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Matt and Alex from the Electric Soft Parade take a break from their tour to talk to Danny O'Connor. He finds out how the heady mix of taxing rehearsals, exhausting performances and endless free beer is taking its toll. They also look forward to that band's One Live in Birmingham gig for Radio 1 at the end of October.

Give me a guided history as to how long you were one name and how it all changed...

A: We didn't have a name for a while when we signed with the label [BMG] back in January. It was on the backburner because we were recording an album. Then we had to come up with a name because we had release schedules coming up, so we were just sitting in my front room one day and Tom was just looking through all these old albums and he found one by the Doors. 'Got it!' And that was it. Soft Parade. Finally, we had something. Someone we know went on to the internet to softparade.com and it was this huge Doors site, and they said: 'what's all this on your site? It's full of Doors stuff.'

So did the Soft-Parade-Doors-outfit contact you? How did all that come about?

A: Well we put out a record as The Soft Parade and they didn't really like it. They phoned our lawyers, phoned the record label, phoned the management. There were lots of really angry, really funny e-mails. They claimed we were damaging their sales, even with our limited releases. Eventually, we had to change the name. What was Tom's quote [about how the name came about] to BMG?
M: 'I never thought the name would be a problem, but I like things to be electric.' It's a made up quote.
A: If you knew my brother, no way he would he ever say that in a million years.

Did you fight to keep it or did you feel it was a losing battle?

A: They were threatening legal action. Like proper million dollar lawsuit behaviour... We tried to negotiate something with them to get some co-existence thing on the go where we could be Soft Parade in the UK... but they weren't interested in it at all.

So there is definitely not another Electric Soft Parade?

A: Give me a gun if there is. I hope not. We've got the website all sorted, and that's a good tell-tale sign of whether you're alright or not.

On to brighter subjects. The Cosmic Rough Riders, you're out on tour with them at the moment. How's that going? Are you all being incredibly well behaved?

A: Of course. Clean my teeth. Go to bed at nine o'clock. They're really lovely guys. Nice bunch of lads. And a good band as well. It's nice to go on tour with nice people and good bands that pull decent crowds.
M: And they're quite different to us as well. They're quite west coast and chilled out whereas we're more rock.

Are there streams of people flocking out to the bar after the support act?  

M: During the support act.
A: I think it's patronising to stick three bands on the same bill who are very similar. I'm trying to think of an example but I don't want to slag anyone off.
M: You see a band and find there's a less good version of them on before.
A: ...We were on tour with 'The Music' before, who were full-on guitar assault Stone-Roses-vibe, with big light shows and stuff.
M: And we were there with our ten pound smoke machine!
A: They were lovely guys as well. I think it's more important that you have nice people. You could hate the band, but you don't have to watch the band. You could hang out on the bus or whatever.

That was an important tour. Certainly the way it was viewed by the wider world. It was in essence the class of this year...
A: It's kind of hard to place yourself in that. I spoke to Steve Lamacq when he came to the Birmingham gig and he thought it was the most important tour this year.
M: He was comparing it to the Terris and Coldplay tour that happened last year.
A: And I was like, 'Cheers mate.' Steve Lamacq! It was a bit mad.

Ocean Colour Scene are from Birmingham, you met Steve Lamacq in Birmingham, and you're about to go back to Birmingham for a pivotal show...
A: ... playing with Starsailor, my favourite band! (sarcastically) I don't mind them, actually, I just don't like their singles apart from 'Fever'.
M: I like 'Good Souls'.
A: I don't like that at all... But I heard James [from Starsailor] on Steve Lamacq the other night being interviewed and he played a couple of tracks off the record. I thought he would play the singles but he played a couple of really nice album tracks, really poetic. I really liked it but I didn't like the singles.

Are you looking forward to it?
A: Completely. Starsailor, fair enough, I haven't seen them live...
M: And Elbow.
A: ... but Elbow are amazing. Really nice blokes and amazing players. So that will be good.

What's the plan beyond that?
A: Touring, touring, touring and touring. It's very dull, well it's not actually... you get up, hang out with a bunch of people and play gigs. You get beer given to you!