For over a decade, the Cowboy Junkies have been consistently putting out emotionally rich music.

On the heels of their latest release, “Rarities, B-Sides and Slow, Sad Waltzes,” the rebirth of their own label, Latent Recordings, and the launching or their own Web site, the band is touring the Northwest. Tonight, they’ll play at the Hoyt Sherman Theater in Des Moines.

Michael Timmons, guitar player and principle songwriter for the band, says that even after all of their years on the road, touring is still the most important thing they do.

“[Touring] keeps the band very vital,” he says. “That’s the way you keep in close contact with your audience. It keeps you growing as a band; it’s a good format to work out new material.”

On this tour, Timmons says the band is working out some new material for their upcoming album.

“We’re carrying a lot of new songs with us; we’ll be doing a lot of them at every show,” Timmons says. “We haven’t [worked out new material live] in a few years. We used to do it all the time. We wanted to get back to playing some things live before recording them.”

The Internet is another new outlet the band is exploring. They have recently launched cowboyjunkies.com, a Web site where the band can communicate directly with fans. Unlike many “official” Web sites, cowboyjunkies.com contains concert reviews by fans, info on where to get bootlegs and many other features record companies generally frown on.

Timmons says that making a site that really reached out to fans was very important.

“We wanted to establish a Web site. We had a lot of people asking us to get some presence on the Web,” Timmons says. “We began to look at them and found that most of them are pretty lame. They’re very corporate; they obviously have no attachment to the band. It’s very boring and not very personal.

“We said if we’re going to do this let’s do it right; let’s have it reflect us as people and as a band,” he continues. “As people view our music, we want them to view our Web site, as very intimate and personal, and it has a lot to do with one-on-one contact. We got a good programmer and a good company to program for us, but we basically designed it ourselves.”

Timmons assures fans that what they see on the site has been generated by them and not by a press agent.

“If you go to that site, you’re not dealing with a record agent or any intermediary; you’re dealing with us,” he says. “We’re very proud of it.”

Timmons welcomes the exchange of bootlegged concert tapes on the Web site and thinks most other bands would as well.

“Mostly I think it’s the record labels that squelch [bootlegging],” Timmons says. “I think if you ask most bands, they’d say they’re happy to have people record shows, that what they’re trying to do is get their music around.”

Timmons also dismisses record company concerns about bootlegging.

“The old record company position is that if a fan buys a bootleg, that he’s not going to put that money towards buying an official album, and that’s bullshit,” Timmons says. “People that are into a band enough to actually want to get hold of a bootleg are definitely big enough fans that every couple of years they’re going to go out and buy your record.”

The other big way that the group is working independently of record companies is by rebuilding their own label, Latent Recordings. Timmons hopes that soon they will be able to release work from other artists on the label as well.

There are pros and cons to working on an independent label.

“The obvious pro is that there’s absolutely no one else you have to battle with,” Timmons says. “You’re in complete control of what you do. The bad thing is that it’s a world run by huge corporations, and you can’t compete on their label. More and more, these corporations are closing down the avenues which you use to get to your audience.”

Even while they’re working hard to provide avenues for themselves and other artists to work independent of big record companies, the Cowboy Junkies are still working on new material.

“We’re recording [our next album] kind of piece mail,” Timmons says. “We come off the road, and we go into the studio for a week or so. As for when we’ll release it, we’re not sure. At this point, we probably won’t release it until early next year, after Christmas.”