Aaron Gillespie, lead singer for The Almost [ tickets ], didn't expect his band's tour opening for The Used to go as well as it has.

"I was pretty nervous about The Used trip," Gillespie said, calling recently from Kansas City, MO. "They're kind of a heavier band than The Almost. We got the offer and it felt right to do. Our manager thought we would do really well in front of a rock crowd. It's strange because we've done a lot of pop tours with The Almost, like with Paramore. It's been good for us to be well-received on this tour. It's quite strange. I really expected it to be like pulling teeth to get people involved.

"It's a really short show; it's a three-band show," continued Gillespie, who also plays drums for Underoath. "We've had our fair share of our own fans to see us, too. People see them react to the music and then people react to the music. It's been awesome."

The emo/rock band is on the road promoting its sophomore effort, "Monster Monster," which hit stores Nov. 3. Prior to the street date, fans could purchase a limited-edition, five-track EP entitled the "Monster EP," featuring three album cuts and two B-sides. The EP is available exclusively at Hot Topic stores and the band's website, as well as on tour. Gillespie, who played all the instruments on The Almost's first album, 2007's "Southern Weather," is thrilled with the way the group meshed on "Monster Monster."

"The first one I did by myself," Gillespie said. "There was no band. It was more of an idea, you know what I mean? I started writing a few songs on my own and then everyone started coming over and then we just started writing together. I was on tour with Underoath most of the time. That kind of made it difficult. I had to do a lot of Internet writing and a lot of GarageBand, Mac-computer writing. Then we had a couple of sessions in my home studio. The guys definitely wrote a ton. The guys wrote the title track and wrote the majority of the music. It was a really collaborative effort. It was a big communal effort."

Gillespie calls "Monster Monster" a "loosely termed concept album."

"It's about [the] human condition and how everybody has a dark side of their life and this sort of disdainful weird thing going on in their body and their mind and their soul," Gillespie explained. "You either talk about it or you don't. You can find grace for it and hope for it or you don't.

"It wasn't supposed to be [a concept record] but it kind of became that way. Initially, it wasn't my idea to be a concept record, but it kind of ended up being one. You're not gonna sit down and listen to 'Monster Monster' and feel like you're listening to Pink Floyd 'The Wall.' It doesn't have that feeling."

Although he's excited about the album hitting stores, he admitted he was nervous, too.

"It's bittersweet," he said. "I feel like, when you do a record, you kind of lose ownership when it's done being made. These days, you never know what's going to happen--if you're going to be able to make another record next time, or if any popularity you had will be waned and gone by the time you need to make another one. It's kind of nerve wracking, to be honest, sometimes.

"I didn't really have any pressure, per se. It's just the fact of life right now. The music world is really, really finicky right now. People like something for 20 minutes, then it's over and that's it. I'm going to enjoy it while I can but, at the same time, it's hard because I might never be able to make another Almost record again. If this one blows and everyone hates it, I won't be able to do it. It's not like I lose sleep over it, but it is my reality day to day."