Kurt Vile going back to roots for tour coming to Hancher

As Kurt Vile heads back out on the road on the latest round of dates in support of his new album, “Watch My Moves,” he’s thinking he’ll take a different approach in his shows compared to previous tours.

He’ll be making a stop at Hancher Auditorium in Iowa City on Oct. 14 for an afternoon “Storytelling Across the Arts” conversation with Lonnie Holley, followed that evening by a concert with The Violators. Both events are part of Hancher’s new Infinite Dream multidisciplinary festival, running Oct. 11 to 21.

“This is actually the first time where we got this (new) record where we do want to play a lot of it,” Vile said in a phone interview. “I feel like this finally is the first record where we could and should (also) mix it up every night just so we’re not playing too long. But there are a lot of songs we want to get to.

“I think also, with the last record (“Bottle It In”), we would get stuck playing the same set every night, get stuck in a loop after a while,” Vile added. “You’d go to soundcheck and you soundcheck the same songs. We’re trying to avoid that.”

Vile is certainly happy enough with “Watch My Moves” to want to play many of the new songs live, and he’s eager to promote the album. He even has said it’s probably the best representation of him that’s been captured on any of his albums.

“I stand by all of my albums, but I think I just know that (on “Watch My Moves”) when I hear my vocal, it just feels like I’m in the room. It just cuts right through,” Vile said. “And I’m not trying to prove anything. I’ve kind of just lived my life up to this point.

“I know what I’m capable of and I also know that songs — they just fall into my brain and out of my guitar. I just know how to sort of capture them. Some are more solid than others, but my idea was to put all the best (new) songs that I had so far on this record, and I did my best version of that I could.”

Stylistically, “Watch My Moves” isn’t far afield from Vile’s other albums. New songs such as “Like Exploding Stones” and “Mount Airy Hill (Way Gone)” share a similar hazy quality and fall somewhere between rock, folk and pop, while “Jesus on a Wire” and “Cool Water” offer a more delicate and straight-forward pop/folk sound.

Overall, “Watch My Moves” doesn’t hit you in the face with hooks or power chords; instead, it’s fairly laid back, with melodic nuggets and ear worms that tend to reveal themselves and deliver more impact with subsequent listens.

One development that Vile thinks helped “Watch My Moves” was for the first time having a fully functioning home studio in which to work, and about half of the album was recorded there.

In a sense, this represents a return to Vile’s creative roots. An original member of the band the War On Drugs, Vile started transitioning to a solo career after touring with that band in support of the 2008 War On Drugs debut album, “Wagonwheel Blues.”

Vile’s solo debut, “Constant Hitmaker,” arrived that same year, followed by “God Is Saying This to You ...” in 2009. Both of those albums were made up mainly of home recordings, and Vile sees “Watch My Moves” as a return to his home recording ways, where he feels more free creatively than in a typical studio environment, albeit with the ability to attain professional fidelity sound when he wants.

“I’m trying to get back to my roots, for sure, in that way, with my guard fully down, but more high fidelity when desired, more professional, all of those things combined. I think I captured all of that (on “Watch My Moves”), but it’s still pretty raw. So it’s a little bit of everything.”

Vile moved on to making albums in studios with his third album, “Childish Prodigy,” and landed a deal with Matador Records with that album. He went on to release four more well-received solo albums on Matador, including the highly regarded “Smoke Ring Halo” in 2011 and a slew of EPs, as well as a collaborative album with Courtney Barnett, “Lotta Sea Lice,” in 2017.

The pandemic did slow Vile’s musical output, as “Watch My Moves” arrives nearly four years after his previous solo album, “Bottle It In.” But the 43-year-old Pennsylvania native said he was already planning to scale back on his touring and give himself some breathers in his schedule before COVID forced his hand.

“I literally planned for a break. I said I wasn’t going to travel for a while, all those things. But in reality, it’s easier said than done, because the offers still come,” Vile said. “I just realized, I don’t think I can be gone constantly. I felt like I had to before. I didn’t have to be, but in another way, yes I did.

“To get where I am today, I had to take all of the work and put myself out there. And I do want to be out there. I want to promote the (“Watch My Moves”) record and I love to play music, and then when I’m out there, it feels right,“ he said.

“But I just didn’t have any routine at home anymore. I would just be spent and be tired and want to take it easy.”