The story that the four members of Winterpills tell about how the band got together involves two things: Beatles covers and long winter nights spent drinking and hanging out with friends.

“We would congregate at Dennis’ [Crommett, guitarist] apartment, and we’d start swapping the guitar around, playing cover songs,” said Flora Reed, keyboardist and co-vocalist for the Northampton, Mass.-based indie pop group. “We did a lot of Neil Young and the Beatles. Occasionally some Abba. Whatever we felt like playing.”

The long nights spent playing music and hanging out led to the discovery that perhaps there was something more to these collaborations than just cover songs.

“One night Phillip [Price, lead singer and songwriter] and I sang ‘The Book of Love’ from the Magnetic Fields’ ’69 Love Songs’,” explained Reed. “And that was when we were like ‘Wow, this sounds really good.”‘

Price, formerly of the power pop band the Maggies, already had a number of his own songs written, and with the addition of Crommett, Reed and drummer Dave Hower, those songs began to be fleshed out. Thus, we have the Winterpills, who will play on Tuesday, April 3, at College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor.

True to its name, the group has a intimate, ghostly, wintry sound, with strummed acoustic guitar and intertwined harmonies from Price and Reed.

Their vocals are sung so closely together that they sometimes resemble the earlier recordings of Elliott Smith, though the folkier side of Sufjan Stevens is also an apt comparison.

But Price’s pop roots shine through on songs like “Broken Arm,” off the band’s second full-length album, “The Light Divides,” released last month on Reed’s own Signature Sounds record label.

“For this record we had about half the songs arranged, and the rest we had to work on in the studio. We didn’t really know how those songs would turn out,” said Reed. “We’d been performing our other songs [from 2005’s self-titled debut] live for about a year and had the arrangements locked in. [“The Light Divides”] is a lot more spontaneous. We had to strike while the iron was hot.”

Winterpills has been on tour for most of the year so far, heading West until they hit the South by Southwest music festival in Austin, Texas, before coming back East. This is their second show in Maine and first north of Portland – the band has Maine ties, thanks to its producer and sometime bassist Jose Ayerve of the band Spouse, a longtime Portland band before heading to western Massachusetts. Brian Akey currently fills in on bass when the band is on the road.

While on tour, the band swapped iPods while driving around the country.

“We had five iPods in the van,” said Reed. “So we were all over the place. The new Arcade Fire. Miho Hatori’s album, from Cibo Matto. The band Midlake. If we wanted to sleep, it was Brian Eno’s ‘Music for Airports.’ You have so much music available all the time, so we were divided. It’s good, though.”

Winterpills plays at 8 p.m. Tuesday, April 3, at College of the Atlantic’s Gates Center in Bar Harbor. Admission is $10. For information, visit www.winterpills.com. Emily Burnham can be reached at eburnham@bangordailynews.net. You can check out her blog at www.community.bangordailynews.com.