During his current jaunt across the continent, David Lowery is wearing two hats.

No, really.

"I literally do change hats and shirts so that there's a different vibe," Lowery says of the tour, which features both of his influential rock acts Camper Van Beethoven and Cracker.

"I don't know why that is ... But I literally wear a different hat."

The Camper one he admits is, suitably, of the ball cap or hunter cap with earflap variety, and the Cracker one, again, in keeping with the music, is a cowboy hat.

The latter one Lowery's been wearing for most of the past dozen years, forming the country rock act out of the ashes of Camper after the '80s punk folk act ran its course.

"I think we genuinely were visionary," says Lowery, noting that when they first started out, some people dismissed them as a novelty punk act akin to The Dead Milkmen, thanks to cheeky Camper humour found in tunes such as Take the Skinheads Bowling.

"I think we genuinely were ahead of the curve. It's hard to say that about yourself without it being stupid, but we really were.

"We set the stage for alt. country and a lot of bands that came out in the last few years have referenced Camper Van Beethoven so much ... I think we influenced a lot of people."

The reunion tour, which stops at the U of C's MacEwan Hall tonight, comes after Lowery got the itch when cleaning up for release the band's long forgotten reading of Fleetwood Mac's Tusk album.

Now, Camper's fully reformed and working on a new album.

"Somebody asked me in an interview what band shouldn't get back together and I think I included us," he says.

"I don't like when bands get back together and they make another record that nobody cares about. We're trying to overcome one of the biggest jinxes there is."

And what's more, they're trying to do it in a world that's probably generally indifferent to them to begin with.

For while the band's legacy is undeniable, the name Camper Van Beethoven still resides mainly in the underground and in the circles of music critics and musicians.

A reunion certainly doesn't carry with it the same kind of hype as that of The Pixies, something Lowery professes to not being bothered by, but does openly wonder why that is.

"Actually, maybe they had some sort of commercial success -- more than Camper Van Beethoven did," he says. "But if you include Cracker's legacy with Camper's legacy clearly ..." Lowery stops.

"I mean," he says, modesty giving way to pride in his bands, "if you include Cracker sales we've vastly outsold what the Pixies have ever sold. Frankly."