Whether it’s living out of a hotel room or eating on the road, Kris Roe of the Ataris wouldn’t have it any other way.

And with the addition of some new band members and a new sound, Roe (guitar, vocals) and John Collura (guitar) have taken the show on the road for a mini-acoustic tour across the country.

They stopped at Howard’s Club H last night, performing with Bancroft, Sarasine and Attacked by Wolves. The show was put on by Taking On Explosives, a Northwest Ohio promotions group.

After forming in 1997, The Ataris worked to promote their name and music. Roe said they gave their demo to other bands coming through the Indianapolis area to spread their sound.

This aided in the birth of the Ataris.

In 2003, the band released “Boys of Summer,” a cover of Don Henley’s 1984 hit.

After large commercial success, they decided to take a break from the music scene, and some members went their separate ways.

“If you compare our growth from point A to point F and skip everything in between, I think it wouldn’t make much sense if you were listening to what we did when we began to what we did now,” Roe said. “I think if you do the math, this band was always evolving and sometimes we just made evolution in bigger moves.”

What the band has evolved into now is what Roe likes to call “dark, dreamy and atmospheric.”

That same sound is what allowed their new album, “Welcome the Night” to become a finished product. Roe said the album is set to be released around April.

“It’s one of those albums you put on when it’s a beautiful, gray day outside and you’re just sitting around and you want something to be that soundtrack, that background music,” Roe said. “We weren’t necessarily trying to go for anything in particular. It sounds like seven people in a room performing together and that really pushed us to be better players and to actually capture this element of this energy we had when we were all in the room together.”

Roe also said The Ataris are planning a much larger tour to kick off the release of their CD.

Until then, Roe and Collura are doing what they love to do: performing in small venues in front of small crowds.

They seem to find fulfillment in a more “intimate” setting.

“It’s still, to me, more gratifying performing for 200 [people] at one of these small shows because it’s really personal,” Roe said. “I think people realize that you’re just some kid playing a song, enjoying it and doing it for your love of music.”

Before the show, Andy Hutchinson, lead vocalist in Bancroft, said the band was excited to open for The Ataris.

“We’re cautiously optimistic for this show,” Hutchinson said. “You’re with the big boys so you better play like you’re one of the big boys. We’re a band trying to take it to the next level, so there’s a little more pressure. But we are very excited. It’s a really good opportunity.”

While Roe and Collura are out on the road, the five other band members are keeping busy as well. Roe said they spend their time working in studios and members Paul Carabello (guitar), Sean Hansen (bass) and Shane Chickeles (drums) get to have some down time with their other band Park Ranger.

No matter The Ataris’ past or what the future holds, Roe seems to be confident with the direction the band is going in. He just leaves it all up to destiny.

“Fate kind of takes the ball and runs with it for you; you just kind of have to deal with it,” Roe said. “We’re proud of everything we’ve done and we’re really happy with how things turned out.”

The Ataris’ Kris Roe and John Collura will be performing tonight at the Fire Escape in Chicago and tomorrow at the Creepy Crawl in St. Louis.