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Radiohead recently announced that they’re to deprive the United Kingdom of the joy of seeing Liars this summer after snaffling them up to play the main support slot on the first leg of their forthcoming tour Stateside. Now they’ve announced full details of the second chunk of dates around the north American continental region, and revealed that helping them make venues as unprepossessing as Indianapolis’ Verizon Wireless Music Centre turn into cauldrons of magic in sound will be none other than handsome and stiff-collared Brooklyn multi-instrumental jazzers Grizzly Bear. We caught up with Grizzly Bear main man Ed Droste to congratulate him on the news, and to pop a few questions as to the whys and wherefores.

Nice work on the support slot, Ed. How did this all come about?

Ed Droste: I'm not sure. We just suddenly got asked and then naturally we were thrilled and said yes.

Liars are a bit more boisterous than Grizzly Bear, how did they decide which cities needed mad Angus, and which needed the smooth paw of the Grizzle?

ED: We can be boisterous! And we'll keep it largely ‘up’ on this tour. We certainly won’t be choosing our quiet songs to play to a stadium of Radiohead fans finding their seats and waiting in the beer line. Also we won’t lie to you, ever. I have no idea how it was decided. It's all a very secret protected world that I'm not privy to.

What's your favourite Radiohead track?

ED: Oooh, I have a bunch but I guess I love ‘Fake Plastic Trees’, ‘Pyramid Song’ and ‘Videotape’. But truthfully I really like almost all of their catalogue. A lot. Basically there are two artists I've always dreamed about touring with. Radiohead and Bjork. One out of two is pretty exciting.

What else have Grizzly Bear been up to? Can you tell us a bit about your recent live orchestral collaboration?

ED: Well, about a month ago we did a show with the LA Philharmonic at Frank Gehry's Walt Disney Concert Hall in LA. It was actually a different set up than normal being that we weren't back by the LA Phil but they opened the show playing pieces we selected. It worked very well and was a total honour for us to have them OPEN the show. We originally were going to be backed by them but there wasn't enough time to do the sheet music and rehearse with them, so we are now planning on a string of shows next year where we'll be backed by them. Hopefully it all works out but you never know with show business.

When can Britain expect to see you grace our shores again?

ED: Well Massive Attack invited us to play the Meltdown festival this June, and we REALLY wanted to attend, but one of my band mates already has a trip planned and we couldn't accept the offer sadly. So if I had to guess when we'd be back in the UK I'd have to say early 2009, when the new album comes out (hopefully). We are looking forward to playing some nice seated venues over there instead of having to personally construct the sound system for three hours before a show at shit holes like Barden's Boudoir.

Also we are planning on doing an even HUGER collaboration with Rihanna of ‘Umbrella’ at next year's Brit Awards. It's going to fucking blow England's mind.

Grizzly Bear will play with Radiohead at the following dates this summer:

August
3 Indianapolis, Indiana Verizon Wireless Music Center
4 Cleveland, Ohio Blossom Music Center
6 Montreal, Quebec Parc Jean-Drapeau
12 Camden NJ Susquehanna Bank Center
13 Mansfield, MarylandTweeter Center
15 Toronto Molson Amphitheatre