Road Hogs Spin Doctors Feel Like Their Cheating If They’Re Not On The Road Playing Live Concerts

There’s a song on Spin Doctors’ new album called “Someday All This Will Be Road.”

They should know.

The New York quartet is one of those road-hog bands that tours about as much as its members breathe. It’s staked its reputation on wiggly, jam-oriented performances and road itineraries that have topped 200 shows per year. It was bred in the ethic of H.O.R.D.E. bands such as Blues Traveler and Big Head Todd & the Monsters, who value live playing above all else.

“Maybe I’m old-fashioned,” says Spin Doctors’ guitarist Eric Schenkman, 30, “but I feel like you have to tour, to pay our dues on the road. The road teaches you about playing in a certain way. When you’re young, you should take advantage of that.”

Spin Doctors has had greater success than its mates: hits such as “Two Princes” and “Little Miss Can’t Be Wrong”; and a debut album, “Pocket Full of Kryptonite,” that sold more than 5.5 million copies. But that hasn’t dulled the band’s enthusiasm for the road. Ask Schenkman about touring and he starts to sound like a neophyte travel agent.

“Music will show you the world,” he gushes. “If you’re the kind of person who likes to travel and digs the subtle differences from place to place, it’s ever-satisfying.”

Schenkman needs no prodding to tick off some of his favorite on-tour stops and adventures: chowing down at Topps Barbecue in Memphis; watching drug busts on the street outside Harpo’s in Detroit; checking out petrified lava flows in Hawaii; stumbling into a recording studio in Hong Kong; watching blues legend Buddy Guy shoot pool at his Legends bar in Chicago.

Of course, Spin Doctors’ success affords the musicians - Schenkman, singer Christopher Barron, bassist Mark White and drummer Aaron Comess - more opportunities to do things like that. But it comes at a price. Schenkman acknowledges considerable “where’s the hit?” pressure in making the new album, “Turn it Upside Down”; when one group of recording sessions proved fruitless, the quartet holed away in a bucolic Washington state cabin to write new songs.

And Spin Doctors finds its concerts changing as well; the long jams are giving way to tighter, more focused sets that seem geared toward the fans MTV has lured to the band.

“This is more of a song tour, a hit tour,” explains White, 32. “I was (complaining) about it the other night; before we used to have a healthy balance - the songs and the other things, like grooves and drum solos and bass solos and Chris doing more talking. Now I don’t sense that.”

What’s happened is no mystery. Spin Doctors have hits, and an audience that wants to hear them and won’t necessarily indulge the band’s jams. The group’s last couple of tours have also put them on bills with fellow hit-makers such as Soul Asylum and this year’s tandem of Cracker and Gin Blossoms.

Still, White sees this as a situation that will correct itself. For now, he says, Spin Doctors is milking its popularity to establish both a fan base and stable finances.

“Once you do that,” he says, “you can go play music just for fun. You can play and have six people show up, and it’s no big deal.”