Kellan Lutz in New Moon.. Photo courtesy of Summit Entertainment.

It’s got tweens and Northwestern kids alike squealing and lining up outside movie theaters. It’s the Twilight series, with the latest hitting theaters on Friday. New Moon star Kellan Lutz sat down with North by Northwestern to talk about his most recent experiences as Emmet Cullen in the blockbuster franchise The Twilight Saga.

Had you read the books before you tried out for the part?

I did not. Once I had the role Ashley [Greene] came by and asked if I read the books and I joked it off, and she ran back and got the books. So then I quickly read those and then I realized after meeting fans that came to set why they’re so amazed, why they’re so marveled by this franchise. The books are amazing, they really are.

Do you think that your portrayal of Emmet the same way it was in the books? What was your approach to creating your character?

It’s definitely important to stick with the cheat sheets you’re given with the books, and having Stephanie [Meyer, the author of The Twilight Saga] there to ask her questions. It’s nice to have a little help, but I also got the role for what I brought to Emmet and what I did in the auditions, I think we all try and make the character that we portray onscreen different and unique and I think that’s what separates us. It’s a cool spin to throw yourself into him.

What can fans expect from Eclipse that’s different from Twilight in general?

It’s more an action movie. I don’t think I would have seen Twilight if I wasn’t a part of it. Seeing the trailer I would have thought it was a chick flick. New Moon, right off the bat it looks like a guy-friendly movie, and that’s what it is. It’s is such a cool trailer, it just looks action-packed.

To what extent were you allowed to do your own stunts?

Obviously we all have stunt doubles, it’s kind of mandatory for insurance reasons and stuff. It’s fun doing a fight scene and seeing your stunt guy not do something too crisp, and being like “OK, just let me do it once. Just wanna fight, if I get hurt, I’ll sign off.” And I’ll do it once and they’ll be like “Thank God you did that, because that one’s the best one.”

Has there been anything you haven’t liked about the productions?

With New Moon, I didn’t like how little time I was able to be onset. I wish I was there to hang out with the cast. Kraft service always ran out of meat for me to eat. Not enough gummy bears, but no, no complaints.

How was the atmosphere on set in general?

Ashley and I are probably the closest on set, just ‘cuz of the years we’ve had as friends. We always just joke around. And then with the rest of the cast, no one’s changed, which is amazing to see. Everyone’s so down to earth…no one’s changed their numbers, or blocked the cast out. We all hang out in rooms and play board games or the guys would play the guitars. It’s a really good group of actors, very talented.

There has been some shake-ups as far as casting, and then there have been changes with directors. How is that adjusting to new cast members as well as a new director for New Moon and then Eclipse?

I don’t think one director could capture every book and turn it into a movie because they’re so different. With Catherine’s energy and art background Twilight was more an independent movie. And for the second movie, we had more funding and more a love triangle [and] more action-packed. With the CGI background that Chris has, he was a no-brainer to be picked as that director. And with the third one it’s dark, edgy. David Slade has such a mastermind way of looking at that script.

You’re talking about Rachel and Bryce Dallas Howard. They both brought an amazing energy to the screen. It was really cool to see Bryce step into those shoes. They’re hard shoes to fill when you have a fan base who fell in love with one actor who’s doing it. But she kicks butt in Eclipse.

Given the popularity of the Twilight Saga, have you been approached offset by fans or mobbed by fans?

Yeah. I’ll be walking down the street with my dog and I’ll hear a car screech and these girls jump out and they’re like “EMMET!” or “KELLAN!” And you start running…but no, the fans are adorable. There is really so much love, it’s really cool to have fans like that.

Since you’re so famous for playing a vampire, what’s your favorite vampire movie?

There’s some really cool vampires in there. Underworld with Kate Beckinsale, I just think she’s sexy, especially when she wears leather and depicts a vampire. And then The Lost Boys, you can’t go wrong. Kiefer Sutherland’s amazing in that and From Dusk Till Dawn…awesome movie.

