The Revivalists have been going strong as a national touring act for at least three years now and their rise does not seem to be slowing down any time soon. The seven-piece band, who came together in New Orleans in 2007, will wrap up their latest tour in support of their new album Men Amongst Mountains with a sold out, two-night homecoming at Tipitina’s. Those shows are slated for Friday, November 20 and Saturday, November 21, with Mike Dillon Band opening round one and Tank & The Bangas opening round two. I caught up with frontman David Shaw to get pumped for what will surely be a special pair of Revivalists shows.

You guys have these Tipitina’s shows coming up in a couple weeks. I know you’ve played there many times. Is there something special about that venue for you?

Definitely. We were only a band for a month before we got a show there. I don’t know how that happened, but it happened. So it definitely holds a special part in our hearts, for sure. It’s an institution to the city, so much history there. It just feels right when you’re on that stage. It sounds good on stage so that’s a huge thing. In some venues, if it doesn’t sound good on stage, you have no real idea where you’re at. Tipitina’s is one of those places where you can really just feel the energy from the crowd, while you’re on stage. We love playing that place.

Do you really not know how you got that first gig or is there a story behind that?

Honestly, I think that there was another band that our drummer Andrew knew, who had the show and needed an opening band. So, just by luck, he knew someone who knew someone that got us the gig.

Photo credit: Bob Adamek.

This is going to be your only two-night run of the tour Can we expect different set lists every night? Can we expect collaboration?

Both of those things. I think there’ll be very few repeat offenders. And you can definitely expect a few special guests, for sure. Not really sure who that’s gonna be, I got a couple of people in mind currently. Maggie Koerner usually comes out when we’re in town, so you can probably say that she’ll be up there. Not really sure about anybody else, as of yet. But we try to keep it open.

Speaking of Maggie, I know that you’ve worked with her on music for Galactic. Outside of the Revivalists, are you doing a lot of that sort of thing, working on music for other artists?

I’ve written a few songs for Galactic, and performed with them. I don’t really do a ton of that, just ‘because I’m so busy with our band. But if the opportunity arises for the right thing, for the right song, I’m usually game. It’s just a thing that I take as a case by case thing. But I’m much more of an autobiographical writer, so I find it kind of tough to write songs for other people, because I always end up wanting to sing them myself and not wanting to give my babies away.

You released your latest album Men Amongst Mountains over the summer. How has the tour in support of it been going?

It’s been going really well. We’ve sold out most of the shows on this tour. We just sold out the 9:30 club in D.C. for Halloween, that was a great time, it was really cool. We played a bunch of Prince covers, so that was our musical costume. It was fun.

The venues that we chose to play four or five months ago were the right spots. Because, obviously you want to sell out the venue, you don’t want to play some place too big where you’re playing a 2500 cap room and it’s half-full. The places we chose to play were the right choices to make, four months ago or six, when we booked them. Everything is going well.

I noticed that you guys have been getting some of your songs in a few T.V. shows. Blood and Oil and NCIS: New Orleans come to mind. How does that kind of thing happen and what does it mean for you guys?

That has to do with the music supervisors of the T.V. shows and your publishing company. Those two kind of work together I guess. It really depends on the music supervisor, because they get bombarded with artists and songs. “Here’s a dramatic song, here’s a playful song, here’s a fun party song.” I think it’s all about the relationship that you build up as you continue to work. Someone at those shows happens to dig our vibe and it’s been working out for us. And I think there’s definitely something going on with the NCIS: New Orleans, which makes sense.

One thing that I saw that was kind of crazy was that one of the writers of the NCIS show tweeted yesterday, saying: “Love the song so much, we wrote it in the script. Give it up for NOLA’s very own The Revivalists.” That was kind of crazy.

With this tour o wrapping up, and the album now a few months behind you, what’s next for the Revivalists?

We’re going to take a little bit of a rest here, for most of December. I’m going to do a few solo acoustic gigs up in the Northeast, but for the most part we’re on hiatus until we’re doing the New Year’s Eve show in Atlanta at the Buckhead Theater. That’s gonna be off the hook. I can’t wait for that. But then after that, we’re just doing one festival play at Sunshine Fest, which is Tedeschi Trucks Band’s festival. That’s gonna be fun. That’s mid-January, and I think that’s the only thing we got going on for January as well. We’re kind of just taking some time off to rehearse, get in the studio, and make some more music. We like to stay ahead of the curb.