Brian Viglione is one of the hardest working men in show business. With Amanda Palmer, he is one half of punk cabaret superstars The Dresden Dolls. Viglione also finds time in his busy schedule to sit in with other bands, most recently with Humanwine. In June, the straight Dresden Dolls join Cyndi Lauper’s multi-city, queer True Colors tour, due to hit San Diego June 27.

I spoke to the straight, but far from narrow, Viglione shortly before the tour hit the road.

Rocket: I went to college in Boston and was consistently struck by the variety, talent and energy in the music scene there. Do you think that a band such as The Dresden Dolls could have been spawned anywhere else or was Boston the only place they could have launched?

Brian Viglione: If there was another location in the United States that first comes to mind, I would probably say the San Francisco Bay Area. We definitely found a huge enclave of kindred spirits when we first toured there with bands like Faun Fables and Sleepytime Gorilla Museum, and all of these other amazing musical groups and performance troupes that live in the San Francisco area definitely share the same performance values that we do in our little niche. But then they’re all over the place. Devotchka comes from Denver, Colo. – they share that. There’s The World/Inferno Friendship Society from New York City – definitely in the same part of that family. Down in Melbourne, Australia, there’s a huge group of people that run in the family and certainly a lot of bands in France and Holland and such. It’s all over the place, and for us it’s been a really wonderful thing to be able to tour and connect with all these sort of people and to be able to trade shows, and [on] the Internet, certainly MySpace, to be able to instantaneously be able to connect with these people from all over the place.

Rocket: The Dresden Dolls played Lollapalooza during the summer of 2006. What was that experience like for you?

BV: It was a lot of fun, I thought. That was the very last show for our summer tour. We played to a wonderful crowd. We did a really funny cover of “Satan is Real” by the Louvin Brothers. It was just great energy; it was a beautiful day. We got to play directly across from where The Flaming Lips and Sonic Youth performed. It was good. It was just a really fun and exciting vibe. The festival itself is just a really nice one, right up there with Coachella.

Rocket: Speaking of festivals, The Dresden Dolls is one of the bands on the True Colors Tour, organized by Cyndi Lauper. How did that come to be?

BV: Apparently we got the call from Cyndi Lauper’s people and they said, “We would love to have The Dresden Dolls come and perform with us.” We thought, wow, that’s really fantastic. It’s seemingly kind of random and unrelated, and we kind of said, at first: “Oh, golly, why us? But sure, we’d love to be a part of it!” The lineup itself just seems really great, [and] for a fantastic cause, too. We are definitely proud to be a part of it and proud to reach out there and spread awareness and just be a part of the all around attention that this thing has created. I got pissed off the other day when I read about this group called “Americans for Truth,” whom are condemning the tour and saying that “the mass media is trying to promote the homosexual agenda and we need to set these people right” and blah blah blah. Calling themselves Americans for Truth made me want to throw up. The tour itself is definitely already spawning some controversy, but it’s so absolutely ridiculous in my eyes. I think this is really just a great chance for people to get together and listen to some good music and hopefully get the message out there even more. It’s certainly been a part of our lives. I grew up in a really sort of conservative area of southern New Hampshire. One of my teachers was actually fired from my high school because she passed out a book in her English class that had a gay character in it. One of the girls, whose father was on the conservative school board, complained that this should not be taught in the classroom, and they fired her. She actually fought for her job and got it back, which was really amazing. And also, on a side note, you may be aware of [openly gay Episcopal bishop] Gene Robinson, the bishop of New Hampshire. I grew up with his daughters. My mother and father actually moved with Gene and his wife from New Jersey to New Hampshire to start a pony farm, which is where Gene lived for 10 or 15 years. That’s another person in my life that I really admired for their strength and courage in fighting for what they believed under tremendous amounts of scrutiny and rebellion.

Rocket: So it would be safe to say that The Dresden Dolls has a considerable following in the GLBT community?

BV: Yeah, I believe so. It’s something that we have never necessarily been directly affiliated with, but certainly I think that the all inclusive attitude of the band, which we’ve had from the start, that it doesn’t matter how old you are, what your ethnic background is, what style of music you like or how other people may regard you. This is music for all of us. Whoever wants to glean something positive from this band is welcome to. Whoever wants to come to a show, whoever wants to participate in the spirit of what’s going on, is welcome into this world, and we’re happy to join with other like-minded people.

Rocket: When can fans of The Dresden Dolls expect a new album?

BV: That is undetermined as of yet. We are taking the rest of this year off to sort of finish up some other projects, and then we’ll take it from there. I know Amanda is working on a solo record that she’s really excited about. That’s material that she has not been able to fit into The Dresden Dolls forum and repertoire of live songs. She wanted to get those down on tape. So she’s down in Nashville with Ben Folds at his studio, which is kind of exciting. I’m planning on doing a record with Zoe (Keating), who’s the cello player from Rasputina, and a couple other friends, so it’s going to be fun. A bunch of other really cool projects coming down the pike in 2007. It’s good, I think it’s definitely a well-deserved and much needed break from the constant, incessant touring that we were doing for the last three or four years.