Most artists don’t get their first 15 minutes of fame because they decided to bike down the West Coast playing music in random towns, but that is precisely what the members of Blind Pilot did.

Israel Nebeker, lead singer of the Portland, Ore. based band, spoke to “The Creightonian” in a phone interview recently about his venture into the music industry and his rise to success. Passionate about music, Nebeker explained how all he ever wanted to do was play music for a career and form “great one-on-one connections with people.”

Nebeker, along with bandmate Ryan Dobrowski, started their official music careers with the bike tour of Blind Pilot, but it wasn’t exactly what they had imagined. Their original plan of biking from Canada to Mexico on their bikes was stopped short in San Francisco.

“We didn’t go out with any plan really, or maps. We just thought, keep the ocean to your right, land to your left,” Nebeker said.

It was a carefree tour of Nebeker and Dobrowski biking into towns and searching for an audience, whether it was one person in a park, or a group gathered in a church hall.

“I really felt as though the universe was taking care of us. It was just uncanny. We’d roll into town and go into a store and meet somebody, and I knew that was gonna lead to our show that night,” Nebeker said.

They ran into problems in San Francisco when their bikes were stolen outside of the Museum of Modern Art. With their main mode of transportation taken from them, Nebeker and Dobrowski decided it was a sign to go home.

But the people they met along the way helped to grow their name through the online music communities, and Blind Pilot was buzzing. “Real” concerts were planned, and the guys were playing gigs after being booked, rather than begging for a stage.

Since their start, Blind Pilot’s fan base has boomed. They now have over 37,000 likes on Facebook and 7,361 followers on Twitter (@blindpilot). With the release of their new album, “We  Are the Tide,” Nebeker and Dobrowski have enjoyed even more fans. The album debuted at No. 56 on the Billboard 200, and is featured on NPR Music’s “First Listen” series.

According to an NPR review, “We Are the Tide” blooms agreeably from start to finish…these guys make remarkably sturdy, gorgeous songs.”

The band performed on the David Letterman show in January, and is touring the country currently, even making a stop in Omaha. Nebeker said that Omaha has been great to him before, and he is glad that he would be having another chance to perform for an Omaha audience at The Waiting Room.

When asked if he believed they had “made it” yet in terms of popularity and success, Nebeker gave an unusual answer.

“I never had, like, a goal in mind; other than just playing music as a job. I didn’t want to play music and paint houses, or play music and wait tables. I just wanted to play and be able to do that with all of my time. So in that sense, I’ve made it.”