Taking cues from most things rock’n’roll, Denver’s blues/punk/country four piece has put the finishing touches on its first full-length, “Pulperia,” produced by American Relay’s Nick Sullivan. Gearing up for two CD-release parties and a coveted spot at South by Southwest, The Knew sat down to talk about its new album.

DG: When The Knew plays live you have a very big sound, you fill the space really well. That seemed to be lacking sonically from your first releases. Was there an effort to mend that this time around?

Jacob Hansen: The room we recorded in was like a real sound studio. It had the drum riser and 25-foot ceilings. We worked on matching everything to the drums to give it a roomier sound.

From left: Tim Rynders (bass), Patrick Bowden (drums), Jacob Hansen (guitar/vocals) and Ty Breuer (guitar) at the Larimer Lounge

Ty Breuer: I hope that translates well, I guess I hadn’t thought about that.

Jacob Hansen: Yeah, compared to our other releases I feel like it has a lot more depth than before. Thinking about the huge Springsteen albums where it does sound like they’re in an arena, we don’t have money to do that. But as far as what we have, it definitely came a lot closer, which is great.

DG: And this is a bigger production than your previous EPs?

Jacob Hansen: Yeah. Some of our other releases took a long time, but this one felt like we were paying attention to things we weren’t before.

DG: Was Nick Sullivan pushing for that?

Jacob Hansen: Yeah.

Tim Rynders: He had us do pre-production down here [in our practice space]. We recorded the whole thing three different times just to make sure when we got to the studio we were pleased with how the song structure was.

DG: What made you push for the full-length this time around?

Ty Breuer: We had talked about doing a full-length and when it was time to do it, Nick actually approached us. Nick was really proactive, he was kind of a fifth member for the last couple months.

DG: Besides production, did you have any other Denver musicians do guest spots on the album?

Patrick Bowden: Patrick Lee plays in five songs; he plays in a variety of ensembles around town. Really talented dude.

Ty Breuer: A hell of a dude, he plays with us like every fifth gig or so.

Jacob Hansen: Yeah, he’ll play organ or piano live.

Tim Rynders: “Star” is the right word to use for him, he’s a superstar.

DG: Any plans for a tour in support of the new album?

Patrick Bowden: Just shows in town for now.

Tim Rynders: We’re actually playing South by Southwest in a couple weeks. We don’t have a lot of time to get out of town.

DG: Maybe an early summer tour then?

Jacob Hansen: It’s tough to say. Two of us are getting married this year. We’ll see how it works with taking time off for that. We’re hoping for maybe a long weekend here and there.

DG: Are you guys just content playing Denver?

All: No.

Jacob Hansen: We would love to tour all the time. A lot of it is booking shows and making sure people go there. It would be great if we could sustain by playing live all the time.

Tim Rynders: It’s amazing how much hard work it is to tour too. We’ve played with a lot of bands that we got along with, but people don’t like package tours as much as you’d expect. You have to get a lot of it done yourself.

Patrick Bowden: We were successful in booking a 10-day tour last year, but once you look past the fact of who was there, it’s usually just our friends in every city. We took a step back — it’s like without someone behind you getting people in the door, I don’t know if that’s worth driving out to California for.

Tim Rynders: It’s hard to get momentum out of town.

Jacob Hansen: You basically have to do three tours every year and hit those same cities and by the fourth time you get there people are thinking, “Great, I like these guys.”

Ty Breuer: I think a few more things need to happen to us as a band to have a successful tour. We need to get a little bit more financial backing, and time and great venues need to become available as well. I think that can happen with attention from this new release.

DG: You guys are doing all this work without a label, right?

Jacob Hansen: Just doing it ourselves, yeah. We send out things to marketing companies that do splits, but no one that actually truly gives a shit about what we do. Most everything we deal with at this stage is pay back and forth. Someone that actually has a vested interest in us pushing forward, just that alone would be awesome.

DG: You have two CD-release parties planned: one for Denver and one in Fort Collins.

Patrick Bowden: We had to make sure we booked a Fort Collins CD release soon after our Denver one — we play up there every few months and the crowds are always awesome.

DG: Fort Collins does have a pretty good scene.

Jacob Hansen: We’ve played Boulder a couple times; three of us went to school there. But you realize no one’s really shopping for music like Fort Collins is, for a college town.

Ty Breuer: Yeah, great venues, great recording studios and great bands, too. Every time we go up there I’m always impressed with who we play with.

DG: You’ve played a big range of venues, from free shows at Larimer Lounge to Monolith at Red Rocks.

Tim Rynders: We played the Fillmore, too. Opened up for Stone Temple Pilots.

DG: Wow, how was that?

Jacob Hansen: It was weird. We’ve never had that many electronics in front of us. It was a lot to deal with.

Patrick Bowden: It sounded incredible.

Tim Rynders: People, for the most part, wanted nothing to do with us.

Jacob Hansen: Yeah, the pleasure was all on this side of the table.

Tim Rynders: They didn’t want to play for two hours that night, so they asked a local band to open up the show.

Patrick Bowden: Yeah, we found out 20 hours ahead of time.

DG: Which do you prefer: the dive bar or the huge auditorium?

Tim Rynders: I actually prefer playing a new place more than anything. Even if it turns out kind of shitty, I get so excited to play a new place.

Jacob Hansen: If we can ever coordinate that all four of us don’t have to drive to the venue, that would be my favorite venue to play.

DG: You guys are pretty eclectic musically. Was there a theme or concept you were shooting for with the new release?

Jacob Hansen: More like what you’re going to get if you come see us. We were a little more relaxed for this. We were really detailed and did things the right way, but we didn’t get too uptight about anything.