Spend enough time talking to indie-rock musicians who have signed major-label contracts and you’re bound to hear some horror stories. Russell Pollard has no such tales of woe. The singer, guitarist, and sometime drummer for Everest is refreshingly free from vitriol when he discusses the band’s tenure on Warner Bros. Records, which released the second Everest full-length, On Approach, in 2010. Reached at his new home in Nashville, the formerly California-based Pollard simply says it was a bad fit: the label wasn’t clear on what it expected from the artist, so the two parted ways.

Everest titled its next album Ownerless, suggesting the group—with members living in Music City and Los Angeles—relishes the liberty that came with divorcing Warner and signing with the artist-driven ATO Records.

Musically, 2012’s Ownerless revels in freedom from stylistic constraints, with Pollard and company moving capably from the scorched-synapses psychedelic boogie of “Rapture” to the Tennessee-sunset breeziness of “Raking Me Over the Coals”.

Pollard says Everest will take an even looser approach when it assembles to write its next record at guitarist Joel Graves’s L.A. studio, New Monkey. The idea, Pollard reveals, is to show up without any preconceived song ideas and just see what happens. “I think we do that a lot when we sound-check before shows,” he says. “Some of my favourite things that we play are just jams that come out of nowhere when we’re setting up and getting our gear going. So I think that’s all it takes: to just be in the same room together, with all the volume that we have on-stage, and have mikes there to capture it. That’s it.”

If that sounds like a plan that isn’t really a plan, so be it. Pollard says he’s done with putting pressure on himself to make Everest a success.

“For a while I was holding on so tight to this band and what we were doing and what our future was,” he says. “It’s as if I was crushing a bird in my hand. Instead of letting it fly away, I was holding on too tight. I think all of us were. I think maybe this move to Nashville and the way the touring has been this summer has allowed us to breathe fresh air into the band, and as a result the shows on this summer tour have been fantastic. And it’s fun again, which is the whole point of playing music.

“I’m a very childlike person, and I’ve never really grown up,” Pollard continues. “In some ways I have, but with music I still am a kid, and I have a lot of fun with it. There was a period where I didn’t. And I’m back to that [joyful] place. I can see it in the eyes of the rest of the band—that they have that childlike fascination and happiness and approach to what we’re doing. Man, that’s when good stuff happens. That’s when it’s really amazing.”