So, why does God hate Young the Giant?

“Oh, he doesn’t. God loves Young the Giant,” insists Eric Cannata. “But yeah, that was some crazy shit, man.”

It really was crazy shit, but no crazier than any of the shit the Westboro Baptist Church is generally noted for. In any event, with nobody else to beat up on that day, America’s number one religious hate group decided to picket when Young the Giant passed through Kansas City two weeks ago, taking to the streets to inform the more extreme Christians among us that the Creator was none too pleased with the Californian indie rockers for… um, what, exactly?

“They put out a press release that was pretty comical about how we swill cough syrup and we don’t comb our hair,” explains the guitarist, if any of that counts as explaining. “Which I don’t. I don’t comb my motherfuckin’ hair. But they picketed our show and the leader of the cult died the next morning after we made a transaction to the Ally Coalition, an LGBTQ foundation. It’s crazy: he died the next day.”

It’s all true. Although the good reverend and possible lifelong closet case Fred Phelps actually kicked the bucket around the same time YTG was ending its set on March 19, if we’re going to be pedantic about it. While Cannata is quick to assure us that “I’m not a murderer,” he’s also willing to take some sideways credit for the timing. “Maybe we brought that upon him,” he says.

Calling the Straight from a tour stop in Saskatoon (where he’s “just learning the ways”, this being his first-ever visit to the jewel of Saskatchewan), Cannata is well aware that somebody either up there or out there really does love Young the Giant. The previous night’s show in Winnipeg was sold out. The status is the same for the second of two Vancouver dates lined up at the Commodore Ballroom on Wednesday and Thursday (April 2 and 3).

More generally, in these days of minusing the bear and fostering the people, the public has elected to make younging the giant its latest and fastest-growing rave. With the tumbledown atmospherics of “My Body” and “Cough Syrup” becoming near ubiquitous back in 2011—the latter is the song that the Westboro geniuses managed to completely misunderstand—Cannata and his four bandmates found themselves on a sudden and vertiginous upward incline.

“I don’t wanna jinx it. We’ve been very fortunate, you know?” says Cannata with admirable humility, or maybe real superstition. He notes that the band’s audience has expanded in all directions, with the 16-to-20-year-olds bouncing up and down up front and “the families and 80-year-olds with their grandkids” filling out the back. “We’ve been close on both tours to selling out every venue. But I don’t want to say anything. Nothing lasts forever and right now we’re just very, very happy and excited to be on the road again.”

Cannata is actually very careful with a lot of his answers, and he’s bent on stressing the “democratic” nature of his band, at one point stating that “we’re always keeping each other in check, the same way we keep our music in check. No one’s head’s getting too big, otherwise we cut it down to the tiny size it really is.”

That might be the key to understanding Young the Giant’s cross-demographic appeal. On new album Mind Over Matter we can hear the Beck and Radiohead influences that the band consistently trots out whenever it’s asked, which is all the time, but there’s a warmth and accessibility that’s purely its own. The five members share a history of friendship that stretches back to their high school years in Irvine, California. The working method on Mind Over Matter, meanwhile, involved shacking up together in a home-built studio and working the living shit out of their new material. “Okay, that’s what we have but it’s still not there, still not there, still not there…” is how Cannata remembers the gruelling pursuit of quality undertaken by the band (with producer and Beck stalwart Justin Meldal-Johnsen adding some big-time gloss to the process.)

The crisp and undeniably catchy results are front and centre on singles like “It’s About Time” and especially “Crystallized”. The band had already mastered the art of instant alt-rock gratification on 2010’s self-titled debut album, but “Crystallized” and a handful of other numbers—the title track comes to mind—are embellished with synth and a heightened attention to percussion and other big-league frills.

Cannata stresses that his major interest is the pulse of the band’s music. “I don’t think of myself as a lead or rhythm guitarist. I think of me and (guitarist) Jake [Tilley] as both, together,” he says. “I grew up playing blues. That was what I really started getting into when I first started playing guitar, and so I have a deep, deep connection with our rhythm section. I stare at our drummer for half of the set because I wanna lock in with him the way we lock in when we recorded live together.”

Cannata also lets it slip briefly that there’s a “disco” influence somewhere in there, although if we want to play spot the quote, how about that “Young Americans” drum fill that takes us into “Mind Over Matter”? The guitarist instantly gushes: “David Bowie is just a chameleon. It’s like, we love Low, and Heroes, and Lodger and all the albums he did in Berlin when he moved out there and decided to fuse his pop sensibility with glam and funkiness with the krautrock scene and just murder everybody, you know?” he says. “He just changed his entire character. I love character. I love cartoon characters, shit like that.”

Hey, we all love cartoon characters, except when they show up at your gig in Kansas City, complaining about your ungodly hair.

Young the Giant plays the Commodore Ballroom on Wednesday and Thursday (April 2 and 3).