know it's all me.

I don't have to feel awkward about singing a Skeletal Lamping song or False Priest song after a Paralytic Stalks song because it's all me. It's all genuine. It's all coming from a pure place.

RO: Any specific influences in your newest album?

KB: I was definitely influenced by 20th-century avant- garde music. There were certain compositional tricks that people were doing during the early 1900s and up until the '60s that I found interesting and tried to incorporate into my sound. I have a very... I'm just very interested in creating things that are very melodic but not predictable.

So, a lot of the sounds on this record in fact do sound melodic, and some of them have sort of a soul influence just as much as always. I always try to make something that has a melodic quality to it. I just don't want to create something predictable.

That's just for my own brain. I just get bored so quickly. I mean, I'll listen to something that is fairly predictable and I'll enjoy it, but I can't really make something like that myself. I mean, if I have the mind to do something differently, that organic spirit, I think I should use it... I'm never really satisfied with myself. I'm always thinking of something new.

RO: Awesome. Okay, I have about a minute. Picture your midlife crisis. If you were to make an album during that time, what would it sound like? Go!

KB: Oh, I thought about that, actually. I hope I go through one. I hope my midlife-crisis record sounds like... some sort of, like, guitar-rock record where I'm trying to, like, feel young and just wanna play some rock and roll (laughs). Yeah I hope I make a hard guitar-rock record.

RO: Any last words?

KB: YO HOUSTON! ...Well, I'm excited to be there to play for you fine, fine people.

Of Montreal performs Sunday, March 11th at Fitzgerald's, 2706 White Oak. Doors open at 7 p.m. Barnes also plays a solo-piano set 2:30 p.m. Sunday at Cactus Music, 2110 Portsmouth.