This episode had a lot of singing and a lot of drama, so basically I was a happy camper. We meet Quinn’s (blond) parents, a former student who used to be in love with Will (warning: it’s creepy!), some moments between Kurt and Finn, a baby confession, three karaoke songs, an intense fight, and two bitchy scenes with Terri — one’s funny though. Finn shows his true colors, and the glee club shows their solidarity and support for Quinn and Finn. And of course, everything is solved by 8:57 CST.

Predictions: Well, at least one person knows that Finn isn’t the baby daddy. Considering how solid the glee club is, the baby-daddy drama may not be as bad as I may have thought. I just hope Sue will be back next week.

Music Tip: I tend to melt when Artie starts to sing, and especially when he riffs. His riffs during “Lean on Me” were simple, eloquent and not overstated. Also, it was refreshing to hear Will actually sing rather than rap. I love his rapping skills, but he’s been on Broadway multiple times, and this episode we really got to see why — to be honest, I was swooning almost as much as Emma and Rachel.

And then I see Kristin walking down the sidewalk to have dinner with Jayde. My heart was seriously racing. No doubt when Kristin sat down Jayde already had a few drinks in her, only adding fuel to her always-saturated-in-alcohol fire. Does anyone else think Jayde looks like some sort of house cat in human form? And not in a sexy sort of way. It was so obvious that Kristin had all her shit together and Jayde had seriously fallen off the deep end. Kristin was so put together and Jayde’s hair was getting all up in her face. Kristin was calm and collected and Jayde was babbling all over the place like the drunk she is. And let’s be honest. We all know Jayde is and never will be a match for Kristin. When Jayde told her, “Go back to where you came from,” I feared for her life. Who do you think you are, talking to Kristin Cavallari like this? Do you know where she’s been? Do you know what she’s done?

Heidi: Your plan is questionable. Seriously questionable.

And then Jayde, the alchie house cat, met Brody for dinner.

Jayde: Pronouncing adult like ‘A-dult’ doesn’t make you sound intelligent.

…and then she said she wants to get back together…

Wait. No. No. This cannot happen. I thought this was your exit from the show, Jayde. Please, for the world’s sanity, tell me you’re not serious. And Brody is considering it! He wants to work it out?! Is this for real? I’m losing respect for you, Brady. Losing respect.

Final Verdict: Wait, Kristin’s going to Vegas? What just happened?

Nic Cage, doing what he does best, arguably. Photo courtesy of First Look Studios.

Grade: C

Bottom Line: Brilliant auteur Werner Herzog tragically remakes a 1992 masterpiece as a messy genre picture.

Long before its theatrical premiere, Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans clinched the dubious award of raising more eyebrows than any other production this year. No one ever expected a team of young producers to remake one of the masterpieces of the 1990s with legendary director Werner Herzog and infamous actor Nicholas Cage.

In 1992, Abel Ferrara wrote and directed Bad Lieutenant, starring Harvey Keitel. The film’s unnamed lieutenant was confronted by his sins while investigating the rape of a nun. This graphic depiction of a New York cop mixed up in hard drugs, sexuality and violence was the most profound expression of Catholic guilt since Martin Scorsese’s Mean Streets.

Herzog removes religion, relocates to post-Katrina New Orleans and polishes the rough edges for his 2009 remake. Nicholas Cage stars as the law-bending, gambling-addicted, coke-snorting Terrence McDonagh. His lover is a prostitute (Eva Mendes), and he has no problem stealing from the property room of the police department for a good hit. In short, McDonagh initially investigates a mass murder but ends up partnering with the crime’s mastermind (Xzibit) to make money and score coke.

While Keitel focused on the inner struggle and redemption of the original lieutenant, Cage accentuates the absurdity of his character’s corruption. With a gun visibly tucked in the front of his pants, Cage’s hunched-over cop is often a joy to watch because the actor brings absolute madness to the character. Sleep-deprived and desperate, he cuts off the oxygen supply of an elderly woman and sticks a gun to the head of an intensive care worker to find a witness for his investigation. It is a wonderful Herzog moment in which the audience responds with a mixture of disgust and laughter, and Cage is the reason why it works so well.

