Local DeKalb band, Inspector Owl is playing tonight at The House Cafe 263 E. Lincoln Highway. The Northern Star sat down with singer and guitarist Corey Wills, and talked about the past, the future and spitting dinosaurs.

Northern Star: So what’s new with Inspector Owl?

Corey Wills: A lot, I think.

NS: Like the show tonight?

CW: We have a show coming up tonight at the House Cafe which is on the Lincoln Highway thing, I’m sure you can find the address. We’re playing with Thunderbirds Are Now! and Rahim who are both on, is it French Kiss Records? Thunderbirds Are Now! are from Detroit and a lot of fun. We’re also playing with My Other Car is a Kayak who are our friends from here who are also very fun and dancey.

NS: I saw this show was being called a “dance off.” What are the rules of this dance off?

CW: I’m not exactly sure, we’ve had dance-offs at our shows before. We gave a girl a free T-shirt for dancing, she danced more enthusiastically than anyone else. But I’m not exactly sure what is planned for this dance off, I’m sure it just means everyone comes and dances because that would be a good time.

NS: Do you have a new album coming out?

CW: Yeah, right now we’re in the process of booking studio time, which is super stressful. But we’re trying to get all that squared away before going to go into the studio. We’re actually going into a real studio for the first time ever. Our last CD we recorded in the basement and the CD before that we recorded in [the band] Troubled Hubble’s basement. So we’re getting ready to go into the studio and record our first kind of professional release. We have a label now which is kind of exciting. It’s 3rd World Industries, which is a really small Chicago label and we’re going to be their third release. Another notable release they’re doing is a seven inch for the band Drag the River, and they’re really awesome. So we’re going to record that and we’re hoping to have [the record] out by late spring or early summer but we’re not exactly sure because we haven’t gotten studio time secured yet. It all hinges on when we get it recorded. It’s going to be a six song EP but we’re also going to be filming our show tonight at a bunch of camera angles and editing it together and putting on to the CD as an enhanced feature. With a lot of the new video codes for PC and Macs you can take a 45 minute video and condense it down to fit onto a CD and still have pretty decent quality that you can watch in your computer.

NS: Tell us about Madison Fest.

CW: Oh, Friday we’re going up to Madison, Wis., and we’re playing this festival that is being put on by a student organization up there. Its a two-day festival, Friday and Saturday, and we’re playing with some amazing bands. We’re playing with Rainer Maria, Mike Park, Maritime — who I love — Volcano!, Plus Minus, Make Believe, who are amazing, and a bunch of cool Madison bands. The Show is the Rainbow is playing as well. And Jenny Choi who is super hot, you can quote me on that.

NS: And how much does this cost?

CW: Madison Fest is totally free, the show tonight is $6 though, which is almost free.

NS: What’s the story with you guys being from Jurassic Park?

CW: More or less, in the summer when we went on tour, the second night out we went to Cedar Falls, Iowa and played at this place the Reverb. But we decided we were going to camp that night so we went out to Iowa earlier in the day and set up our camp grounds and talked to the ranger. He’s like “what are you doing out here?” We said we were playing a show at the Reverb and he was like “Oh if I didn’t work so late I would come out to it.” So we play the show and come back to the campground and its locked and shut and closed because what the park ranger forgot to tell us is that the campground closed at like 10:30. So we needed to find a back way in so we get back on the interstate and eventually find a back way in and we’re hoping it will take us back to the campground. When we get in there is this really scarey archway, and no one can see my hand gestures. But we enter this really creepy eerie area along the banks of a river with all these trees hanging over. Then all of the sudden a dilophosaurus pops up and spits ink at us. He spits all this poisonous ink and we’re like “oh [shoot] what are we going to do?”

NS: Were you in the car at the time?

CW: Yeah we were in the car, so we speed off and we turn around and go under the archway. But we head back to the main gate to see if anything changed. And when we get there, for some reason, it’s magically opened when it was closed like five or 10 minutes before. So we go in and we’re approaching quietly and slowly and on edge because we were just attacked by a dilophosaurus. Then, all of the sudden, in front of us, we see a velociraptor. So we start to go forward really fast and two more come from the sides and we keep driving and plow past the velociraptor and were whipping down this narrow winding road through this campground and finally we lose the velociraptor and go to the camp and go to bed.

NS: So the velociraptor didn’t follow you to the campsite?

CW: No we lost them. So after that we became obsessed with Jurassic Park because we had such a close call with escaped animals from that park. So for the second half of the tour, we rented “Jurassic Park” and watched it in the car. We were constantly talking about “Jurassic Park” and making references to it on the tour. Like right before we’d play a song we’d say “this song is new, hold on to your butts.”

NS: You guys have yet to release a full album and you’ve been together for how long?

CW: Two years, well close to three, it will be three on June 10, that’s our birthday.

NS: Corey are you ready for the lightning round?

CW: Yes.

NS: Name three characters from Moby Dick.

CW: Ishmael, Captain Ahab and Moby Dick.

NS: Very Good. Who has received the most nomination is Oscar History?

CW: I don’t know.

NS: John Williams.

CW: Oh sweet, I love him.

NS: What is the square root of 169?

CW: Can I get a calculator? Can I use my phone?

NS: No, no you can’t.

CW: Then I have no idea.

NS: It’s 13. What are the names of the two iron clad ships of the American Civil War?

CW: This definitely isn’t on my cellphone.

NS: The Monitor and the Merrimac. What is the common name for the molecule Dihydrogen Monoxide?

CW: Oh, OK, water.