The Dodos are Meric Long, left, and Logan Kroeber, right (Photo by Chloe Aftel)

Neon Tommy Contributor Cassie Paton had the chance to chat with drummer Logan Kroeber over the phone about the new album, David Letterman, and touring overseas.

Congrats on the new album! "Carrier" has received a lot of media support and praise already. How does that feel?

LK: I’ve had a few very positive reviews shown to me of the new record and it feels great. There’s a new direction with this record that not necessarily everybody was going to be ready to embrace, and I’m super stoked that people get what we’re trying to do and see the value in it.

I feel like if people liked this record, we’re already almost done with another new record with the same engineers we worked with on "Carrier," so they’re going to love the next thing. We’ve really started to fine tune the sounds we have together with this new studio.

So you’re just churning them out, then. Do you and Meric [Long, vocals/guitar] primarily co-write the songs together?

LK: At this point, we’re the only two members of the band that write anything, but there are some songs you’ll hear that will be mostly Meric because there’s no drums on a few tracks. Everything else with drums is us jamming it out or him coming to me with a riff and me trying to match it. But it’s cool—I like having those breaks in the record where it’s just guitar and voice giving people a little bit of a respite from the barrage.

You’ve got a pretty extensive overseas tour lined up soon. Are there any new-to-you countries you’ll be visiting that you’re excited about?

LK: We just did an Asian tour that did not reach Japan, so we’re flying over there. We’ll go to Tokyo and Osaka, have a few days off to explore and buy some gifts for family and friends. The Asian tour that we did back in May was pretty amazing, and I would love to do that again. It would just be so rad if we could continue to draw crowds [there]. It’s a new place to tour, you know, and if we could actually build a fan base over there and keep going back, I think that would just be amazing.

How are your fans responding to the new material?

LK: Pretty good. A lot of people are buying the vinyl at the shows, getting it signed and stuff. I take that as a real good sign. We play a lot of the new material live and people are getting into it, so I couldn’t be more pleased. Nobody's sitting there with their arms crossed waiting to hear the old stuff, though I’m sure they’re psyched to hear it when we do. So it seems people are coming along for the ride.

As far as live shows go, I’m curious to see what the energy is like at your shows. Do you have a pretty lively crowd?

LK: Can be, yeah. We always try to encourage that as much as possible. The new guy [Joe Haege, guitar/vocals] in the group is quite active on stage. When he’s not singing, he’s kinda prancing around and dancing while he plays guitar, and I totally love it because I’m stuck behind the drum kit. I try to put as much energy as I can into my playing, but he makes me want to get up and move around. I’m jealous he gets to stalk around on stage, and I think the audience is picking up on that energy.

You guys played on the Late Show with David Letterman. Describe that—that must’ve been pretty cool.

LK: We’d done the Late Show once before in 2009 and Jimmy Fallon at the end of 2011, and both of those were for me very stressful experiences. I don’t know, I let it get to me. But this time, I let it get to me as well, but after it was done, I felt like almost like I was getting used to it. Like maybe if we get the opportunity to do another late night show down the line I might not be as nervous next time.

This one had a lot of things that could go wrong, and a few things kinda did go wrong, but it made our performance better and more memorable. Letterman said some really cool stuff to me after we finished on the air—he was just really emphatic, and he walked over to me and said, “how about the kid!” pointing at me three times, and I just got a flood of texts after it aired that evening.

What other bands have you played with that have been a blast?

LK: Pretty much every band we’ve played with that has opened up for us we’ve ended up making good friends with, and I’d love to play with them again. Whether its Wye Oak, Reading Rainbow, The Luyas, The Ruby Suns, Gauntlet Hair. Everybody we end up we end up making friends with.

It’s so rad, I love that I’ve gotten to know all these amazing musicians. I’m particularly looking forward to seeing The Luyas again. We’re going to go to Montreal in a few days, and I haven’t seen them in a long time, maybe two years. Of all the bands we’ve rocked with in the past, I’m looking forward to seeing them the most on this tour.

The Dodos are playing at the El Rey Theatre in Miracle Mile Oct. 15 at 8 p.m. Get tickets here.

Download The Dodos' album, "Carrier," here.

Reach Contributor Cassie Paton here; follow her here.