Unfortunately Cage’s character never has the ambiguities or substance of the original lieutenant. The one-note joke of his madness never develops, instead tiring by the end of the film. His hysterical laughter under the influence of drugs is ultimately forced and unconvincing. The past few years have seen Nicholas Cage randomly punch women and preposterously see into the future, and this performance disappointingly can be categorized with those abominations.

The film’s post-Katrina context feels forced and contrived. Director Werner Herzog has always been so great at turning the setting of a film into a character, sometimes the main focus. Kuwait will never be as hellish as depicted in Lessons of Darkness, and Wisconsin will never again be as oppressively dull as in Stroszek. With Bad Lieutenant, the decision to relocate to New Orleans does not make sense. The city merely feels like a superficial backdrop for the film’s action.

Herzog and Cage could have made a sleazily ironic masterpiece with this remake, but they fumbled largely because of the inconsistencies of William M. Finkelstein’s screenplay. Finkelstein has previously penned episodes of NYPD Blue and Law & Order, and a potentially wicked vision of a remake is instead tame and predictable. The movie shies away from the drugs and the sex which the original so intently focused on, even if that meant an NC-17 rating. The elements essential to the character are present but taken far too lightly — completely unexpected from a director as edgy as Werner Herzog.

When asked about the remake at a Cannes press conference, original director Ferrara infamously responded, “I wish these people die in hell. I hope they’re all in the same streetcar, and it blows up.”

It is difficult to tell whether or not Ferrara was being serious, especially considering the movie had not been made at the time. However, Herzog’s version is such a butchering of Ferrara’s deeply personal film that it is hardly a remake, featuring a different story altogether. Filmmakers are entitled to take liberties when reinterpreting a work, yet there should be a sense of respect for the original work. Because of the intentional humor of the remake, those who remade the film seem little concerned about the seriousness of a film originally about the rape of a run. Even though Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans is sometimes hysterical and hypnotic, the inconsistent final product lacks the depth which would have held this movie together.

Director Werner Herzog’s Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans will be playing in select theaters in Chicago including the Landmark.

Episode Summary

We open with where we left off last episode, with Cameron (Jennifer Morrison) having just found out about Chase’s (Jesse Spencer) part in the Dibala debacle. In spite of her well-professed morals, Cameron forgives Chase, but convinces him that in order to move past it, they had to leave Princeton-Plainsboro.

As Dr. Kevorkian and wife arrive at work, House brings them into the loop concerning their new patient. Before beginning, though, Chase and Cameron reveal their plans to leave. While performing the usual diagnostic brainstorming, Cuddy (Lisa Edelstein) makes a brief appearance, telling House that his license has been officially renewed. No surprise there.

While the team begins to check their porn star for STDs, House pays a visit to Taub (Peter Jacobson) and Thirteen (Olivia Wilde). Using his usual charm and complimentary attitude (as if), he tries to convince them to come back to the team, while simultaneously pitching different possible diagnoses for Hank. Both submit possibilities for his ailments, while at the same time refusing to return.

After Hank’s STD scan comes up dry, Hank drifts deeper into illness while House and the team flounder for an answer. Flip-flopping between vitamin D deficiency, sclerosing cholangitis (causing liver failure) and leukemia, the team continually fails to find a viable diagnosis.

Just when all seems lost, though, a further foray into Hank’s liver reveals something unexpected: strongyloides, a.k.a. threadworms. With this new knowledge, Thirteen and Taub jointly come to the conclusion that Hank has Crohn’s disease, while at the same time rediscovering the magic of diagnostics.

The episode closes with Chase deciding that Cameron’s decision to forgive did not really reflect her own beliefs, and so he chooses to stay and work for House, while Cameron leaves, convinced that House has permanently ruined Chase. Following Cameron’s exit, Taub and Thirteen arrive, as expected, to once again pledge themselves to diagnostics.

