Since forming in 2009 in Seattle, The Head and The Heart has been a fixture in contemporary folk-rock, with a knack for songs that feel like private, personal anthems: “Rivers and Roads, “Down in the Valley” and “All We Ever Knew,” to pick three.

The group will perform Tuesday, Oct. 24, at the Mobile Saenger Theatre, with Amanda Shires opening. Tickets remain available for the show, mostly in the upper balcony, with prices starting at $29.50 plus fees. They’re available through Ticketmaster outlets including the Saenger box office.

Ahead of the show, drummer Tyler Williams made time to talk about where the band is at these days. He said he’s looking forward to the Mobile show in part because he has some memories of the area: his grandmother used to live on Dauphin Island, he said.

Among other things, Williams elaborated on the recent revelations that members have been at work in the studio, laying the foundation for their sixth studio album. (In a recent Facebook post, the band said that “We set out last week to begin the makings of a record with new intentions and no supervision. Songs springing from the ether in the moment and capturing that initial spark as best as we can. Who knows where it all leads but it feels good in the moment and that’s where we’re living right now …”

The following has been lightly edited for clarity.

The news that the band is back in the studio has to be exciting for fans. What can you add to what’s been said on social media?

Tyler Williams: The last record we put out was sort of created during the pandemic. We were all spread out across the country. This was kind of the first time we’ve written all together in a room in a few years, whereas on the last record it was sort of more remote. We were all working from our individual homes. So, yeah, it feels good to be in a room and creating together again.

“Living Mirage” came out in 2019 and “Every Shade of Blue” in 2022, so The Head and The Heart wasn’t one of those unfortunate acts who released an album in 2020 only to have the whole touring industry shut down. But it’s interesting that even so, you feel like you’re recovering.

Yeah, for sure. I mean, you know, we had a whole year [of touring] planned in 2020 with some artists that we really loved and wanted to go out with. So that was a bit unfortunate. And it felt like it was maybe the first time in our career where the next day was an unknown, you know, if we were going to be able to continue as a band and tour. And even meeting up, which we do every so often to write, it was not able to happen, you couldn’t just hop on a plane and be in another location.

So, yeah, it was sort of an uncertain time period. Even though we didn’t have an album released during the pandemic, it was fraught with its own tensions.

I totally feel for the people who put albums out right at the top of the pandemic, We have friends in Phantagram, they put a record out right then. Waxahatchee, she [Katie Crutchfield] put her record, “Saint Cloud” out, which actually got me through the pandemic. So, you know, some of that was really healing. I’m sure artists would have preferred it another way, but it definitely helped their audiences to have that fresh music.

So the spirit of the new sessions is to sort of rebound from all that?

We’re not really demoing on this record, I feel like. It feels like we’re getting into the room, into the studio together, and then we’re trying to capture, I think as close to that moment of creation as possible. Where the idea flows out of you and it’s already being recorded and then you just maybe go and write the lyrics to the music, you know.

It feels really fresh and spontaneous and exciting and it’s a new way of working for us, which is awesome, you know, finding new things even 14 years into being in a band.

I don’t know where The Head and The Heart stands on the question of playing new songs in public before they’re recorded. Might we hear any of these new ones during the tour?

So it’s actually kind of the reverse. I feel like we’ve already recorded some of this stuff and then maybe we will be doing it live. Who knows?

It’s been a year-and-a-half since “Every Shade of Blue” was released. That’s a lot of time for fans to latch onto their favorites and for band favorites to emerge. Have there been surprises about the evolution of that set of songs?

I mean, that is kind of the mystery of every album, you never know. And songs do change. The relationship changes between you and the song, fans and the song, you and the fans. “Tiebreaker” has been steadily raising its hand as a fan favorite. We actually had that song in this TV show, I guess it blew up. “The Summer I Turned Pretty” was the name of the show and that was pretty popular. So, yeah, that song has been sort of getting out there in ways that we didn’t really imagine.

