They're one of this city's most recognizable exports, but indie-rock icons The Weakerthans are coming home for the holidays.

The acclaimed quartet -- who released their fourth album Reunion Tour to the usual raves in the fall -- are in town for a show at The Burt this weekend, and fans can expect a stockingful of tracks from the appropriately wintry disc.

We caught up with frontman John K. Samson in Zurich, Switzerland, to talk about winter, work ethics, and his love affair with Winnipeg.

You guys have been on the road since September, and in Europe for three weeks. Are you looking forward to coming home for Christmas?

I am looking forward to it. I hear there's snow now. I love the winter, and I was sad about missing the first snowfall -- I usually want to see that. Of course, once I'm there, I might feel differently.

Reunion Tour took just two weeks to record, and while the lyrics were complete when you guys reconvened, the music itself wasn't. Did that end up working in your favour?

It did. I think it was kind of our most collaborative record, in a sense. We had some things unfinished, and the potential (was there) to do some different things before the songs were set in stone. And our producer, Ian Blurton, certainly came in and messed around a bit with the tunes. It was one of those really productive and exciting times.

Two weeks seems pretty speedy. Is that typical for you guys?

No, the last one (2003's Reconstruction Site) took quite a bit longer. We kind of just really focused and worked 12-hour days, so I guess technically it took longer than two weeks, if you count the actual hours of labour.

Pretty much all the press for Reunion Tour describes it as the Weakerthans' "wintriest" album yet. Your thoughts?

I guess I wrote a lot of the lyrics during the winter. We tour a lot less during the winter, so that's always when I try to write lyrics.

Plus, you've got songs about curling and hockey goalies on there, and your website has you guys shopping around for an NHL team.

Yeah, that was a bit of tour boredom ... But I think it probably is just growing up in Winnipeg. That's really what defines Winnipeg, despite what all the murals in our city tell us. Life is really about the winter ... and it's the season I'm most interested in.

Speaking of Winnipeg, The Onion AV Club recently ranked your tune One Great City (best known for its "I hate Winnipeg" refrain) as one of its Top 18 Kiss-Off Songs to Cities. Not surprisingly, this re-opened the whole message board debate over whether the song is a kiss-off, a love song, or something between, Care to set the record straight?

Yeah, I'd say it's a little of both. I always have to point out that song was written in the first person of three or four different characters, and none of them is me, or could even vaguely be construed as me. When people ask me why I'd say I hate Winnipeg, I always have to say I didn't, and that I've never said it ... But on the other hand, a citizen does have the right to point out the failures of a place. Maybe that's not even a right, it's a duty. Winnipeg has a lot of failure to it as a functioning city, but I also do love it.

You've described yourself as a booster for Winnipeg -- or an ambassador, anyway -- while you're out on the road.

I am a booster, Maybe not in the chamber of commerce sense, but ...

So you're not going to pop up in any Spirited Energy campaigns?

Heh -- I don't think so, no.