When talking to a musician from Newfoundland, there are certain things that, fair or not, a West Coaster can expect: a lightning-fast patois delivered with old-world inflections; a disarming amount of friendliness; and, likely the result of both of those things, a certain amount of what-the-eff-are-you-talking-about? As Tim Baker—singer, songwriter, and Svengali of the Newfie band Hey Rosetta!—hurtles down the notoriously tour-van-eating stretch of highway between Thunder Bay and Winnipeg, only the latter is part of the interview. Cellphone static and the occasional phrase “lots of moose” are all that come across the line.

Four hours and presumably many moose sightings later, Baker and his band, fresh from a sold-out night at Toronto’s North by Northeast festival, have pulled over. While the reception has improved, Baker is slow and dazed, walking through a roadside forest while discussing the group’s latest buzz-catching album, Into Your Lungs (and around in your heart and on through your blood).

“It’s really pretty here,” says Baker, clearly tired and distracted. “I’m glad I got to get out of the van. There’s six of us, and we don’t have a trailer, so our instruments are kind of towering all over us.”

It may seem like a lot of effort, dragging an orchestral, string-laced band from one end of the hinterlands to the other, but Hey Rosetta! is on a roll, getting airplay in both Canada and the States, and fans across the country are demanding that the band come visit. Produced by Hawksley Workman, Into Your Lungs is a step up from the group’s first EP, 2007’s Plan Your Escape, in almost every way. More sonically ambitious and with much higher production values, it’s an energetic fusion of contemplative, bedsit lyricism and good old-fashioned Canadian rock, gilded with horns, strings, and Baker’s gorgeous voice, which recalls in no small measure that of Coldplay’s Chris Martin.

Most of all, though, the album has the hallmarks of Workman all over it. Crescendos soar, horns flourish, and overstated rock drums underscore epic choruses, especially on the centrepieces “Black Heart” and “Red Heart”, two songs on the same subject that take different sides of the optimist-pessimist coin. Workman’s predilection for drama and bombast is everywhere, and he seems to have pushed the band into radio-friendly territory.

“Our manager e-mailed his manager asking if he’d be into it,” Baker says, “and he [Workman] was, saying things like it was his ”˜dream project’. We were all pretty astonished by it. I think I was influenced by him beforehand. I listen to a lot of things, but when [Workman’s 2001 album] (Last Night We Were) The Delicious Wolves came out, I listened to that for like, three weeks straight.”

That may not seem like much, but when Baker later admits he “isn’t really a fan of any band”, and that he “doesn’t really buy records” or “get excited about anything”, it seems his admiration for Workman is as much as his just-north-of-comatose personality will allow.

After half an hour of rambling through the woods, the band needs to get back on the road. Little is revealed in the interview beyond the fact that, despite the album cover depicting a ship leaving a flaming island, the band has no plans to leave Newfoundland for the artist-friendly enclave of Toronto, despite enormous pressure to do so.

Hey Rosetta! may have enough magic to create a buzz right across the country, but, in the wilds of the Canadian Shield, Baker seems content to leave the majesty to the giant moose dotting the landscape, and the emotion and dynamism for the band’s stage performances.

Hey Rosetta! plays the Media Club on Sunday (June 22).