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Tim Baker just got back to his Newfoundland home in the midst of a tour that he calls 'a long and a far one.'

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rockin’ with hey Rosetta!: Newfoundland’s Hey Rosetta! is in Fredericton, performing at The Capital bar tonight. The band is promoting its full-length studio debut, Into Your Lungs (And Around In Your Heart And On Through Your Blood).

Baker is lead singer/songwriter/pianist/guitarist of the band Hey Rosetta!

Now he's on the road again. But it's worth it. The band is just starting to take off.

The band that Baker fronts is aggressively crisscrossing the country in support of its full-length studio debut, Into Your Lungs (And Around In Your Heart And On Through Your Blood).

Hey Rosetta! plays in Fredericton tonight at The Capital.

"This tour is a lot better than our last one," says Baker, speaking via cellphone in the back of a van going from St. John's to Cornerbrook, Newfoundland.

He attributes it to more of a buzz around the band, which really started to make a name for itself last year with the EP Plan Your Escape.

The tour started June 3 with a CD release party in Toronto.

From there, the band toured the CD in western Canada.

"We got all the way to Vancouver and turned around and came back."

Back, in the case of this six-piece band, is Newfoundland. The band spent a week at home with three shows nestled into that mini-break.

Now, they are on the last leg of the tour that eventually sees them play the Evolve festival in Antigonish, N.S. July 25.

Then, there really will be a bit of a break. Baker looks forward to it.

Apart from working on a video, he says he'll get to write a bit.

That writing is key for Hey Rosetta! The band is Baker's muse.

He has written songs for as long as he can remember - "since a song I wrote in elementary school for a girl," he quipped - and he is always looking for song fodder.

"It has been a while since I have written with all of the touring," Baker admits.

"However, I am always writing down things that occur to me that might be good ideas for songs, as well as listening to other people's songs.

"When I get home, I kind of lock myself away for a while with the guitar and the piano."

Baker takes the ideas that he has been ruminating upon and writes melodies first.

"Then I come up with lyrics to lay them in, and then I lay in some rhythms," he says.

The approach is the same one that he has employed for years. However, with Into Your Lungs (And Around In Your Heart And On Through Your Blood) he had the extra benefit of fronting a touring band which gave extra life and depth to his material.

Baker explains that he returned to St. John's in 2005. He had spent a few years in Montreal earning a bachelor of arts in sociology and creative writing.

After taking a trip to California, and then plugging away like a number of graduates of this millennium - getting a job to pay some debts - he decided to follow his dream.

"I had all of these songs. I had written them myself, and was playing them in bars by myself.

"I just felt that the songs deserved more and had more places to go."

Baker "met some folks slowly and randomly" and "mentioned the idea of a band to some people."

A core quartet soon emerged- drummer Dave Lane, bassist Josh Ward, guitarist Adam Hogan, and Baker. Lane would soon depart to be replaced by Derek Pink.

Six months later, Pink also left and was replaced by Phil Maloney.

At around the same time, Baker decided that some of the songs could be further fleshed out by strings, so he added Kinley Dowling (violin) and Romesh Thavanathan (cello).

Piano is Baker's primary instrument. He had many years of piano training.

However, he rotates in about a 50/50 split between piano and guitar on stage, he said.

With the new album, the extra touch is the production of Canadian singer-songwriter Hawksley Workman.

The unique artist is a good fit for the also-unique fusion that makes up a Baker composition.

Baker describes his music this way: "It's always moving. It can be pretty heavy or loud rock but it has a pretty big singer-songwriter feel at times. There are also some classical influences and some post punk and indie rock."

Baker says that the show on this tour is geared around Into Your Lungs (And Around In Your heart And On Through Your Blood), but there would still be lots of cuts from Plan Your Escape.

Tickets are $8 advance and $10 at the door for Thursday's show. The opening act is Jon and Roy.

Hey Rosetta! is scheduled to take the stage at The Capital bar at 10 p.m.