Popular Canadian rockers the Sam Roberts Band plays the Memorial Centre Oct. 26.

Doors open at 7 p.m. with showtime at 8 p.m.

The guys are excited to hit the road of their native nation and charm listeners with tunes from their latest project Collide.

“I wrote these songs in my basement, but I really wanted to get out there and experience a different place and see how that would work its way into the music,” says frontman Roberts. “We also wanted to work with a producer who was going to challenge our understanding of ourselves and the music we were making.”

Rounding out the band are guitarist Dave Nugent, guitarist/keyboardist Eric Fares, bassist James Hall and drummer Josh Trager.

Chicago-based producer Brian deck was invited into the mix. The band moved to Chicago’s Bucktown neighbourhood last fall and it pretty much felt like home.

“It really reminded me of a Montreal neighbourhood. I felt really at home there,” says Roberts. “We basically developed a routine and visited the same coffee shops and breakfast spots everyday, to the point where they’d roll their eyes when we walked through the front door.”

Ultimately, one might think that given Roberts’ considerable commercial success, he may start to feel kind of disconnected from the downtrodden folks who often pop up in his songs. But his good fortune has only made him more conscious of how fragile notions of happiness are.

“On this record, I tried to bring the songs back to my own personal fears; I wasn’t necessarily trying to come up with songs that were going to speak for everybody. It doesn’t necessarily have to follow my life to the letter – it’s more about thinking of what your life would be like if you had just done this, or if you had just done that. And how that could have taken you to a darker place or to a better place.

“You’ve got to maintain that feeling of survival – that you can lose your grip at any time. That’s where songs like these come from – from the realization that you can never figure it out completely, that your grip can never hold on forever. It’s always there, every time I sit down to write.

“That’s why the record is called what it is: ideas collide, especially when you’re making music. But when you take things that are seemingly different, you can smash them together and create something new.”

For ticket information, call 403-347-0800.

-Weber