Chillin' with the Shins

Delta Spirit’s next full-length, set to come out in 2010, will be titled Natalie Portman Says This Album Will Change Your Life, riffing on a line from the 2004 movie Garden State.

In the movie, Portman’s character was referring to the 2001 record Oh, Inverted World by indie-rock band the Shins.

“It worked for those guys,” says Delta Spirit bassist Jon Jameson in an email about the album title.

The title is even more fitting, considering the quintet recently returned from a cross-country, monthlong tour opening up for the Shins.

“There was a great response,” says Jameson about the tour. "[The Shins] aren’t a gimmick band, and we hope to be the same. I think that’s why their fans responded the way they did.”

The band’s favorite show during the 17-show tour was at Baltimore venue Ram’s Head Live.

“The venue was amazing and had about five different levels,” says Jameson. “There were people everywhere you looked.”

Overall, says Jameson, the tour was unlike any previous Delta Spirit tour.

“It was the least exciting, most chilled-out tour that I have been on. It was great and honestly felt more like a vacation to us than a tour, compared to the long drives and longer nights that we are used to. We had three days in Seattle and two in Portland. We are used to a rushed afternoon in each town with a tour of the local Taco Bell on the way out.”

Delta Spirit will be one of the hundred-plus bands at the Bonnaroo Festival in Manchester, Tennessee, starting June 11.