Last time I chatted with the Western-dusted folk band Lord Huron, at the time touring in support of the group’s debut "Lonesome Dreams," frontman Ben Schneider talked a lot about exploration – both literal and musical. He talked about how he might venture into more rockabilly territory for the next record (which ended up being the case) and maybe even to a completely different kind of frontier: the final one, space.

Schneider and Lord Huron don’t quite trek to the stars on the band’s latest album "Strange Trails," released just this month on April 7, but the group is still certainly going places. Its dreamy story-rich musical vistas, big and echoing like through a canyon, have gathered a strong audience – so much so that the band’s return to The Pabst Theater on Saturday, April 25 was moved to the Riverside due to demand.

Before then, however, I got a chance to chat with Schneider again about the band’s latest album, the stories that come with it – literally – and heading to space (at some point). 

OnMilwaukee.com: For your last album, there was a lot of storytelling involved, including this concept of a made-up Western fiction novelist George Ranger Johnson. Did you want to have a conceptual album this time around as well?

Ben Schneider: Yeah, it’s similar in a lot of ways. I think this one I envisioned more as an anthology of weird fiction, sort of veering into science fiction and horror. Real pulp sort of stuff, which is similar in some ways to what was happening on "Lonesome Dreams," but this time, I feel like these sordid stories that intertwine and tangle and overlap all exist in this one world.

OMC: That’s interesting; last time we chatted, we were talking about exploration, and you noted that since we’ve explored much of what’s on land, maybe your next album would head to space.

BS: (laughs) I do remember our conversation now. It’s funny you say that because I think some of the new stuff I’ve been writing is kind of space-oriented. There’s even a couple of elements of that on "Strange Trails," but some of the stuff that didn’t make it that will hopefully be on the next record is going even more in that direction. So yeah (laughs), LP three might be about space; we’ll see.

OMC: Well, your sensibility seems to take a lot from dime novels, and those started a lot with Westerns before moving into sci-fi. So your music is following along that path as well.

BS: (laughs) I guess maybe I am! It’s not such a conscious thing, but I guess the way I like to work is just whatever I’m interested in, just following that and seeing where it might lead – especially in the last couple of years. I’ve been on the road so much, you have a lot of time to read. I’ve started getting back into comic books again and making my way through novels and dime novels. So, yeah, I’m not too consciously following that pulp fiction trajectory, but it definitely seems to have made its way into the stuff.

OMC: You mentioned comic books, which you released along with "Strange Trails," as well. What was the genesis of that idea? Did the album come first, or was the comic book idea built in from the beginning?

BS: I guess it was always kind of there, just because of the nature of the material and the concept behind it. There’s definitely certain songs – like the first one we released is based on the song "The World Ender," which the story of that song is very much a comic book story, an origin story. I’m trying as much as possible when I’m creating this extra content around the music to work with my friends. My sister happens to be a great writer, and her boyfriend is a great comic artist, so it seemed like a perfect opportunity to work with them, and we had a lot of fun putting it together. Hopefully we’re going to do some more in the upcoming months. It just seemed like a natural way to expand the story and get deeper into the stories.

OMC: Do you have a particular favorite comic book right now?

BS: I’ve always been a big fan of Charles Burns. I just finished reading his latest trilogy, which ended with "Sugar Skull." I just dropped by the shop the other day. I figured it’d be good to have a book that was coming out now to keep up with while I’m on tour, something to pick up in every town I stop in every week. He recommended a book called "Nameless," which I picked up a couple issues of.

When I was a kid, I was really into comics and that world for a while. But now I’m finding a new-found appreciation for it, and it’s been kinda fun to see how it’s changed and see what’s happening.

OMC: How was the recording process for "Strange Trails"? I read an interview where you said that you were able to record a little more on your own time this time.

BS: Yeah, when we set out to make this record, one of the things we really wanted to do is just have it happen on our terms and not get distracted by any kind of pressure or time constraints or anything. We really take great measures to make sure that things can develop naturally and not be rushed or anything. So we really wanted a place where we could hole up and work and let this batch of songs become what it wanted to become.

We looked around for a while for a place without any luck. Kind of desperate, I answered this ad in the classifieds for this old studio. It looked … it just looked terrible, but we thought, "Well, let’s go and see what it’s like." And it turned out to be this beautiful place. It was a little run down, and it’d been abandoned for a while, but all the studio infrastructure was there in terms of acoustic paneling and sound-proofing and all that. The gear was outdated, so we had to strip that out and bring in our stuff. But these days, you don’t need much to make a record. For us, it’s a computer and a few nice pieces of analog gear that we have. We just made it our clubhouse and holed up in there.

It just made a big difference having this place that felt like we could be there anytime together, and we could put whatever inspiration and ephemera up on the walls – just really living the world of the album and exploring it. It was a weird thing where we were like living in it while we were creating it. Hopefully we can always work that way.

OMC: Over the past year since we last talked, you’ve exploded a bit in popularity. What’s that experience been like?

BS: Surreal in a lot of ways. The place we see it the most is at the shows, how every time you go back through a town, you’re playing for more people. For me, to just feel that people are connecting to something we made is really the ultimate reward for making something.

For me and the rest of the guys in the band, we’re not terribly interested or even comfortable being famous. That’s not really something I’ve ever really aspired to or wanted, and the more I see that sort of life, the less I relate to it. But what we do want is for the thing that we’re creating to be famous and appreciated and hopefully beloved.

OMC: How do you feel about where the music industry is currently at?

BS: To be honest, I feel like I know so little about it. Even though I’m in the middle of it, it’s very mysterious to me. There’s a lot of issues, understandably so, with the way people get music these days, whether it’s fair. I suppose at some point I’ll think more about that, but for me, it’s been about wanting music to reach as many people as it can as possible. Anyway that they get a hold of it and enjoy it feels OK to me. Obviously, an artist should be rewarded for what they create, and in an ideal world, that’s how it happens. I also know that things are changing, and there’s no way to fight it. You just kind of have to go with it and adapt and try to be a part of it.

Just seeing people interested in buying vinyl and the physical side of music, I think people miss that, and now it’s coming back, which is an encouraging sign. We’ve seen a great reaction to putting out an album with nice artwork and a comic book that comes with it. I think people are interested in that again, which is good because that’s how I got into music – just staring at the back of records.