Lucky Boys clarified

This was no Limestones concert. This was the Chicago-based pop-punk band Lucky Boys Confusion and their opening act, The Dog and Everything.

Before the concert, I had a chance to talk with two of the band members, drummer Ryan Fergus and bassist Jason Schultejann.

What kind of shows are you doing on this Midwest tour? Are you just performing or are you writing new material, too?

A lot of weekend shows, student weekends at colleges. We just finished a month-long tour promoting our new CD, “The Red Tape Outtakes.” So we play on weekends and write new songs when we’re back home.

I hadn’t heard of “The Red Tape Outtakes” until a week ago.

We kept it under the radar. Primarily, it was for the fans as a stopgap recording between album releases.

So what does that mean for the future?

Well, right now we are recording and writing new songs. That’s why we really aren’t on tour right now. We practice new stuff about three or four times per week.

We’re going to take a vacation soon, go up to a cabin and work on new stuff. Surround ourselves in the woods, drink beer and write songs all day long. That’s how we wrote a lot of our last record, “Commitment.”

What direction would you say you are heading for in this new album, as opposed to your earlier releases?

I would say we’re heading for more straight ahead rock ‘n’ roll.

Listening to your old albums, I hear a lot about the city of Chicago and your experiences growing up there. Why would you say it’s been such an influence on your music?

Well, most of the touring bands nowadays are from the East Coast or the West Coast. There is something about being from the Midwest that comes out in our music, and a lot of times people don’t get it. We are a very Midwest-based band. It’s just about pride being from Chicago.

What’s it like touring in Minnesota?

It’s great because we can play for kids from Chicago and it makes them feel like they are back home, even when they are not. So it’s kind of cool when you get kids who come to the shows and they tell us they are from the suburbs of Chicago but go to school up here.