After taking time to reflect, Furtado is back in spotlight.

Byline: Serena Markstrom The Register-Guard

Before the first question, Tony Furtado wanted to set the record straight on something.

With a chuckle, he said he is of no relation to Nelly Furtado. She's his No. 4 myspace.com friend - as a joke.

Having cleared the air about that, the musician talked about his new album as he drove through the hills of Montana with his band (which includes Alan Toribio, who recently played with John Shipe and the Renegade Saints at Sam Bond's Garage).

Not only is he a multi-instrumentalist, Furtado also is a multitasker. He was eating a sandwich and ordering an Americano from a coffee stand while responding to questions.

Multitasking, it turns out, became an important component of Furtado's 13th studio album. He got an iPod, and it changed the way he listened to music.

Suddenly, Furtado always had music, everywhere he went. While he taught himself to paint with watercolors and worked with clay in his basement, he absorbed artists such as Elliott Smith, Tom Petty and the Who with repeated listens.

Furtado described this phase of his life, which started about a year and a half ago when he moved back to Portland from Los Angeles, as reflective.

While he was working on the songs that would later appear on "Thirteen," Furtado played weekly local gigs to maintain his chops. But when he was at home, he tried to exercise other parts of his brain; hence, the visual arts and plenty of reading.

Once the writing and recording was done, the songs on "Thirteen" had a common thread of luck. Or, as Furtado puts it in a news release, "good luck, bad luck, no luck."

Although he didn't set out to have a theme, he noticed the number 13 kept coming up.

"I was looking everywhere and seeing it," he said.

"I've always been intrigued by our collective fear or love of certain numbers," he says in the liner notes. "And the number 13 is not regarded by the whole world as an unlucky number."

"Thirteen Below," about the Sago mining disaster, is an example of where 13 can be seen as a positive. Furtado said the song isn't necessarily about bad luck; the 13th miner lived.

Still developing as a songwriter

Furtado debuted as a singer-songwriter with 2004's "These Chains," so he believes he's still a relative youth when it comes to songwriting.

On this album, "California Flood" is the song most directly influenced by Smith. Furtado allowed himself to write the song in the abstract, using metaphor to tell a story that might not be evident to the average listener without knowing what is behind it.

Furtado didn't want to share the source of his inspiration, however, saying, "It came out abstract for a reason."

Furtado said as a songwriter, he is still trying to be more consistent. But the new CD goes a little deeper lyrically than his others.

He said it's also more "raw," an attribute that comes from being recorded on analog tape and throwing in "random instruments" that were lying around the Arizona studio, Wavelab, where he recorded.

Late in the process, fellow Portlander Stephanie Schneiderman from the band Dirty Martini (which will be in Eugene on March 3) spent a day recording backup vocals on several tracks.

The Schneiderman harmonies boost Furtado's version of the Who's "Won't Get Fooled Again." But Furtado said she saved a few of his originals from the cutting room floor, including "California Flood."

Although Furtado comes through Eugene frequently - including playing the Wild Duck, WOW Hall and the Eugene Celebration - he doesn't take the community's affections for granted.

Furtado said 10 years ago, when his Eugene shows had light attendance, he kept asking the people booking his tours to push him through Eugene.

"Eugene started off as kind of standoffish to me," he said. "But I wanted to win Eugene's love. It took a lot of time. Boulder (Colo.) is the same way.

`It takes a lot of playing, but once you get the audience, they are pretty loyal."

CONCERT PREVIEW

Tony Furtado Band

What: CD release party for "Thirteen"

When: 9 p.m. Saturday

Where: WOW Hall, 291 W. Eighth Ave.

Tickets: $12 in advance, $15 at the door

Band: Alan Toribio, guitar; Damian Erskine, bass; Drew Shoals, drums

Listen on the Web: See a video clip at www.myspace.com /tonyfurtadomusic; hear additional sound clips at www.registerguard.com /tonyfurtado.php