"YOU JUST have to keep putting work into it and hope that something good comes out of it. Because if you're too tied into wanting this sort of ideal scene, or whatever, I think you're kind of setting yourself up for frustration."

Bryan Funck says this to me over the phone, driving on the I-10 toward Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Granted, few bands work as hard as Funck's band Thou—its members are split across the country, with two living in California, and the other three in Louisiana. They are currently on a very thorough tour of the West Coast (a five-day jaunt for some bands), playing 28 shows in 18 days. That means that, more often than not, Thou will play two shows in the same day, sometimes in two different states.

That kind of work ethic has paid off for Thou, or at least it's made more work for them (work seems to be their favorite form of payment). Since 2007, the blackened sludge band has put songs on 32 different records, ranging from a recent Adult Swim single to a series of joint releases with other bands. Highlights include a 2011 split with sort-of-defunct Portland powerviolence champs Cower and their side of a 2012 7-inch split with Salem destructors Hell.

Thou's music veers from polar point to polar point: Last year's Heathen explores the realm of sensuality and touch, while the new You, Whom I Have Always Hated—the band's second collaboration with Portland transplants the Body—addresses the "child relating to parent." Not wholly unexpected, Funck's excitable Southern drawl pops into overdrive when I breach the subject of New Orleans punk. "I kind of feel like there's a sort of general miasma of apathy that people have to get through in order to get anything done in New Orleans," he says. "It's great and it's terrible."

All his time putting work into booking shows have only focused Funck's motivation to find pleasure in the moment. "As I get older, I've been beating my head against the wall trying to get things to a certain point for years," he says. "At some point you're going to have to give up on that idea." Instead of expecting gratification and reward, Funck continues, "you just kind of have to do your thing and hope that it comes back to you."