The guys from Ludo suspected that the moment they announced a side project without the St. Louis band’s lead singer, rumors would go into overdrive that Ludo was breaking up.

And that’s exactly what’s happened — the rumors, not the breakup.

“We are not breaking up,” says keyboardist Tim Convy, the band’s most vocal member and part of its side project, the New Heathers.

The New Heathers, which cribbed its name from the 1988 teen murder flick, is Ludo minus lead singer Andrew Volpe: Tim Ferrell on vocals and guitar, Convy on keyboards and Matt Palermo on drums.

The New Heathers grew out of songs Ferrell wrote for Ludo but didn’t fit into the band’s repertoire.

But that doesn’t mean the New Heathers are being ushered in while Ludo is being ushered out. In fact, both acts are touring this month and next, including a Ludo concert at the Pageant next week (there is no local date yet for the New Heathers).

Ludo’s Pageant show is the local stop of its “Broken Bride” tour. “Broken Bride” was Ludo’s 2005 concept CD, and the band will perform it in its entirety, as well as songs from the group’s other albums.

“We haven’t done much with the CD since we put it out, and we thought it would be fun to revisit it,” Convy says of the rock opera that involves everything from a time machine to dinosaurs.

The band regularly played the CD front to back at the time of its release, long before its Island/Def Jam deal that produced “You’re Awful, I Love You.”

Back then, Ludo’s fan base was much smaller. “You’re Awful, I Love You” and the hit single “Love Me Dead” changed that, and some of the newer fans are seeking out “classic” Ludo.

“A lot of people are discovering ‘Broken Bride,’ so we wanted to put it out again,” Convy says. “We wanted to give them our back history before our new record comes out.

“We regularly get e-mails about what that CD means to people, so we said, ‘Let’s get it out there again, to a large audience.’ ”

“Broken Bride” is being released on the band’s label, Redbird, along with its 2004 self-titled debut, the upcoming New Heathers CD and new music from a Houston discovery called Without a Face.

When Convy thinks back to the recording of “Broken Bride,” one of his standout memories is being told by the band’s manager that it was crazy to do a concept record and that the band probably would never get a record deal.

“We kept getting told it was a really bad mistake,” Convy says. “But it was a great experience in the studio. We did the whole thing in two weeks, and we were so excited about all that was going on with us.”

After the “Broken Bride” tour and the New Heathers project, the next Ludo CD is on tap. The guys are about 18 songs into the next Ludo album and will write more songs.

“It’s hard to say which way we’ll go,” Convy says of the upcoming Ludo album. “There could be some weird stuff and some really poppy stuff. It’ll be interesting to see which route we’ll go.”

Ludo, Ha Ha Tonka, Meese and Without a Face, 8 p.m. Oct. 22, the Pageant, 6161 Delmar Boulevard, $14-$16, Ticketmaster.