It has been a hectic month for Conrad Keely and his bandmates as they recently decided to fend for themselves after dropping the burden of their Interscope recording contract. ...And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead (ToD) has never taken well to settling down and has always been on the move in search of more and more creative space. Now, with the addition of two more members, the end of their obligation with Interscope and a jam-packed tour to end the year, the band has finally grown out of their confinements and into themselves ... and their gigantic name.

“Our name wasn’t always that long,” explained singer/guitarist/drummer Conrad Keely. “We added ‘...And’ in front of it to move our albums up the alphabetical listing.”

With such an aggressively epic and anthemic sound, however, ToD’s music should not need the help of the alphabet to set their music apart from the rest. Their most recent album, So Divided, proves to be a genre-defying collage of predictable pop, free-floating atmosphere, and experimental songwriting.

“It’s pretty much just rock and roll,” Keely told. “I like the term ‘art rock’ because it has the word ‘art’ in it, but 200 years from now when historians are studying our music, these terms are going to be meaningless.”

Conrad’s dismissal of categorizing sound not only has given freedom and diversity to his own music, but has also allowed his band to accept and associate with music different from their own. To finish the year, ToD signed onto Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim Tour, sharing the stage with heavy metal cartoon-animated group Dethklok. The tour consists of an ambitious 25 stops in just over a month with admission being free for college students.

“It could be fun,” Keely said. “We’re still not sure if [Adult Swim] is a good idea, though. But this is how a show should be, presenting a variety of different styles.”

And it is not like ToD is that far removed from such heavy music — Conrad and his bandmates have been known to destroy equipment on stage, just like influences such as The Who and Nirvana. “The key is to continue playing on whatever it is you destroyed after it’s broken,” Keely explained. “It needs to be spontaneous; we never plan it. We were just always destructive kids. Jason [vocals/guitar] used to smash mailboxes with his head when we were young.”

Although ToD has since grown out of their destructive tendencies, it is these changes that keep them fresh and exciting. With a newfound freedom away from a label and concentration on a new album, ToD’s nomadic nature proves that change is their secret to success.