The Travis Ehrenstrom Band will perform at McMenamins Old St. Francis School on Sunday for a New Year's Eve show.

Before we dig into the album-release show happening at McMenamins Old St. Francis School later this month, the new album to be celebrated at said show and the band that made that album, we need to do a brief history lesson and draw a line between a couple of different creative entities.

Travis Ehrenstrom is a local singer-songwriter who has been one of Central Oregon’s most reliably interesting musicians for more than a decade. Under his own name, he has released a handful of albums and EPs filled with relatively quiet, acoustic folk-pop songs.

The Travis Ehrenstrom Band is not just Ehrenstrom, but six guys who have been playing funky fusion-rock jams together for about seven years, fitting in high-energy gigs wherever they can given their busy individual schedules.

These parallel projects have made for some tricky branding decisions. Ehrenstrom’s 2018 album, for example, sports his name on the cover, but it features the full band.

“I’ve sort of lived in these two musical worlds for the last several years,” Ehrenstrom said.

So it’s time for a change. The Travis Ehrenstrom Band is now TEB, and TEB will celebrate the release of its first official album, “Hollinshead,” on March 30 at McMenamins.

As implied by the new name, TEB is a collective effort — a long-running and tightly knit one at that — that includes Ehrenstrom (vocals/guitar), Patrick Pearsall (bass/vocals), Conner Bennett (guitar), Patrick Ondrozeck (keys), Kyle Pickard (drums) and Gregg Morris (guitar).

“This band is way more than just me,” Ehrenstrom said, “and it’s greater than the sum of its parts.”

Each member of TEB has other musical projects and/or creative pursuits, which makes scheduling practices challenging. But their synergy — strengthened by many years spent playing together — makes up for the

“We try to be the best least-rehearsed band out there,” Ehrenstrom said.

Spurred by a post-COVID return to live shows and the recollection that playing together was a heck of a good time, TEB recorded “Hollinshead” at Morris’ house in Bend. The album is only five tracks long, but they run from four minutes to 14 minutes long, giving the band ample room to spread out, lock into a groove or blast off into the cosmos.

“This is much more of the music I’ve always wanted to make, because being in a band and being part of a collaborative effort is so much more rewarding for me as an artist and as a person,” Ehrenstrom said. “For me, it was important to document this side of my writing and this group of dudes, because it’s much more of a reflection of the stuff I listen to and the type of stuff that I would do for the rest of my life if I could.”

The songs on “Hollinshead” also reflect TEB’s approach to music-making, Ehrenstrom said, which leans heavily on freedom of expression, unexpected turns, open-ended intentions, happy accidents and a healthy bit of uncertainty about how to get from the beginning of a song to its end.

“Especially on this record, you get moments you couldn’t script if you tried, and that’s what I really love,” he said. “Every time I play with those guys, there’s one of those moments where it’s just like, ‘Whoa! I can’t believe we just did that.’”

What: TEB album-release show

When: 6-9 p.m. March 30

Where: McMenamins Old St. Francis School, 700 NW Bond St. Bend

Cost: free

Contact: mcmenamins.com