Kevin Devine may be one of the most well rounded musicians in the industry. Not class president, football team captain kind of well rounded; we’re talking multiple bands, a discography approaching double digits, and music history knowledge that would leave the most seasoned scholars astonished. The DePaulia caught up with Devine before his rocking Aug. 3 Lollapalooza set to discuss touring life, upcoming projects, and dream festival lineups.

The DePaulia: How do you go from a small venue like Lincoln Hall (where he played a Lollapalooza after party the previous night) to a huge festival like Lollapalooza?
Kevin Devine: Its [Lollapalooza’s] magnitude is insane. We’ll probably play for-if we’re lucky-five hundred to a thousand people. We’re on a smaller stage, there’s a lot happening while we’re playing. But I know that our people will make it out and it’ll be great. But it’s pretty easy for me to keep right-sized about that kind of stuff based on where I am. And where I am is lucky as hell; and I don’t mean that in a golly gee gumdrops kind of way. We deserve to be here and we have our people and they keep expanding. I feel really proud of the career I’ve been able to build because I feel like it flies in the face of what’s happening in the music industry to some extent.

DP: How do you decide whether or not a song should be an acoustic or hard rock?
KD: All of them start as acoustic songs and they kind of get built out from there. I feel like I can hear it sometimes, “Oh this should be loud drums, this should be distorted guitar, this should be more aggressive vocal,” or “this should have violin or piano.” Or sometimes I’ll record it one way and when it’s time to play it live I don’t want to play it like that anymore. I think the songs should have freedom to breathe and move around. I mean, you breathe and move around, your songs should too.

DP: Do you have a favorite stage persona-the stripped-down troubadour or the dynamic rock front man?
KD: It depends on the context; I prefer to have the option where I can do both. I feel like with a band it’s a lot more physical, and when I play by myself it’s about trying to capture a crowd’s attention with fewer dynamics. I don’t want be the sad sack, mewing singer-songwriter; I’ve never been interested in that.

DP: You covered Nirvana’s “Nevermind” in its entirety last year. How did you decide to and approach such an iconic album without being intimidated?
KD: You kind of have to get that out of your head when you do something like that. We did it just for fun. Nirvana is one of our favorite bands in our group and it was something we could credibly do. It’s one of the records I know how to play every song on. I used to come home from high school and go in the basement and plug my guitar in and play that record and sing it. It was a big record for all of us, so it was kind of a no-brainer.

DP: How do you feel your most recent album compares to your last few?
KD: I feel really proud of that record. I like its concision; I like the execution of the songs; I like where we took it; I like the production. I feel like it makes sense. Every record has taken a step since the one before and is a bit of a reaction to the one before.

DP: Some songwriters only write about their own experiences, others only write through the eyes of others. Where do you fall?
KD: I fall in the middle with the understanding that I don’t have rules about that stuff and with the understanding that even if I’m writing through the eyes of others or about others it’s always through my prism. I don’t belief that we’re totally dispossessed of ourselves when we write those things. A song on “Between the Concrete and Clouds” [Devine’s most recent album] called “Awake in the Dirt” is about a book by Philip Roth called “American Pastoral.” It’s about the characters in that book, but that doesn’t mean I’m not in there somewhere.

DP: What’s coming up next for you?
KD: This tour is up August 18, I’m home for a month and a half, Bad Books [Devine’s super group with members of Manchester Orchestra] puts out another record in early October and we’ll do some touring around that. I’m going do some regional things around New York for the rest of the year and I’m gonna start working on my next records early next year.

DP: Who are your influences right now?
KD: The Walkmen record is really great. I like Dr. Dog’s new record a lot. But it’s always the same with Neil Young and Bob Dylan and Hank Williams, Elliot Smith, Nirvana, The Pixies and Sonic Youth-those are kind of the abiding artists.

DP: What’s your dream festival lineup?
KD: Oh God, everyone I just mentioned. Plus Superchunk, Arcade Fire on “Funeral,” all my friends’ bands, The Beatles would be nice, The Zombies, The Kinks, NWA, Eminem in 2000. Those are the ones off the top of my head. Oh, and Sinead O’Connor. Oh, and Sam Cooke!

Kevin Devine’s sixth studio album, “Between the Concrete and Clouds,” is available now.