Adam Merrin of the band, The 88, has been working non-stop to promote their new album “Over and Over.” Merrin took the time to talk to The Northern Star about late night TV appearances, life on the road and Dr. Pepper.

Northern Star: So where are you guys at right now?

Adam Merrin: We are in Amarillo, Texas. We’ve been driving since the morning and we are playing Dallas tonight.

NS: Where at in Dallas?

AM: In the morning we are playing the Fox news and at night we are at the Gypsy Tea Room.

NS: Is this out promoting your new album “Over and Over”?

AM: Exactly. We are opening up for Matt Costa, which has been going well. We’ve been having a good time with them and all the shows we’ve been doing have been all sold out. We’ve been playing in front of big audiences. The two bands get along really well and we’ve been having some of their members come up during our set and some of us go up during their set. We’ve never done anything like that before and it’s something I’ve always wanted to do. You find a band you get a long with and have similar backgrounds. You learn a cover during the day and surprise people at night. It’s been really fun and the audience just loves it.

NS: It seems like a really good experience.

AM: It’s a really good fit. Good guys and their band. This tour has lasted three weeks and we are going to New York and we did a west coast trip with them a couple of weeks ago up to Vancouver and Victoria in Canada.

NS: What’s the largest audience you’ve played in front of?

AM: I’d say 600-700 people. There is a show in Toronto that is about a thousand. They were all totally over the capacity. There was a bunch of people that got turned away and Matt went outside and played acoustic guitar and sang songs to people that could not get in. That was really cool.

NS: How is life on the road treating you?

AM: It’s been really fun and we’ve got to meet a lot of people in different places. There is always a story in each town. I enjoy it so much because it’s always something I’ve wanted to do. Right now, it’s like driving in the middle of nowhere is not too exciting. But once you get to the town and there’s people there. It’s a lot of fun.

NS: You’ve been on a lot of late night shows like Craig Ferguson and Carson Daly. How’s that for you?

AM: We’ve done all of those to promote this album. It’s really cool we’ve been able to do all those shows without being on a major label. We’ve done all this ourselves. I find it interesting and inspiring to other bands who know they can do it as well. We’ve worked really hard and hopefully we can set a good example, considering the music business these days. There are different ways we went about it to make it happen so hopefully we can share these experiences so other people can do it too.

NS: I know you are big on grass-roots campaigns to promote. It’s impressive without the help of a major record label.

AM: The best suggestions given to the band was to make some CD samplers with a couple of songs on it. We made thousands of them and they are cheap to make. It’s better than passing out flyers because they get tossed in the trash easily. CD’s people take with them and play in their car and play it for their friends. It really helped us in Los Angeles develop a following to get people to come and see and to spread the word of the band. That was a huge thing for us.

NS: On the late night shows, which has been the favorite show?

AM: The sound on Carson Daly was the best. The set up there was incredible. We have a sound engineer who comes with us, his name is John Meredith, he does all of our lives show and late night TV shows. In watching the shows back to back, Carson sounded the best. It goes by so quickly because there is all this nervousness. In the blink of an eye it’s over. It’s weird because there is no going back and it’s being played to hundreds of thousands or millions of people, it’s a trip.

NS: Is Carson Daly really a tool?

AM: He was nice to us. Craig Ferguson, too. They took the time to meet us and take pictures of us. Craig Ferguson doesn’t go to meet everyone, but he met with us, and he said he felt like Ed Sullivan presenting the next big thing.

NS: Would your next step be going on Conan O’Brien?

AM: Definitely. We are working on it. Doing these ones, it makes it easier to do the bigger ones like David Letterman and Saturday Night Live. It’s cool because one thing leads to another and it’s making it easier for things to happen.

NS: MTV has been following you around, how does that feel?

