One-time 'Florida haters' Built to Spill have no room for nostalgia

"We played on Conan O'Brien maybe 10 years ago, and we were on tour so I wrote my wife and son's names on there just to say, 'Hi' to them. My arm rubbed off Karen's name, but Ben's is still on there," he says of the now-inscrutable silver drawings on the guitar's body.

Martsch will bring his band and guitar to four Florida cities in September. These out-of-the-way pit stops have become de rigueur in the past few years, which Martsch says is a recent development for the band.

"We played Florida a long time ago, and we didn't have a very good time," he says. "We were kind of Florida haters. We played a couple of clubs that were kind of shitty – the crowds weren't very good, and not a lot of people were there. Then later we did a week in Florida, and it ended up being the funnest week of the tour, and we met a lot of awesome people and played in some really cool clubs."

While the band's pretention and reluctance to heavily promote themselves might engender an aged fan base, Martsch isn't resigned to playing for the same converts.

"We still see kids come out to the shows," he says. "That's always nice."

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