What Worked

House’s stalking of Taub and Thirteen, while on some level could possibly be perceived as creepy, was nothing short of entertaining. And of course, what we know by now is that whatever House wants, he inevitably and eventually gets (next conquest Cuddy?).

What Didn’t

Cameron’s departure seemed somewhat akin to that of one of her previous colleagues, Dr. Kutner, who was killed off without warning last season. While we’ve known for a while that Cameron was destined to leave us, the way in which the writers wrote her exit was a bit too abrupt for my taste.

Predictions

With Cameron gone and House relicensed and finally with a permanent team again, we will, in all likelihood, return to the usual medical dramatics and mysteries. Hopefully, House will continue to follow his libido straight back to Cuddy.

If there’s anything Regina Taylor can’t do, it’s leave her creative life behind.

Taylor, the self-described “multitasker,” is an actress, playwright and director. She says that she works these different jobs because she enjoys the collaboration. To her, all of her jobs are part of the whole scope of her creativity.

“The life as an actor, the life as a writer, the life as a director -– they’re intertwined with my perspective of how I live my life,” she said. “All of it is interconnected.”

Regina Taylor will be visiting the School of Communication on Wednesday, Nov. 18 as the 2009 Hope Abelson Artist-in-Residence. Students will have a chance to listen and talk to the award-winning actress, director and playwright in the Annie May Swift Auditorium at 5:30 p.m.

Inspired by her mother’s passion for the arts, Taylor began as a writer. Her childhood books made out of construction paper and crayons evolved into stories and plays such as Crowns and Magnolia, works she calls her “children.”

Taylor discovered her affinity for understanding characters through the stories and said that she eventually took up acting as well after exploring it in college.

“I could immerse myself in books and be transported to a different time and walk in other people’s shoes, live different lives,” Taylor said. “You can go as far as you imagine.”

Taylor’s imagination and creativity have garnered her recognition and praise. She won a Golden Globe for Best Performance by an Actress in a TV Series and garnered two Emmy Award nominations for her role as Lilly Harper in I’ll Fly Away. She also received an NAACP Image Award for portraying Molly Blane on the television series The Unit.

“I felt surprise, excitement, wonder and humbleness,” she said of her moments of recognition. “As I’m working, I’m not thinking about winning an award, I’m thinking about doing the best job I can. I’m digging as deep as I can to illuminate the truth in the work.”

Throughout her career, Taylor has also worked with actors like Denzel Washington and Kevin Spacey in films such as Courage Under Fire and The Negotiator, respectively. However, she said that she loves working with whomever she can and creating a network of artists to work with.

“I think the life in being a part of this industry is that you’re part of this nomadic tribe, and you have these experiences, and then you move on,” she said. “You’re creating relationships that as you move forward, in being tied to the arts, you’ll cross paths again.”

On stage, Taylor is also known for being the first African American actress to portray Juliet in Romeo and Juliet on Broadway.

“It was an incredible feeling,” Taylor explained about the experience. “It was one of the most demanding roles that I had ever taken. It was something that totally encompassed and pushed me in terms of being an actress and who I wanted to be as an actress.”

After recently wrapping the final season of The Unit, Taylor says that she wants to focus more on writing a new series of plays. In her writing, she explains that she likes to connect her own life with her work.

“With everything, I use my own experiences,” she said. “If you can be open to life, there are many experiences you acquire through reading, through sitting on a park bench and observing people as well as being touched by life as you’re moving through life.”

For students looking to enter the entertainment industry, Taylor advises them “to be daring, to not be afraid of your own fierceness, to own yourself and to own your own voice.” It worked for her.

“My goal is to live a creative life,” she said. “I love conversations. I love working. I love dancing. I love dancing inside. I love dancing in the street. I like sitting back and observing. I like throwing myself wholeheartedly in a new experience. I want to have a life of no regrets and look at it all as a growing process.”

Wrong.

Lopez Tonight kicked off last week on TBS. Lopez will host the hour-long show five nights a week. It starts at 10 p.m. CST, so the time slot indirectly overlaps with the shows of more established hosts like David Letterman and Conan O’Brien.