“Virginia” was the first real single release off that record. It’s still one of the ones that just kind of ignites the crowd every time we play it, which is exciting. It’s sort of making its way into the encores of the set, which, you know, that’s usually reserved for, you know, sacred songs.

Speaking of the setlist, you’ve reached a point where it’s probably hard to pack everything in.

Yeah, definitely. I think we want to give fans everything that they want to hear, but we also want to make ourselves happy in the process. So it’s always a bit of a balancing act, you know, the greatest hits versus the deep cuts that maybe aren’t the highest streaming songs, but they’re the ones that kind of get us going on stage and kind of help us feel fresh every night.

For those who maybe know you from recordings and haven’t seen you live, what might surprise them?

We are a live band. I think it’s a very traditional band in that sense where we have worked on our musicianship and we’ve worked on our playing and the chemistry that we have on stage and sometimes that can be hard to capture on record. So I’d say the live show is a bit more explosive. It’s kind of its own animal.

And, you know, I think that’s sort of why this go-round in the studio we’re trying to record closer to the creation and closer to that spontaneity, that creativity that you can get in front of a live audience and on stage. Sometimes when you overwork a song in the studio, it can feel a little dull. I think we’re trying to bring a little bit more of that, kind of match that live energy on the record this go-round.

So, yeah, I think the live show is, is kind of what we pride ourselves on.

This leg of the tour hasn’t started yet, but I’m curious about the chemistry of having Amanda Shires as a support act. Have you worked together before?

We actually have never met before, which is kind of wild to think about because we’ve, you know, we’ve been around for quite some time. We usually hand-pick the bands or the artists that we take out on the road with us. it’s definitely somebody that we’ve admired and have always listened to respected. I think it’s kind of a cool thing that, that we get to do this, we do get to support and take out the bands that we really connect with.

That’s kind of been our M.O. since the pandemic ended. I think it’s like, let’s really focus on people that we want to be on the road with that we respect. That feels right to us and it’s been such a great couple of years of touring and and I’m sure it’ll just continue through this fall.

Who do you see when you look out at the crowd these days?

It’s funny. I mean, it’s such a wide-ranging group of people. We can have the teenager who heard us on ‘The Summer I Turned Pretty’ or whatever and then we could have the older couple who saw us on “Austin City Limits.” It’s a multigenerational, diverse crowd of people which is, you know, somewhat unique. I think it’s all about the storytelling and the timelessness of the music that we try to try to infuse it with. You know, it’s, it’s just kind of what our music brings.

There is a thread and there’s a thread to the audience. There’s heart in the music and it’s generally an uplifting process within our live show. So, I don’t know, I think people come because they want to feel the good energy in the world at such a dark time.

That anticipates a question I like to ask, namely: People come for entertainment, obviously, but is there anything more that you hope they take away from the experience?

I’ve heard people liken the show sometimes to a church service, not in like a preachy way but in a revival type of way, where it goes deeper than entertainment. I think for us and our audience there is a connection there. Maybe it’s the grief from just the day-to-day life. Maybe they’ve lost someone, maybe they’ve lost love or maybe they’re in a new love, and this music, this show can kind of help process those feelings, whatever they are.

[We’re] feeling like we’re sort of veterans touring now. I think there’s a little more relaxed chemistry to that and a little more confidence on stage, to where we can kind of be more of ourselves. And that’s exciting, to walk out and kind of not really know who’s gonna do what. But it breathes this sort of magic when people are feeling really connected with each other on stage. And that’s kind of where we are right now. It’s been a, it’s been a nice moment for us. So [we’re] looking to continue that.

That makes me think of the old video for “Down in the Valley,” which has scenes of the band crossing the country in a Chevy van pulling a trailer, loading gear at venues. You’ve paid those dues.

You know, I think you have something to prove [in a band’s early days] and there’s an energy there and there’s a, I don’t know, maybe like a unearned arrogance there — because you have to be that way, to get through it. And now I feel like we’re sort of relaxing into, OK, we’re a band. This is legit and we get to do this for however long we can keep it going for. So I think there’s something to be said about wisdom in your older age as well.