Travis Morrison Hellfighters play Thursday night at the Rock & Roll Hotel as part of a benefit show for Survivors and Advocates of Empowerment, with Ra Ra Rasputin and Jukebox the Ghost (***). 8:30 p.m., $10 in advance, $12 at the door. You can read our review of Morrison’s latest album, All Y’all here

What does the new album, All Y’all, mean to you?

Well, it’s the first thing I did with this band. Travistan had a band, but it was small – it was me, and a drummer and a producer in a studio. This was the first thing I did, I guess, as a band leader. I was kind of a band leader in the Plan, but a band leader of people I met when I was like 17, so.

It was a little different?

Yes.

How’d you go about putting this band together?

I asked around, I took out ads… one guy found me. When the Plan was breaking up, one guy who had been in a band that the Plan played with in Florida came to me and said that he was moving to D.C., and if I’d like to play we should do that. And it worked out pretty well.

What does he play?

He’s the bass player, Brandon Kalber.

So did you just try other people out?

Yeah. And the lineup has been through a couple of generations now. Phases. When we were recording, it would kind of be the same group, and I would change one person or one element or instrumentation. The lineup as of yesterday, at practice, is a bit different from what it is on the record – one person is gone, and now there’s two more people. Now there’s two people who are still with the group from the dawn of time, from 2004.

What’s your favorite song on the new record?

Probably “Catch Up.” It was kind of our ah ha moment in terms of some of the crazy things we can do as a band.

Have you been writing anything new lately?

Yeah! Like maniacs, actually. We have a great torrent of new stuff.

Do you have plans to record?

I hope so. Making this record… to say that it was like pulling teeth would imply that pulling teeth takes three years. So it would really be more germane if I were ever at the dentist, and I were having a tooth pulled, and I were to say, “God, this is like getting my last record out!” In terms of metaphorical scope. And probably dentists are a lot better at what they do.