The first warning sign during the premiere was the “party” atmosphere. Blaring music, an oversized venue and a screaming audience give off the impression of a My Super Sweet Sixteen episode, something the world could stand to live without.

Instead of opening the show with topical one-liners, it seemed like Lopez tried and failed to throw together a stand-up act. About 12 minutes into the show, the first commercial beak was a welcome relief from the jokes.

The fact that Lopez had big-name guests should have helped out his cause, if only he could have engaged them in interesting conversation. Eva Longoria Parker told of an argument with Mars Inc. over her Peanut M&Ms. Kobe Bryant struggled to say anything of substance and wasn’t helped by Lopez’s constant fascination with repeating curses for the censors.

Logic would dictate that Carlos Santana performing “Oye Como Va” could save even the worst of shows. Not so, although it was impressive that Lopez snagged such a prestigious first musical guest. If he can consistently book good acts, he’ll have that advantage over other talk shows.

Granted, few talk shows are perfect at the start. It took Jimmy Fallon a couple of months to grow into his new role and tweak his content.

It’s not that there’s absolutely no hope for the future of this show. It is likely to appeal to a broader racial demographic than the other talk shows. The only problem with that theory is that Lopez’s being Chicano likely won’t be enough for the show to steal viewers from other hosts with better quips.

Lopez has everything that major network hosts don’t have and don’t need: a supply of recycled jokes from a canceled sitcom, the support of a smaller TV network and guests who tell stories that make viewers want to add: “And then I found five dollars.”

When FX decided to air Snakes on a Plane, for example (so much for “artistic integrity”), the explicit content had to be removed one way or another. The station could have just taken out the the film’s most famous line, but what would the movie be without it? Instead, they apparently opted to take the dumber, more hilarious approach:

Similarly, the Die Hard franchise sans Bruce Willis’ trademark somehow loses some of its punch. This Die Hard 2: Die Harder montage culminates with the eyebrow-raising substitution. Honorable mention: “Joe off!”

Don’t even get me started on Scarface. Pineapple? Really? Classic.

And then there’s Tarantino. Profanity is integrated into the very fabric of his work; his ability to pen dialogue, including foul language, is part of what makes him great. Deciding to dub Pulp Fiction, which clocks in at a whopping 265 F-bombs, would be such a laborious undertaking that it probably wouldn’t even be worth it, even taking the film’s wild success into account.

Same goes for The Big Lebowski.

I leapt into the crowd, determined to walk away victorious. I gripped blindly into the buckets of buttons and bookmarks, stashing handfuls in my pockets before shoving my hand back into the brawl for a second go. I took elbows to the side. My feet were stepped on more than once. I almost fell as someone crawled between my legs and popped up in front of me, stealing my prime spot.

It’s hard to be pissed at an eight-year-old, though. I got it. I understood. I would have crawled under my legs if I were her. With this, I retreated from the pit and returned to my friends who were waiting expectantly for their share of the bounty. We divvied up the swag. The best thing about the advanced screening of New York Minute was the Mary-Kate and Ashley swag.

If you’ve seen New York Minute, you might think that last line was a jab at the quality the film. I assure you, it wasn’t. I saw New York Minute twice in theaters — an advanced screening is great, but come on, what kind of fan would I have been if I hadn’t gone out on opening night? A piss-poor one, that’s what kind. Plus, having seen the movie already, I was able to go in costume opening night (I dressed like Ashley’s character, complete with bulky day planner and a friend of mine dressed as Mary-Kate’s punkier character).

New York Minute came out in 2004. I was a sophomore in high school. You might be thinking that made me a little old to be dressing in costume and fighting for Olsen twin swag, but New York Minute was the end of an era.

Seriously, Mary-Kate and Ashley owe me a thank you, as a great contributor to their massive wealth. Growing up, I couldn’t get enough of them. I watched Full House religiously, received copies of nearly every direct-to-video release and when I ran out of episodes and musical-filled videos, I gobbled up the book series based on them. I couldn’t get enough. When my parents agreed to let me pick my little sister’s middle name, I chose “Michelle,” because that was the only way to name her after both of them.

