UPDATED 10/1 at 9:20 a.m. PT--Canadian pop-rockers Barenaked Ladies [ tickets ] are planning an unusual theater tour this fall to support their new album, "Everything to Everyone," which is due on Oct. 21.

The outing will combine "music, freewheeling conversation and an audience Q&A," according to a press release.

The shows will feature the band performing and discussing tracks from its forthcoming album and taking questions from the audience. The group will also play a short set of favorites from throughout its nearly 15-year career.

The headlining tour opens in Boston on the day the album is released, but the group will warm up with two festival shows: Boston's Mix 98.5 Mixfest and a T-Mobile-sponsored show at San Francisco's Alcatraz Island.

Most of the dates so far confirmed are in the Northeastern U.S., but--according to the band's fan club--more shows are planned.

"Everything to Everyone" is the first album from Barenaked Ladies since 2000's "Maroon," and first single is titled "Another Postcard."

The Toronto-based group was founded in 1988 by singer-guitarists Steven Page and Ed Robertson, and has sold more than 10 million records worldwide, according to their publicist.

After spending nearly four years on the road in the wake of the success of "One Week," their breakthrough 1998 single, Barenaked Ladies took an eight-month break before starting work on "Everything to Everyone."

"We've said for years that we've needed more time for writing," Robertson said in a statement. "So we didn't have a hard deadline this time. It was about giving ourselves, and our audience, a break."

Added Page: "We made the decision to open up the songwriting process. "Up to then it had primarily been Ed and I. For the first time all of us wrote together, separately and in various combinations and then work-shopped the results. We wanted more flexibility, more opportunity to exchange ideas and take the songs to another place than where we would have taken them on our own, which meant putting the music through a lot more filters."

The new set was produced by Ron Aniello (Lifehouse, Guster).