It was nearing 8 p.m. on Nov. 20 and the walk from the Addison Red Line el stop to Metro seemed especially brutal given the bitter late November temperature. With recorders and cameras in hand, two Chronicle reporters sprinted the last few blocks to the venue’s main doors in haste-we were frantically rushing to a Murder by Death show for an interview. We were already 15 minutes late, courtesy of the CTA.

Our interview was with Adam Trula, lead guitar and vocals of Murder by Death; luckily his tour manager was forgiving of our less-than-professional tardiness. With two shameless flashes of our press passes, we managed to bypass the bundled-up and freezing concertgoers cluttering the sidewalk of North Clark Street by sneaking in through Metro’s side doors.

Within a few minutes, we were left in Murder by Death’s backstage dressing room in the presence of cellist Sarah Balliet, bassist Matt Armstrong, percussionist Dagan Thogerson and two 12-packs of the always-classy Miller High Life stacked atop a coffee table. Pre-concert jitters appeared to be something the band conquered long ago, as the three lounged around on a beat-up couch, about to delve into their first case of beer.

After quick introductions and a round of handshakes, Trula showed up, looking a ghostly white, but nonetheless enthused to be there.

“Sorry about the wait,” Trula said. “I have food poisoning, just so you know, and I may have to run away. So …. Cool. Sorry to be kind of gross.” An unfortunate run-in with some funky Chicago Thai food earlier that day left Trula regretting the $7 spent on a barely recognizable dish of Pad Thai. And at that moment, the only consoling advice we could muster up was a hearty, “Hey, it happens,” said with a sympathetic shrug of the shoulders.

After an awkward scuffle, we’re jammed into a small room with a single couch made of tacky red velvet. Trula seemed set on the idea of standing, but after dancing around the room in an attempt to get situated for the interview, and with a bit of persuasion, we managed to get Trula to give in and sprawl out on the couch.

“So you know, what’s up, how’s it going?” we asked, having to shout a bit as the three band members left in the dressing room carried on loudly with strange outbursts exclaiming, “F—–g cowboys!” Trula seems unaffected by the unruly behavior, continuing to grumble on about his bad luck with Chicago takeout food. Perhaps a new subject was in order before he decided to blow chunks after all the Thai talk.

Murder by Death’s performance on Nov. 20 was their second return to Chicago within the past few months. Still hot off of their 2008 release, Red of Tooth and Claw, Trula and his bandmates decided to swing back around and make one more stop before finishing up their U.S. tour at the end of the year and heading over seas.

Performing at Schubas, 3159 N. Southport Ave., and the Abbey Pub, 3420 W. Grace St., in past visits, their show at Metro wasn’t anything new for Murder by Death, and Trula said their show on Nov. 20 marked their 30th performance on that single stage since rolling onto the music scene back in 2000.

“We spend 10 days every two years recording and 200-plus days on the road. Touring has become our life,” Trula said. “We’re going to hit our 1,000th show in the next couple months, which is just insane because that means we’ve been on the road for over 1,200 days since the four of us first started out in Bloomington, Ind.”

Trula’s sentence is abruptly cut off by a loud ringing-his cell phone-and he frantically reaches for his pocket to silence the disrupting sound.

“Sorry, that was my buddy-he’s coming to the show tonight. I’ve known him since the second grade, and he lives in Chicago now,” Trula said.

Knowing that the tour manager would be around the corner at any moment to pressure us to wrap things up, we wasted no time jumping back into the list of questions we had scribbled down in our notepads. With the sound of popping beer tabs in the background from his fellow bandmates as they shouted, “The champagne of beers!” Trula carries on, telling us of wild onstage encounters, from grown men running around in their underwear to being offered homemade moonshine from fans in the middle of a set.

But no amount of weird encounters could compare with Trula’s own amazement of how bizarre it was to see how far Murder by Death had come since first starting up eight years ago while they were attending Indiana University.

“I never suspected we’d be here. I think we’re much bigger than we thought we would ever be,” Trula said. “But I think I also thought that at this size, we’d make more money. But it’s just so much fun. Plus, you know, you’re essentially paid to drink beer every night.”

It’s the infinite beer perk that Trula and his bandmates take very seriously. Out of all the questions of the night, none other than those about beer seemed to get him the most riled up and enthusiastic-especially on the topic of Wizard Staff. With our unfortunate ignorance of this bizarre drinking game, Trula went off on an endless tangent, laying out in great detail just how the game is played. At that moment, the loud talking in the background subsided as they began to listen quietly to our conversation. “Wait, are they talking about Wizard Staff?” one of his bandmates asked.

“Wizard Staff is only the best drinking game of all time. Every time you finish a can of beer, you put another beer on top of it and duct tape it on so that eventually you have a staff. And for every beer you drink, you gain a level,” Trula said. “So it’s like the Dungeons and Dragons of beer. I’ve already made it to level 20, which, you know, is a lot of beer.”

Trula finished this boast with a smug grin, clearly pleased with his feat. And he took that accomplishment with him to the stage-all 20 cans of it.

As Trula stood on Metro’s small stage, which was tinted in a subdued blue lighting, Thogerson emerged after disappearing backstage before starting their fourth number, carrying with him 20 cans of Miller High Life, one stacked atop the other. And as Trula stood there with his black guitar strung around his back, Thogerson tilted the four foot line of beer cans, letting Trula finish up whatever was left in it. “Level 21!” he shouts. For most of the audience, the act left them in a state of bafflement.

Twenty-one certainly was the magic number for Trula’s performance, and as the quartet let out the first few notes of the song, “I’m Comin’ Home,” the claims that we’ve heard coming from fans about Murder by Death being an unbelievable live band were more than reassured.

The guy we were just sitting with backstage, then looking pale and sickly, was now onstage singing with a brute force of sound that couldn’t be anymore ominously haunted and low. Trula was certainly indebted to Johnny Cash’s vocals.

An hour-and-a-half later, and after two obnoxious, terribly out-of-place mosh pits had subsided, Murder by Death wrapped up their set leaving them sweaty, exhausted and ready for just one more Miller High Life before the night’s end.

Off the stage, the performance left us with a bit more understanding of exactly what it means to be a “rocking Americana noir and dramatic post-punk sounding band.”

But most importantly, Murder by Death left us with the idea that a stint of food poisoning and occasional episodes of vomiting can’t hinder a good old raucous time at a rock show.

Murder by Death return to Chicago on Feb. 10 at Schubas, 3159 N. Southport Ave. for an acoustic set. The show starts at 9 p.m. Tickets are $15.