Jon Troast is an up-and-coming acoustic guitarist from Wisconsin. He relased his second album, “Living Room,” on Jan. 19. He is currently touring the country playing house shows. His new album was inspired by his previous “Living Room Tour.” The Creightonian had a chance to speak with him to find out more.

Q. How did you get started?

A. Piano lessons really young didn’t really get me interested until my older brother got a guitar and so I started playing things from the radio, realized how fun it could be. I started spending a whole lot of hours in the basement playing and pretty much started writing songs immediately.

Before the “Living Room Tour” I had been playing for three years in bars and coffee shops, and I was doing well, gathering a following. I was playing all original music so I decided to re-evaluate and break it down and see where to go.

I wanted to play for people who were listening, and if they are in a living room, they pretty much have to be listening, and if I am playing for a few people in one living room, maybe people will come in and out and hear me as well.

It started as the $100 tour. I wanted it to be affordable so that anyone who wanted me to play could have me. I also need to make sure I had enough people and that they would come. I actually ended up playing 300 concerts.

You sign up on the Web site with your city, state, email and name. So I can put you on the map and when it comes down to book the tour I can see where everybody is. It doesn’t work out for everyone because I have to be logical, but I have enough people to fill in all the gaps so I can make the tour work.

The logistics are kind of hard, but I’ll play just about anywhere. I just want to play for people who listen.

Q. It says that your latest album, Living Room, was inspired by your experiences on your last tour. Are there any experiences or songs that stand out in particular?

A. “Living Room Tour” is kind of a quick mash-up about things that could happen with a tour like that. The album has some cool travel themes too. And the song “They Call Her Mama” came about because a lot of times I sleep on the couches of these people or in the guest bedroom. I get to experience short snapshots of their family life. One family had eight kids who were all home-schooled with the mom home all day. Another had two kids with parents who were both off to work in the morning and the kids were off to school. Another mom ran a daycare so kids were being dropped off all the time. So the song is really about the unique and very diverse role that moms play in the family.

Q. Do you write all the songs yourself?

A. My producer will suggest some changes, but I write everything, and that is probably my favorite part. I mean, I love meeting everyone but I love being creative and writing songs.

Q. What is your favorite part about playing in people’s living rooms?

A. From a professional career, having that connection, having the audience engaged asking questions and knowing the audience is clued in. From a life perspective I just love getting to meet all the people and learn about their lifestyles see how they decorate their house and the food they eat. I guess that’s more than one thing, but it’s good on a lot of levels.

Q. Do you plan to keep on doing it that way, or switch to performing in bigger venues?

A. I don’t want to lose this aspect, but I would love to play bigger and have a backing band occasionally. Right now I’m just working on establishing all these connections. Sometime soon I want move to Nashville and get connected with a management. Right now the all details management take up a lot of my time, and it would be more effective if I had some sort of management. But I just want to play for as many people as possible and maintain that personal connection.

Q. Is there anything else you would like to share?

A. It helped that I grew up in a big family. I have six brothers and sisters so it’s fun for me to play in a house with kids running around. There’s not a lot of privacy because you’re right in the middle of someones house, so I guess being from a big family prepared me for that and is something I am grateful for.