It’s not so uncommon for a girl born in the late ’80s to have once harbored an obsession with the Olsen twins. It’s less common to still feel as strongly connected to anything they release as a twenty-something. So why the Olsen twins? Why is this the slightly embarrassing, but wholly enduring obsession from my childhood? I think it’s because I never once looked up to the Olsen twins. They were never my role models. I didn’t want to be like Mary-Kate and Ashley; I was like Mary-Kate and Ashley (okay, you know, except for the billions of dollars).

I didn’t look up to the Olsen twins or learn from them, I learned with them. In To Grandmother’s House We Go, they ordered peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with the crusts cut off and extra jelly. I always wanted extra jelly too! In Passport to Paris, makeup and boys started to play a lot more prominently in their home video series — I may not have been jet-setting around the world, but 1999 was exactly when I started experimenting with makeup and seriously thinking about boys as more than smelly, loud people with shorter hair than me. Every time I changed, Mary-Kate and Ashley were right there changing with me. I wanted to be like them right now, not someday when I grew up.

Mary-Kate and Ashley were like friends, people I wanted to hang out with, not emulate. Sure, now they’re kind of like those friends that went off to New York and got way too cool to hang out anymore, but going to see one of their movies or picking up a magazine that featured them on the cover is like going to a reunion. Today, Mary-Kate is pursuing a solo acting career (sans her adorable other half, she’s starting from the bottom — guest spots and indie flicks — and working her way up) and Ashley is focusing on fashion (unfortunately, ever since I outgrew the Walmart kiddie line, I can’t afford any of their designs — don’t worry, their lines favor Ashley’s sophisticated look over Mary-Kate’s bo-homeless look). Yeah, I keep up. But that’s what friends — I mean, fans — do.

Fanfarlo in action. Photo by kata rokkar on Flickr, licensed under Creative Commons.

Fanfarlo sounds familiar. With all the press the band has received for its unassuming orchestral indie pop, the London-based quintet has permeated blogs and radio with its well-crafted songs ornate enough to catch your ear, but laid back enough to show you a good time.

But even if you haven’t heard the band’s name before, it’s easy to pick out sonic references: opening track “I’m A Pilot,” with its repetitive piano progression and crunchy drums, sounds like Cold War Kids doing a cover of the National. The second song, “Ghosts,” with strummed acoustic guitars and prominent trumpet recalls Neutral Milk Hotel at times, an apt comparison for a band that does such a flawless cover of “In the Aeroplane Over the Sea.” Lead singer Simon Balthazar’s vocal performance is familiar too, recalling Clap Your Hands Say Yeah’s Alec Ounsworth’s distinct singing — sometimes incomprehensible, but still strong enough to hold all the right notes.

While Fanfarlo isn’t the first band to bring those styles to indie rock, the amount of ground they cover is impressive. The first three songs alone utilize music boxes, full string sections, horns, synthesizers and tempo shifts. “Luna” begins as one of the punkier numbers, but its frantic pace is nowhere to be found four minutes later as the song’s dramatic build-up quickly cuts to just an acoustic guitar and a trumpet solo. “Comets” has some unclassifiable instruments, too. Before you can decide if you’re hearing creepy background vocals, a stringed instrument, or maybe a theremin, the song approaches New Pornographers territory with its male-female harmonies and spurts of power pop.

With all of this crammed into 11 songs in just over 40 minutes, it’s easy to picture the band dropping instruments and scrambling to pick new ones up while recording the album. And with the way “Comets” leads rights into “Fire Escape,” without iTunes to guide you, it’s possible to easily miss where one song ends and another begins.

The downside to Reservoir is that they cover all this ground a little too quickly. By the album’s halfway mark, the band has already shown off every quirky instrument and pulled enough tempo changes that little comes as a surprise. The songs could be just rearranged in any order and the album would feel the same. That’s not to say similarity sacrifices quality — it just means the most memorable songs will likely be the first ones you hear.

