Peter Bjorn and John tour takes ‘Living Thing’ on the road

Swedish rock trio Peter Bjorn and John (PB&J) will tour the North American shores this spring in support of an upcoming album release. The 12-date trek opens on April 21 at Fine Line Music Café in Minneapolis, MN, and ends on May 2 at 9:30 Club in Washington, DC.

During the mostly East Coast-based jaunt, the band will stop for an April 23 concert at metro in Chicago, IL, and an April 29 gig at Webster Hall in New York, NY. Three dates are booked for Canada: April 25 at Phoenix Theatre in Toronto, ON; April 26 at Capital Music Hall in Ottawa, ON; and April 27 at Le National in Montreal, QC.

PB&J is touring behind the release of their fifth studio album, “Living Thing,” which is set for release in the U.S. on March 31. The record is a follow-up to last year’s vinyl- and digital-only release “Seaside Rock.” The trio’s first U.S. chart breakthrough came in the form of 2007’s “Writer’s Block,” which topped the Heatseekers chart and creeped onto the Billboard 200 at No. 155.

The band takes its title from the first names of guitarist Peter Morén, bassist Björn Yttling and drummer John Eriksson, who all share vocal duties. However, the band name’s lack of punctuation initially caused some confusion about how many members were in the group. The first EP release from PB&J used a comma to separate the names, but the decision to lose the punctuation on future releases was purely typographical.

“It didn’t look that great, you know. We don’t have anything against it; it just doesn’t look good in the logotype,” Yttling explained in a 2007 interview with Pitchfork Media, when asked about the confusion caused by the lack of punctuation. “It wasn’t a problem when we were in Sweden, because nobody ever thinks [Peter Björn] is somebody’s name.”

Peter Bjorn and John itinerary:
(Dates are subject to change.)