AM: They came to our L.A. show at The Troubadour and filmed our set. They did an interview with the band and I guess was supposed to be on the MTV news in the last couple of days, but I haven’t been able to see it. It’s another good example of something where if you keep being persistent and positive, they will come around when they think you are ready. We’ve been sending them information about the band for three years and they finally thought it was time. The guy said ‘I’ve been following you and I’m a huge fan and I like everything you’ve been doing,’ so they came about. We say to other people keep going and don’t get frustrated because it takes time to do these things.

NS: How have you guys grown since the inception of the band?

AM: We put out our first record in 2003 called “Kind of Light.” On this new record we worked with a producer, on the first we produced it. He worked with us on the arrangement of the songs and the structure and kind of simplified things. I think it was a big contribution to the band and making the songs a little less weird. He came up with a lot of creative ideas and that is one of the reasons we decided to work with a producer because we needed fresh ears to come up with things we normally wouldn’t come up with. Also to relieve the duties of what I did on the record last time so I could concentrate on the piano. I enjoyed producing the first record, but at same time, it’s a big responsibility so it was nice to concentrate on the music.

NS: How do you go about setting up the songs on your CD’s? Is there a certain criteria?

AM: In the very beginning before we started recording, we kind of came up with a plan. We picked the 15 songs we were going to do and then narrowed it down to 12. That was hard to do because I liked all the ones we recorded. Our whole thing is we like to make it short and sweet because we don’t want to make it too long. We want the listener to want more and we don’t want to have them turn it off in the middle thinking it’s too much. As far as the order, it kind of works itself out. We wanted it to have a nice flow. Brandon, in the band, is really good at coming up with those things. He’s a big influence on how we choose our set from night to night. He has a really good ear for what works next to each other.

NS: What about encores? Do you guys do those a lot?

AM: If it’s right. We don’t like to plan it. If the audience really wants it and we have time to do it, then yeah, but it’s not a thing where we plan it in the set. It has to be natural.

NS: When I’ve seen bands like Nine Inch Nails, they didn’t have an encore and that just seemed right.

AM: Even in our home town, when we play The Troubadour and it’s a full house. We are hoping we get one, but it’s not that we are definite we are going to do one.

NS: You guys are coming to Chicago here pretty soon.

AM: We are playing Schubas here soon. It’s Tuesday the 9th.

NS: Have you guys ever played there, Chicago, before?

AM: Keith and I’ve played an acoustic thing there before at a little place called The Hideout in the summer. But it will be the first time with the full band.

NS: What would be the highest point of The 88 thus far?

AM: This tour has been the most fun for me considering the crowds we have been playing to have been so receptive. The fact that we get to go out as part of Matt’s set and they go on the stage with us and learning songs during the day. Like Joe Cocker’s and Mad Dogs and Englishmen, where it was like a family of musician where everyone is getting along. In Canada, actually in Victoria, we learned “Victoria” by The Kinks that day and Matt came on stage and was singing harmonies and switching off verses with Keith. The audience was singing along because it was their home song. We did something the next night in Vancouver, we played “Ophelia” by The Band because most of the members of that band were from Canada. I like the spontaneity of it. This is what it is about for me is playing in front of new people and wining over people who have never heard us before. There is a handful of people know us from TV shows, but a majority don’t. It feels great when at the end of set it sounds like a concert and meeting them at the merchandise table. We love meeting people so after the set we meet people where the CD’s are being sold. It’s a lot of fun.

NS: What about the lowest?

AM: Probably getting to a place where there is nobody there and it’s just a regular bar that’s a dark bar with no one in attendance. Loading in your equipment and doing all this work. I guess you can look at it as a rehearsal, but we love to play to people though.

NS: What is your fan base like?

AM: It’s pretty interesting. It’s anywhere from teenager to older people. I think the teenagers learned about the band from TV shows like “The OC” and all of a sudden we are on an episode, all of a sudden we are their favorite band. I think the older people are fans of The Beatles and The Kinks so I will look out in the audience and see a wide range of age groups at the shows. It’s hard to pin-point and say it’s all college kids. Actually, college kids like us too, we love playing on campuses too.