The first single off How Does Your Garden Grow is "One More Murder." Obviously, that conjures certain admittedly negative associations with New Orleans. Any chance the catalyst for that tune was the "homicide scoreboard" that used to be on the sidewalk in front of Molly's at the Market on Decatur?

It wasn't but, God, I wish it was. That song WAS inspired by New Orleans, though, and by friends having guns literally shoved in their faces. It's about brainwashing and the media -- perpetrating the ideat that violence is an accepted part of society -- and about a literal experience where we came across a murder scene. Which is where the line about the chalkmarks washing away came from. It's about as close as I've come to social commentary.

With the obvoious sonic experimentation going on throughout How Does Your Garden Grow, how are you guys pulling the music off live.

We're using a guy named Jim Payne, who plays keyboards and guitar, to help us fill out the sound of the record. Garden was a departure in that I was listening to a lot of different stuff, so we all took on more duties. Our producer, Malcolm Burn, is into exploring different ways to approach pop bands; more ambience. We were confident enough in our ownmaterial to let someone like Malcolm exert his influences. To pull the stuff off live, your options are to either play with a tape or play live in real time. We want to be live; [bassist] Tom [Drummond] triggers pedals that kick in drum loops, and [drummer] Travis [McNabb] is doing other loops from his kit. So they are loops, but if they're not triggered in real time, it's screwed up. We have it set up, too, that we can stop songs in the middle to interact witht he crowd. There's still a lot of spontaneity going on.

BTE has achieved considerable mainstream success. Do you feel any debt to indigenous New Orleans music for your sound?

Actually, I've just stared getting into James Booker. I'm a huge fan of Henry Butler and Kermit Ruffins and Mulebone and Astral Project. More than anthing, Travis is heavily influenced by Zigaboo Modeliste. If you listen to the new CD, there's a lot of second-lining going on. And lyrically, I'm drawing characters from New Orleans. There's something about the city -- the architecture, the climate... I'm certainly not the first to say this, but there's got to be more per capita Muses walking aroun than anywhere.

In a perfect world, if you could have any authentic New Orleans restaurant or food item in your backstage rider at every show, what would it be?

That's so tough. Is this a world where heart disease and coronary problems don't exist? Well, I love Uglesich's. And Martinique's is special... Gotta have Shalomar in there, that's my favorite Indian food. There's just so much. Actually, this question is making me hungry.