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Newman said that a month after their first album, “Mass Romantic,” came out in 2000, multi-instrumentalist and founding member Dan Bejar decided to move to Spain.

“‘There goes Dan,’ I thought,” he recalled. But Bejar moved back before the New Pornographers got around to their second record, “Electric Version,” and he rejoined the band. Years later, Bejar left again — then rejoined — then left again to devote himself to his other band, Destroyer.

Meanwhile, keyboardist and synth player Blaine Thurier left for the world of film. When singer Neko Case’s solo career sometimes took her away from the band, Newman recruited his niece, Kathryn Calder, to share the vocals; now both Case and Calder are members (although Case is not appearing on this tour).

“I’m as shocked as anybody when everyone shows up,” Newman said. “I’ve always used whatever instruments and people were around and I’m still doing that. It’s odd to say, but I think I’ve finally accepted that impermanence.”

One reason the New Pornographers can keep chugging along despite the revolving door is that the band is rarely creating songs in the studio as a full unit. Newman writes tunes and lyrics, then sends them to everyone to contribute their parts. Newman said sometimes when he gets parts back from his bandmates, it changes his approach to the song.

“I might say, ‘This guitar or this synth is going to be the center of the song now.’ And this changes the mood,” Newman noted. “Then I have to change the lyrics or the melody. It’s a fun part of the process.”

“He has a magical songwriting process that is hard to define, but there’s a lot of rewrites and parts that come and go,” added Calder, who sends in her keyboard parts then “never think[s] about them again, because they may or may not make it onto the record.”

For all the flexibility, last year brought the New Pornographers to a devastating crossroads that threatened to end the band. After recording had begun on their 10th album, they learned that Joe Seiders, their drummer since 2014, has been arrested on child pornography charges.

The band immediately fired him. Seiders was later sentenced to three years in prison.

“It was horrible, the worst thing that had ever been thrown at us,” Newman said. (He’s previously stated that he considered changing the band’s name in the aftermath, but decided against it.)

To move forward, Newman knew they’d have to strip out Seiders’s drum parts. When veteran drummer Charley Drayton — who has played with Paul Simon, the Rolling Stones, Herbie Hancock, and Miles Davis — offered to step in, “it nearly brought me to tears,” Calder said. “It felt like there was a path there.”

Newman wrote a few more songs for the record that became “The Former Site Of,” which arrived this past March. Newman said that “[as] horrible as last year was, the irony is that our album is now better, because Charley is the best drummer I’ve ever played with.”

“The Former Site Of” earned critical praise for its lush and layered sound and for the introspection and storytelling in songs like the title track, about a Catskills town flooded to make way for a reservoir, and “Bonus Mai Tais,” a song about spending time with a friend who later died of cancer.

“On our last album, and especially this one, I was trying to write in a different, more narrative way,” Newman said.

While the band was once a staple in the Top 10 of the US indie and US rock charts, expectations are lower these days.

“You want to be as loved as you were 20 years ago, but there’s 20 years’ worth of new bands,” Newman said, adding that “if you’re constantly looking for validation from outside yourself, it can be pretty poisonous.”

Listening to Apple Music’s discovery algorithm has helped his perspective. When Newman discovers a decades-old song he loves but had never heard before, he realizes that “a lot of music I think is really average crawls its way to the top, and a lot of music I think is absolutely brilliant is just completely obscure.”

So in terms of success, “I’m lucky to have gotten what I have gotten,” Newman said.

Making a living is a struggle for most musicians these days, Newman said, adding that if his wife didn’t have a decent job, they might have left for Canada, where it’s less expensive.

Still, Newman feels fortunate.

“When I started, I was living in a house with roommates. But now I’m married and have a son, and the music paid for this house, and I have my own little studio space here,” he said. “So my music paid off, even if I’m not selling as many records as I used to. And I just want to make music that I really love.”

Josh Wells, the drummer from Bejar’s project Destroyer, is stepping behind the kit for the current tour. Meanwhile, the band keeps forging ahead, working on a Christmas song this spring.

“It’s a fun exercise,” Newman said, citing the old Rankin/Bass TV tunes, Vince Guaraldi’s “Peanuts” songs, and Paul McCartney’s infectious “Wonderful Christmastime” as possible influences.

As the current lineup began rehearsing for this new tour, Newman had a pleasant and surprising revelation when he went back and listened to old songs to make the setlist.

“I found myself thinking that if I wasn’t in the New Pornographers, I might have really liked this band.”

THE NEW PORNOGRAPHERS

With Will Sheff. At the Wilbur Theatre, 246 Tremont St., Boston, Wednesday, April 22, 8 p.m. Tickets $47 and up. thewilbur.com