Steve Lamacq: [Where are you] -now?

Ed: I'm in a place called "Toad's Place", a venue in New Haven, Connecticut, and we're getting on stage in about two hours. David Gray, our support band, is on in about an hour... and, uh, yeah. New Haven, Connecticut, the home of Yale, it's also supposedly "Murder City of the World", so they claim, which is a very curious accolade.

Steve: You haven't seen any occuring down the high street?

Ed: Well... it's funny how, like, you get a little paranoid. We were walking to this place called... it was actually a Tandoori diner which is really bizarre. The first Indian restaurant I've ever been to last night that's actually in a diner form. And we heard these kind of bangs and cracks going off, presuming they were guns and actually, you know, misheard them to be fireworks.

Steve: But you're all intact at the moment yourselves. Have you got yourself well insured I suppose by the record company just in case?

Ed: Very well insured, you know: flak jackets, armoured cars, that kind of thing as well.

Steve: So what's the room that you're in at the moment? Is this your dressing room?

Ed: Yeah, this is the dressing room of "Toad's Place", which is, it's kind of like a little club. We're doing this club tour at the moment, of America, and this is like, the fourth date so far, and it's been going really well, you know. Just like, sort of 700-800 people each night, and hopefully about the same number of people tonight.

Steve: What's the traveling been like so far? Have you been in a bus, sort of traveling overnight?

Ed: We've got this great bus called "Wave Dancer". It's got this great picture of this horse riding on the crest of these waves at the back, a very beautiful mural in sort of like an American style. So yeah, we're on one of those. It's like a 45-foot bus with bunks that are like coffins.

Steve: You've done anything touristy so far?

Ed: Yeah, we're kind of- When we get on tour, we're kind of a bit like tourists. Well, we hit New York tomorrow and I guess that we'll all sort of probably go up, have a few drinks, and go up the Empire State Building at night, and maybe visit, if we're feeling culturally inclined, to visit a few of the galleries and stuff like that. But I'll probably head down to the Village and see some friends and stuff down there.

Steve: Right, so you've soundchecked already. What are you starting tonight's set with?

Ed: 'The Bends'. We're doing a bit of a shorter set here than we did in the UK, because there were slightly bigger venues but we're doing a club tour and so we're going to do like, about an hour set and just keep it kinda fast and frantic.

Steve: Alright, and where do you move off to after this? What's tomorrow night? Oh! Where are you staying tonight, I should ask? Are you back in the bus?

Ed: We're actually having a night off the bus, which is quite strange. We're not moving while we sleep, so we're going to be- we're staying in New Haven again, so it's kind of like "button down the hatches", and the rest of it. We're going to New York City, and then we've got another ten dates around the US, and then we go off to Japan for two weeks, and then we come back to the states. We come back two days before we play the date with R.E.M. at Milton Keynes, so it's about ten weeks we're away for.