The roots of pop-punk trio Lemuria may be in Buffalo, N.Y., but thanks to singer/guitarist Sheena Ozzella’s move inside the Beltway, D.C. music fans have reveled in claiming them as a “local” band. Last year, they released the moving power-pop LP The Distance Is So Big, but the project they’re promoting right now is somewhat unique: a 7-inch that comes with an associated comic book. Lemuria is a band that doesn’t shy away from moody riffs and confessional lyricism, and the comic book fits that, as it embodies the sense of fun in their music. In advance of tonight’s show at the Black Cat, we talked to Ozzella about the Russian tour that inspired the comic book, writing an album across three different cities and playing with a band called Prince.

DCist: How many people have heard that you’re going on tour with a band called Prince and have asked you if you’ve been touring with THAT Prince?

Sheena Ozzella: It’s been a crazy thing, actually. We obviously know them so we’re not even thinking about the fact that a lot of people confuse it, but a lot of people have written us and been like, “What? This doesn’t make sense. What?” I think a lot of places are putting Prince and then “of Austin” or something, trying to make it so that it doesn’t seem like it’s actually Prince. But I can’t wait to see the turnout of some of these shows and to see how confused and angry some people are. I can’t wait for anger! I’m pretty sure people will get it.

DCist: Especially considering that you’re not playing stadiums.

SO: Well, Prince is really letting loose these days. Trying to get in touch with his punk roots.

DCist: It sounds like the “Christine” you’re referring to in “Christine Perfect” is Christine McVie of Fleetwood Mac. Why do you consider yourself more of a Christine than a Stevie?

SO: There’s a couple of reasons but I feel like Christine McVie isn’t as popular to some people. I guess it’s all based on opinion. But for the most part I feel like Christine McVie is kind of like—it says in the song “second best” or whatever—I don’t feel that way about Fleetwood Mac. I feel like Christine McVie is my favorite. I can relate to her on that level where some of her songs aren’t as popular. Some of her songs aren’t as catchy for mainstream music as some of the other songs that either Lindsay or Stevie wrote but I lyrically relate to her and presence relate to her. Not to say that I view myself as second best but I think that I have a relationship with her more than I have a relationship with anyone else in Fleetwood Mac. At the time that I was writing that song it made sense that I could relate to her on that level.

DCist: Where did the idea come from to release this 7” alongside a comic book?

We were talking with our friend Mitch [Clem] about it for awhile. He’s the one that did all of the illustrations—him and his partner. He was a part of this series called the Turnstile Comix series that this label called Silver Sprocket puts out. They’ve done two previous to ours but he said that they wanted to do one with us, and Avi [Ehrlich] got in touch—the guy who runs that label—and two years later it happened.

DCist: Oh, so this has been in the works for awhile.

SO: Yeah, for a long time. We’ve been talking back and forth for about two years. It took us awhile to get our songs ready. When we agreed to it when we had been recording and releasing our latest record that came out two years ago. So, we were pretty busy with songwriting for other projects. So basically, we’d said that we wanted to do it but that it might take a little while for us to do our part, which was to write the songs. But also, [the comic] takes a lot of time. They interview you and they get the story and then they’ve got to transcribe the story and then they have to make it funny for the comic. It takes a really long time for all of that stuff to happen. We couldn’t be more pumped at the overall 7” and comic book. We’re really excited about it.

DCist: Without giving too much away, can you give us some more of the story about the tour in Russia that inspired the comic?

SO: Actually, there’s a pretty big part of it online currently. Anyone who wants to see it can see a pretty big portion of it. Basically, we just told the story about our entire Russian tour and all of the surprising things that happened while we were there. We had a run in with thieves and crooked cops and the overall traveling experience was unlike anything we’d ever done before. We spent most of the time in trains going from place to place. Our tour was pretty extensive in a short amount of time. Our train rides were anywhere up to 18+ hours. We’d basically get to a place, play the show and then get back on a train. But in the small amount of time that we were in the towns, we’d walk around. Some places weren’t very safe for us to walk around for a bunch of different reasons. We’d never been anywhere like that before. It was definitely a wild and exciting experience.

DCist: You’re doing a couple of shows on the East Coast with a cellist. How did you come up with that idea and for how many songs will she join you?

SO: Heidi [Vanderlee] is awesome. I’m not exactly sure how it happened originally. We were playing the Chris Gethard Show and she had said to us, “Hey if you want me to come in, I’ll play on ‘Oahu, Hawaii’” which is one of the songs that we recorded with a cello. We were like, “Hell yeah, that would be awesome.” So she came in and she did that and she did another show with us in New York. We played Webster Hall and she did that one with us, too. After that she ended up playing a show with us in Jersey which is awesome because she is just like, “Yeah, I’m down to play shows” and we’re so stoked to have the extra personnel. It’s just a win-win for everybody. I think she’s pumped to play shows and we’re pumped to have her. We’d talked about her coming on a couple days of this tour. We’re still trying to figure out what and how many songs she’s going to play on. We would have her for as much as she wanted to cover. It’s just figuring out which songs work best with that. For sure, she’s going to be playing on at least three songs. It’s funny, one of our songs is called “Lipstick” and she played with us the very first time and I almost stopped playing, I thought it sounded so good. The cello is just such a beautiful addition. I wish we could have her as a permanent member. That would be awesome.

DCist: I know D.C. is a homecoming show for you. But since the three of you live in different places, do you do any writing on the road or is that too much to do at once?

SO: We haven’t really done that before. When we’re on the road we try to focus on the shows and having everything together for those but because we live so far away from each other we have to come up with creative ways to write and it’s just a little bit more concentrated. We’re still traveling to see one another to be in the same place and we’ll spend a week to a month just everyday playing the songs, writing and getting ready. Next year is going to be a big writing year for us so we’ll be doing a lot more of the visiting of each other’s cities and do nothing but write songs.

DCist: Did you record the 7” with J. Robbins as well?

No. We’ve recorded two full-length records with J. Robbins but for the 7” that we most recently put out, we recorded with a guy named Mark Ryan. He just has a studio with his bandmate that’s a garage, basically. We recorded three songs with him. He’s popular for being in a band called the Marked Men and he’s in a band called Radioactivity. He’s a super awesome guy and it’s a cool studio, too. It’s a garage.