Sebadoh weathers storm

When Sebadoh formed in 1986, it was just two guys and a four-track recorder. Twenty-eight years and many lineup changes later, and the band has basically come full circle. Lou Barlow, who started the band as a side project from his influential alt-rock band Dinosaur Jr., likens Sebadoh’s most recent recording sessions to its earliest ones: It sounds slicker – they have modern technology to thank for that – but it’s still a DIY project.

“We didn’t have an engineer (this time), which is kind of a huge difference, because you’re talking about creating your own environment,” Barlow said. “In a way, what we did was more similar to the stuff we were doing very early on.”

For that album, 2013’s “Defend Yourself” (the band’s first in 14 years), Barlow and his current bandmates – longtime collaborator Jason Loewenstein and drummer Bob D’Amico – hunkered down in his L.A. practice space and worked through songs they had lying around until they were ready to record.

“We did it just the three of us, and Jason recorded everything,” Barlow said. “We made it as simply and cheaply as possible. Going to studios can be great, too, but – and there’s no hyperbole here – that’s incredibly expensive. … And at this point, I don’t want to be rushed.”

The history of Sebadoh is actually a checkered and messy one, a group brought together by the same artistic frustration that later splintered them. In outlining the last few years, Barlow has to mentally work all the way back to 2000, when the band announced a brief hiatus, in order to get all the facts straight.

The story goes something like this: Barlow was inspired to form Sebadoh after struggling to get his material out through Dinosaur Jr., and he and fellow musician Eric Gaffney began crafting fuzzy lo-fi rock on the side. Loewenstein later joined the group for their breakthrough album “Sebadoh III,” and Gaffney’s departure soon followed; Bob Fay and Russ Pollard each served as the third member before the classic Barlow-Gaffney- Loewenstein lineup reunited in 2007. Gaffney left again, at which point D’Amico came aboard.

You almost need a flowchart to keep it all straight.

But now that they’re older, they don’t drink as much, and they know how to roll with the punches, Barlow said the operation runs a lot more smoothly.

“The way we used to do it, there were some pretty amazing highs,” he said, referring to the band’s creative peak in the ’90s. “We’d do a show where we’d improvise half a set, and you’d have these amazing random nights. And that kind of discovery and excitement is a hard thing to recapture when you’re older. But the lows back then were so much more crushing and constant. So now there’s a consistency to it that’s awesome. When you’re younger, the highs you hit seem so much more revelatory.”

Sebadoh’s latest tour is, in some ways, a throwback to those earlier concerts, when they were a broke, struggling band few people had heard of. The biggest difference now is that they’re doing it as indie rock royalty.

“The very first Sebadoh tour we did, it was just Jason and me in a rental car,” Barlow said. “Then it was Jason, Eric and me in a minivan. And right now, it’s Jason, Bob and me in a minivan. So it’s pretty similar. We’re doing the same kind of thing, but better. Now we’re a well-oiled machine.”