The cover of Dustbowl Revival's latest album, “Is it You, is it Me.”

Dustbowl Revival’s most recent album may be titled “Is it You, is it Me,” but the songs suggest the real answer: It is us.

Throughout the record, which features some of the most politically charged songs the Americana/roots/swing band has written, unity comes up again and again as an underlying theme. And as the group starts touring behind the album, it has found audiences ready to unite — at least where music is concerned.

“There’s a lot of really emotional territory covered (in the album) where we’re sort of questioning ourselves as artists and why we keep doing this — what is the real point of making music?” lead vocalist, songwriter and guitarist Zach Lupetin said recently from home in California while on a break from touring behind the album. “And in the end, for me, it’s about bringing people together who would never be in the same room and having a conversation that would never have happened otherwise. Music is the great equalizer and the thing we can all agree on in these crazy, divided times, and if we can foster a community that can maybe start talking about gun control and climate change and mental health, it’s a really positive thing.”

When he spoke with GO! Magazine, Lupetin had just returned from an East Coast tour, including dates in the South. “Even going into the South, the reception has been nothing but positive,” Lupetin said. The band — also featuring vocalist Liz Beebe, drummer Josh Heffernan, trumpet/keyboardist Matt Rubin, trombonist Ulf Bjorlin, fiddler Connor Vance and bassist Yosmel Montejo — will return to Sisters and the Sisters Folk Festival to play the next show in the organization’s winter concert series at Sisters High School on Friday.

“We see a lot of smaller towns in rural America especially that are really struggling, and you can see why there’s a lot of anger and dissatisfaction there,” he said. “The hope is that you can bring music to them to both brighten their day and make them think a little bit too. I think we fall into bad habits as citizens, and people maybe will tell us, ‘It’s not your job to tell us to go out and vote and participate in our democracy.’ But I think the time for sort of standing idly by has passed. We have to do what we can as artists and storytellers.”

Songs such as “Enemy,” a look at how political differences can divide families by generation, and “Get Rid of You” fit the album’s socially conscious themes. “Get Rid of You,” which was inspired by the 2018 high school shooting in Parkland, Florida, and the subsequent organization of students in protest to the government’s lack of response, in particular represented a turning point of sorts for Lupetin as a more conscious songwriter.

“I think a lot of times you don’t have the courage to really speak out and to stand up for what you believe in, and you hope other people will do it for you,” he said. “Seeing what those kids at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School did in organizing and amplifying their voices to really try to make a change for the better, and really get legislation passed that can make sure these types of mass shootings don’t happen anymore, was something that was super inspiring.”

But that wasn’t the only inspiration. One of the first songs written for the album, the meticulously constructed “Sonic Boom,” helped set the band on the orchestral-rock course it took for much of the album’s songs.

The song is about “telling the person in love with you who you really are behind all the social media filters we put on ourselves,” Lupetin said.

“A lot of times we have to tell people we care about what’s really going on, and the secrets and the pain you haven’t revealed,” he said. “That’s what being intimate is about, and it’s almost like being intimate with our audience through these songs.”

“Sonic Boom” also is one of three songs co-written with mandolinist Daniel Mark, who left the group in late 2019 along with former bassist James Klopfleisch. It’s not the first time the band has lost members — over the years the lineup has swelled to up to 15 musicians .

“When you have a good band — a seven-, eight-piece band — some people do come in and out at times,” Lupetin said. “It’s not really a deficit at all, because we’ve been able to bring in some new sounds. And our new bass player, Yosmel Montejo, is an incredible player, and he’s added this new level of musicianship and energy to the band.”

This year marks 13 years of Dustbowl Revival. Lupetin, a Chicago native, formed the band after relocating to Venice, California. The name references John Steinbeck’s “The Grapes of Wrath,” which in some ways mirrors Lupetin’s own journey to California to pursue his dreams.

That pursuit initially started in a much different place. Lupetin worked in advertising in California, “writing Taco Bell commercials, casting Disneyland commercials, stuff like that.” He also wrote — and still writes — plays and movies.

“(I) was always playing in bands on the side as my sort of obsession,” Lupetin said. “And then I got laid off from (the advertising job), and it was like, ‘All right, maybe this is the universe telling you that this is what you should be doing.’”

More Information

What: Dustbowl Revival

When: 7 p.m. Friday

Where: Sisters High School, 1700 McKinney Butte Road, Sisters

Cost: $20 plus fees in advance, $10 plus fees in advance for ages 18 and younger

Contact: sistersfolkfestival.org or 541-549-4979