Warpaint is a band whose unique sound defies precise description. The band – Emily Kokal (guitar, vocals and synthesizer), Theresa Wayman (guitar, vocals and keyboard), Jenny Lee Lindberg (bass and backing vocals) and Stella Mozgawa (drums, keyboard and backing vocals) – formed in 2004 and has released three albums since, most recently the eponymous "Warpaint," which appeared in January.

The virtue of the quartet's sound is found in a balance between qualities – it is understated but edgy, ambient but not droning, and gentle but definitely bad-ass. These effective combinations have gained Warpaint plenty of attention in a niche but expanding crowd of listeners internationally and Milwaukee is lucky enough to host the band again -- this time at The Pabst Theater on Saturday, Oct. 4.

The band is in the middle of this tour for its latest album, starting in North America and continuing throughout Europe. I talked to Theresa Wayman in late September and throughout our conversation she was honest, thoughtful and patient – much like her band's music. We talked about the creative process, music and all the new hype it's getting.

OnMilwaukee.com: I read somewhere about your latest album "Warpaint" that most of the songs came from the four of you just "jamming out" together. Is that how you typically come up with new material, and that said, are there any particular routines you follow? For example, do you do you the instrumentals first, and add lyrics later?

Theresa Wayman: A lot of the albums did come from jams, someone starting something – a guitar riff or bass riff, and then we all just have a free-for-all. It happens spontaneously in the moment, but we let everyone have their input on what they want to do with it. And it's really fun for us to do it that way.

OMC: Do you collaborate on the lyrics?

TW: Most of the time the lyrics are written solely by the person who's singing, like 99 percent of the time. I guess if I'm writing on my own I'll find a progression I really like, and then the melody is made off of that. But "Shadows" was just the lyrics and melody first and there were no chords to it, and we wrote the music after. That one was done in reverse.

OMC: What kinds of things do you reach to for inspiration? Any habits you practice that create your preferred music-making mindset?

TW: Having a nice cup of tea, listening to an album that happens to be inspiring you at the time and getting a couple ideas, then sitting down and trying to put them into the physical world so it's not just an idea in your head. You get an idea like it might be good to do a melody over a beat, but then you sit down and come up with something concrete and it's either amazing or it turns out to be a stepping stone to something you do later, but the work is important.

OMC: Your lyrics seem consistently mysterious, sometimes even evasive. Do you intentionally approach repeated themes or concepts, or do they just naturally surface from who you are as individuals? Can you say what those themes are, and why you deal with them?

TW: It's just in us to not be too obvious. I mean I always try to make sense and have what I'm saying be intelligible so people can understand and relate to it but it never feels natural to be too clear.

I like to write about love and relationships and I like to write about self-discovery, it sounds really dorky (laughs) but things that you go through and just trying to relate to the world as a human.

OMC: Which artists inspire you, musically and otherwise? Any music or art that you're obsessed with?

TW: Right now I'm gong through a really heavy Bob Dylan phase, but I'm not going to go write a folk song just because he inspires me right now. I might go write some simple format folk-inspired poetry but the inspiration isn't so obvious in the music, it's just getting a flavor. You can be inspired by a ton of things, and it goes the same for whatever happens to be inspiring you at the time.

OMC: Did any of you hope or expect to be performing on the level you are now, or has it taken you by surprise?

TW: I would hope to be performing and sharing what we're doing with as many people as possible because I feel like we have something special and I believe in what we do. We were a band about five years before we made "The Fool." Some times I think, you know, why did we take so long? But we were finding our sound. And we didn't have a drummer for a long time, we kept changing and that made things take longer. Then we finally found Stella and now she's been with us four years.

OMC: Who do you go to for constructive criticism and guidance with your music, outside of those who are helping you craft an album? Do you find that certain reviews are useful to read? Or do you tend to keep that out of your focus?

TW: I read a lot of reviews and then I get sick of reading them and I stop for a while but it's important to see how we're being received, and not be completely oblivious to that aspect of what you're doing. It's important to see what your strengths and weaknesses are in order to hone your craft. Our friend Jake Bercovici who produced our first EP "Exquisite Corpse" is someone who we work with a lot and we've always gone to him for his opinion; he has a very musical mind so he has great insight. But some of the things people write are so distorted, there are just crazy things written on the internet.

OMC: What is the highlight of performing so much, and what is the biggest challenge?

TW: The highlight and the challenge are the same thing and it's playing every night. It's such a great thing to do, it's so fun and cathartic. It's like exercising every night but better, it's so good for the heart and body and mind. But how do you continually get in the right zone every day, how do you find the energy for that? That gets especially difficult when you're traveling.

OMC: What songs in any of your three albums have been especially important to you, and why?

TW: They're all important. That song "Hi" is important because it was written about a really bonding moment that we all had as a band over the death of a girl who we visited when she was on her death bed. It was a really intense moment but that was good for us because it made us appreciate what we have. Because you know, you never want to take what you have for granted. So that song came out of it.

OMC: Your latest album seemed more experimental to me than "The Fool" and "Exquisite Corpse," maybe less accessible (songs like "CC," "Hi," and "Disco//very"). Would you agree? Would you say that some of your music is more experimental, and some of it more formulaic? Do you consciously go in either direction?

TW: It’s weird because I was trying to be more formulaic on this album. "Hi" has a mood but it's form is verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge-chorus, it's got a pop structure and so does "Feeling Alright." But who knows, everyone has their own opinion. It goes back to what we were saying before about how it's really difficult for us to be obvious.

OMC: So you could set out to make a specific sound and it ends up sounding the opposite to other people.

TW: Yeah, any time we go toward something obvious we end up changing it.

OMC: Based on your experience in your own band, what do you feel is the most important ingredient for success? It seems like you and Stella, Jenny and Emily are best friends. Would you say that's been critical for your accomplishments? For example, can you imagine making this your life with another group of people?

TW: Yeah definitely, I can't imagine playing music with people I don't like. If our relationship was falling apart I would move on to something else. It's been important to build good communication and always work out any kinks in our relationships.

OMC: What's next for you? Any big plans you can share with us?

TW: I think we're going to try to release a version of "No Way Out" in a few months. That's a song we've been playing live but haven't released... and then we're going to start writing again in January so that's exciting.

OMC: How was your experience of Milwaukee (the band opened for Nick Cave at the Milwaukee Theatre earlier this year)?

TW: I liked it, I don't remember where we played but I loved it there! I honestly love that part of America. I really enjoy touring there.