Robert Harrison, vocalist of the up and coming band Cotton Mather, knows quite a few things.

He knows about the difficulties of being a musician. He knows what it is like to be compared to the Beatles. He knows that he can make a great album in a garage. He also knows that the weather in Iowa is bleak and dreary.

“How is the weather in Iowa?” he promptly asked from his office phone in Texas. “Let me guess — it’s cold, it’s gray and it’s depressing, isn’t it? Well let me tell you something, I hope you don’t take offense, but it’s sunny and warm down here. The temperature is about 75 degrees. I must be stupid to be touring the Midwest this time of year.”

But of course, this is mostly said in jest. Harrison enjoys touring around the United States, no matter what the weather is like, because he enjoys exposing lots of people to the music he’s created.

Harrison is also not stupid. Not by a long shot.

All of the evidence needed to displace that claim is present on his group’s latest CD, “Kontiki.”

“Kontiki,” which was released last year on the group’s self-ran Cotton Records, features an eccentric mix of ingenious musical boundary-pushing (in a similar fashion as Sonic Youth) and retro-rock (the group sounds amazing similar to The Byrds and pre-“Revolver” Beatles).

Although these comparisons to legendary groups — and other groups like The Kinks, Yo La Tengo, Wilco and Big Star — don’t particularly bother Harrison much, he would like people to focus on the freshness and depth of his group’s music.

“It is a natural thing,” he explained, “when you first hear a group, to compare it to different bands you do know. It’s the way our brains operate. But that’s only a starting point. It’s only first base with an audience. You must also distinguish yourself. That’s where bands make it or break it.”

Cotton Mather is one of those bands who made it. The group, which was founded by Harrison and guitarist Whit Williams (bassist Josh Gravelin and skinsman Konrad Meissner recently joined the group), has had to overcome a few problems since releasing its debut CD, “Cotton Is King,” in 1994.

“We didn’t really have any management for the first record,” he said. “There was no one driving the bus, so to say. We began to realize that the music industry is a very, very tough business to succeed in, especially on a small independent label. Then our first record company went bankrupt, so we disbanded.

“Then I received a call in the middle of the night asking us to come to Japan,” he continued. “I thought that it was Whit; he’s always trying to pull one over on me. So I went over to his house the next day and asked him about it. He said that he hadn’t called. It turned out that the Japanese really liked the first record. It was like something out of Spinal Tap — we threw in the towel and then the record started taking off in Japan.”

After the group had disbanded, Harrison got a job teaching school in Texas. He kept in touch with Williams, whom he had met through a mutual friend who knew that both Harrison and Williams were both originally from Alabama.

Of course, like all of life’s little ironies, something else bound the duo together – they both had similar phone numbers. People would mistakenly call Harrison looking for Williams.

“Kontiki” came about when Harrison and Williams decided to record something “with friends for our own kicks in my garage.” Everyone who listened to the recording thought it was really good, so Harrison and Williams developed a DYI attitude, created their own record label and released it independently.

Soon enough, the pair were on their way back into the music industry on a voyage to become rock-and-roll stars.

“Why did I choose to become a musician?” Harrison asks himself. “Well, to be perfectly honest, it sounded like a better living than teaching school. Being a teacher is too hard and too exhausting, although there are a lot of difficulties associated with being a musician, especially the long van trips and the sound checks. It seems like I spend a large portion of each day just sitting around waiting to perform.

“But I thought that writing songs was a better, more romantic idea of how to make a living,” he concluded. “It is a real pleasure to be a musician for a living, despite the difficulties.”

Harrison is hoping, however, that things will be getting a lot better in the next few months. “Kontiki” has already sold several thousand copies in the United States and Japan, and Harrison is hoping that his group will be picked up by a major record label really soon on the basis of all the radio play that the new CD has been getting.

Harrison has a lot of dreams about what should happen in the next few months besides the record deal.

He is envisioning music videos on MTV, bigger venues to play in that draw bigger crowds and a new record by the end of the year (on a major label, of course).

Cotton Mather will be appearing for an all-ages show at the M-Shop tonight at 9.

Tickets are $3. Mysteries of Life is scheduled to open.