Despite the pros and cons of the cohesion, if you don’t pay close enough attention, you might miss some of the more dynamic and pleasing moments on the album. “Drowning Men,” with its hand-claps and throbbing baseline, is easily the album’s catchiest track and makes great use of the string sections. The song’s rhythm section is enough to carry the weight of the song, but violinist Cathy Lucas adds a moody color that proves Fanfarlo’s strings aren’t just a stage prop.

“Finish Line,” which starts like almost any other song the record, has a danceable but short-lived synth breakdown, while the delicate album closer “Good Morning Midnight,” a minute and a half of thoughtful guitar picking and ambient keyboards, melodically has the most staying power. With Reservoir, you’ll enjoy how it begins and how it ends — the rest will be a fond, if distant memory.

Interview with frontman Simon Balthazar

There’s a lot of mention in the press about all the different instruments featured on the album. Did you set out to be unconventional, or did those choices come naturally?

The way we arrange our songs is just something that comes natural, we’re just guided by what we feel the songs need. For our album we didn’t feel like using electric guitars much, but instead we used [a lot of] musical saw, clarinet and mandolin, as well as toy pianos, trash cans and a bunch of vintage organs.

There are parts on the record where it seems like a lot is going on in terms of all the instruments. Is it easy to reproduce the record live, or do you find you have to scale the show down with only five people in the band?

We don’t necessarily set out to copy what we did on the record, but we’ve kept a lot of the arrangements for live use, which means carting around a lot of instruments and swapping mid-song.

After being on tour with Snow Patrol, you’re starting to tour in the U.S. in support of the album. Is there a different mindset that comes with being your own headliner?

We’ve spent a fair amount of time on the road doing our own shows, so the massive arena shows with Snow Patrol were more the exception. We really prefer playing smaller shows where you can actually connect with people. The current tour we’re on is certainly different from our recent tour of big cities though. This time we’re driving through loads of small towns, which is going to be really interesting hopefully.

Your website features all sorts of acoustic covers in what you call “Laptop Sessions.” Is this an important creative outlet for the band?

It’s more a document of us hanging out, playing around, covering songs we like. So it’s almost a social thing, but yes, there is an interesting creative element to playing other people’s songs, you find new perspectives on music. It’s the most obvious, basic way of expanding what you do and how most people first learn how to make music.

A lot of the videos feature the band playing in all sorts of random locations outside. What’s the weirdest place you’ve played?

Years ago we played on this cross between a monument and a stage, this big monstrous thing looked like a big fuchsia and was sat in a square. A friend asked us to play and we were short on cash so we did it. It was a lunch time and very strange.

You guys keep a pretty extensive tour diary. As a band that’s just breaking through, do you find that you’re documenting more for yourself and the band or for new fans?

A bit of both. We were pretty good at keeping a video diary not so long ago and it was really cool to revisit stuff we sometimes didn’t even realize had been filmed.

You posted pictures of when security tried to stop you from playing outside at Glasgow University. What’s the craziest thing to happen to you on tour?

I can tell you, but I’d have to kill you.

Reservoir was for sale for $1 on your website for the first part of the year. Did Radiohead’s pay-what-you want approach to In Rainbows pave the way for this, or was it something you had been planning all along?

It was just something we did for the hell of it. I guess also we were thinking — hey, this is how much we’d make per record anyway if were signed to a major!

You’ve self-released music in the past, but Reservoir now has the support of Canvasback Music and Atlantic Records. Was there a particular point where you realized a label would be helpful?

They were just really keen and could offer us the means to go out touring properly so it made sense. It was definitely a good thing for us to stay independent for a long time though.

There are more and more bands starting to self-release music. Do you think that’s where indie music is headed? To not just be on an independent label but to have no label at all?

I’ve definitely seen this trend for a while now. In the same it’s getting easier for people to record records without spending a ton of money, it’s getting easier to get the music out there and do your own thing without needing the stamp of approval from the industry. At the end of the day it’s good for music and creativity in some ways, but it also means it’s harder to make a living as a musician because you have to take more risks.