When the Straight reaches Boy & Bear keyboardist Jon Hart in Minneapolis, he admits that, understandably, he’s feeling a little tired.

“Recently, we’ve been playing somewhere between 150 and 170 shows in a year,” the Sydney-based musician says. “It seems like it’s one of those tales where the number grows each time, but the amount of dates is pretty demanding either way.

“As soon as we arrived from Europe, we headed straight into the U.S. We cross into Canada tomorrow, and then drive down to finish up in San Diego early next month. Then we’ll fly home and do a regional tour of Australia.”

While the band’s schedule might seem punishing, however, Hart is the first to credit the group’s live shows with its success on the indie-rock circuit. Using international tours to reach new audiences, Boy & Bear’s busy calendar has contributed to securing its status as a multiplatinum-selling group, and—most importantly of all—providing the five-piece with a fresh idea for its latest album.

“Having such a frenzied set of tour dates definitely made us play better as a unit,” the keyboardist says. “All that practice made us confident about where to go next. On our previous LP, Harlequin Dream, we had a lot of songs that we thought could have been better if we’d captured the live energy a bit more.

“We didn’t want to repeat that mistake on our newest record, Limit of Love, and that was one of the reasons we chose Ethan Johns to produce it.

“Ethan is famous for recording everyone playing together in one room, in one take, and we hoped he would be able to capture our touring sound,” Hart continues. “His configurations of the mikes made our instruments fill the entire space of the track, so once all our basic parts were recorded, there wasn’t really any room for more overdubs.

“When we listened back, the songs already felt complete—so the whole album is pretty much live.”

Sporting a more classic sound than the band’s folky hits “Southern Sun” and “A Moment’s Grace”, Limit of Love sees Boy & Bear channelling musical icons from the ’70s and ’80s. Kicking off with a groove reminiscent of Steely Dan’s masterpiece “Do It Again”, the record segues into lead single “Walk the Wire”—a track with a crunchy guitar riff and simple synth line that recall Brothers in Arms–era Dire Straits.

Never venturing too far from the group’s jaunty style, however, Limit of Love represents a more mature version of the band’s sound.

“In terms of influences that cross over for all five of us, I think that classic rock seems to make it into everyone’s palette at some point or other,” Hart says. “The stuff that stays listenable throughout time always has elements from that genre, which Ethan helped us with.

“And the positive thing about recording in that style is that the songs are really easy to play live—which works out well for us.”

Boy & Bear plays the Commodore Ballroom on Saturday (October 29).