With earlier incarnations of Shelter Belt, touring to promote an album sometimes included as little as one show. That isn’t the case anymore.

“We play every weekend, usually twice a weekend,” says Anthony Knuppel, drummer for Shelter Belt. “It’s like we don’t not tour.”

Shelter Belt has been hitting the road hard lately, mostly in the Midwest with four stops in Iowa, one in Minnesota and four in Wisconsin.

Shelter Belt, a name suggested by the father of one of the band’s founding members, has been making music in one form or another since 1997.

The band has endured a break-up, long distances and lineup changes to continue its career in music.

The Omaha band has a lineup that currently consists of eight members. Members of the band play multiple instruments, including trombone, banjo, clarinet, bassoon and violin, along with the traditional guitar and drums.

Knuppel attributes the band’s ability to creatively move about genres to the musical dedication of its members.

“My whole life I have been obsessed with music in any form,” Knuppel says. “I used to tinker with the instruments in my parents house. I learned to play piano at eight.”

Knuppel, however, didn’t pick up the drums until he was 16 or 17. The band’s musical diversity can also be attributed to the way Shelter Belt writes its music, Knuppel says.

“Everyone in the band has written songs; we are all song writers,” Knuppel says.

“We bring stuff to the band, we listen to it and play it. Sometimes someone will sing a song to the band, and, by the time the song is finished, it is different.”

Shelter Belt creates its music in a place affectionately known to the band as “The Beltcave.” The Beltcave is the band’s basement studio.

From the wood-grained paneling on the walls and the mixed-and-matched carpet on the floor to the broken futon and world map, it could be sufficiently said that the Beltcave provides the seemingly stereotypical environment where most bands find themselves recording.

This environment works for Shelter Belt as it pens songs such as “The Beeps” — a song with a speaking part that was written around an e-mail.

While on tour, Knuppel and his bandmates have acquired plenty of tour stories, but their favorite involves returning to stay with Knuppel’s parents after a show that was close to his hometown.

“We stayed up with my parents and partied all night long,” Knuppel says.

“My mom would come down stairs with a tray of shots. My parents are pretty cool … they’re rock stars.”

After all Shelter Belt has accomplished, Knuppel says its long-term goals remain fairly simple.

“We want to keep playing the best music we can possibly play, make people happy and get our free beer,” he says.