Ask Decemberists bassist Nate Query about the highlight of his career and he's bound to give two different answers.

In December 2006, band member Chris Funk took on comedian Stephen Colbert in a guitar challenge, which made national news.

"Stephen Colbert did a green screen challenge where he released green screen footage of himself with a light saber," Query explained in an interview with LiveDaily. "Then he had people turn it into whatever they wanted and send it into him.

"Not long after that, we did a green screen challenge with an animated video that we made. We released green screen footage and let people animate it however they wanted. So he called us out on his show saying, 'The indie rock band The Decemberists [ tickets ] are trailing my coattails.' Then we told him, 'Well, we did the light saber thing first. So therefore, we challenge you to a guitar duel.'"

"The Colbert Report" host accepted the challenge. Query said The Decemberists were just excited to be mentioned on his television show.

"He actually had Chris on his show, which was amazing. It was so fun to watch. I was living in San Francisco at the time so I couldn't watch it with the rest of the band. Everybody else got together with a bunch of friends to watch it. I had friends over my house to watch it. I was watching it on TV, but it was still the highlight of the career. It was amazing."

Asked what what it was like to perform with Mavis Staples at Bonnaroo, Query had a similar reaction.

"That was the next highlight of my career," he said with a laugh. "That was unbelievable. She's so amazing. It's funny. In the pop-rock world, there's so little opportunity to interact with musicians of other generations. You're always with people of the same age and same experience. Whereas, in jazz and blues and classical, there's always interplay between musicians of different ages. Mavis Staples is just an icon. There's nobody like her. To be able to hang out with her a little bit and then share the stage with her was just an amazing opportunity. It just really sort of gave me so much hope for music."

The Decemberists--which include lead singer/guitarist Colin Meloy, guitarist/multi-instrumentalist Funk, keyboardist Jenny Conlee and drummer John Moen--recently canceled its tour in support of "The Crane Wife," citing a band member's illness. Before the cancellation, Query talked to LiveDaily.

LiveDaily: Tell me about the album "The Crane Wife." I've heard it's a concept album, and I've heard that it's not. Why don't you set the record straight.

Nate Query: Well, "The Crane Wife" comes in three parts. We separated them out on the record. If you put them together, it's more than a 15-minute chunk on the record, telling the story of "The Crane Wife." That's pretty conceptual. But that's not the whole record. There's a whole 'nother 40 minutes on there of other things, part of which is a suite called "The Island," which is three songs, and another 12- to 15-minute chunk of the record. People tend to hone in on that part of the record and call the album a concept record, or call us a prog-rock band. That's a good half of the record, where we did sort of dabble in conceptual rock and prog rock. There's also some straight-forward pop songs or folk songs. It's not a true concept album because that would be following one strain through the whole record, but we didn't do that.

One thing I really like about your band is you're such good storytellers. Everything is so vivid and it's really interesting to listen to. Is that the kind of music you grew up listening to?

I think all of us are interested in music that does that. Colin, the primary songwriter, is certainly particularly interested in people like Robyn Hitchcock or some of the British folk revivalists of the '60s and '70s. Yet our interests run a bunch of different directions, too. But Colin has always been really drawn to making his songwriting very vivid. It's something that the rest of the band has really latched onto because it's fun. It means there's more to sort of emphasize through instrumentation, too. We definitely had fun moving in that direction. I think some of it can be tied to some of our influences, or some of Colin's influences. But sometimes Colin writes three songs that really just seem very original. And he does seem to be more into the storytelling than your average rock songwriter.

One song I was going to mention, which you already mentioned, is "The Island," which is very vivid.

It's always fun when he brings those kinds of songs because we just immediately come up with a million ideas of how to arrange it. Even in his earliest songwriting, you hear that. Certain songs show a tendency to exaggerate that part of his songwriting.

Touching on that, how have you seen the band evolve since it started?

Well, when we first started, we had very simple instrumentation. It was just an upright bass, accordion, acoustic guitar and drums. We were just trying to set ourselves apart a little bit from the alt-rock thing that was big in Portland [OR] at the time, and sort of your typical electric guitar indie rock. We just wanted to do something a little different and experiment with moving toward the fringes of what's acceptable in rock music. To a certain extent, that spirit has remained the same. But we've certainly opened up the possibilities for instrumentation. We play all sorts of instruments. We certainly play electric rock in addition to the acoustic stuff. I think, as we've developed as a band, we've come to trust our instincts, whether that takes us far from the mainstream or headed right toward it. We don't really worry about where we're going as long as we're enjoying it.

I thought it was interesting when you were talking about storytelling, you said it was kind of "fun" to hear those songs brought to rehearsal or the studio. I don't hear bands use the word "fun" too much. It's kind of sad.

[laughs] That's always been the best part of playing music. For me, it is really fun. That's why I started. That's why I still do it.

I noticed you did a few shows with orchestras. That must have been fun. How did you like it and would you do it again?

It was really exciting. It's such a different experience. We've been touring a lot for the last four or five years, and we keep making a record every year and a half or two years so there's always fresh songs. But, still, when you're touring all the time, you can kind of get sick of your own band to a certain extent. During the orchestra shows, it was a really exciting opportunity to do something entirely different. It was really fun. It was a really neat opportunity but it was also a lot of work, and it was more work on a day-to-day basis on tour. It was kind of stressful. We're used to playing with just your four other bandmates on stage, then all of a sudden there's 80 people behind you and a conductor. Sometimes I'd listen in on the orchestra so I locked in with them. Sometimes I couldn't listen to them because they're playing slower than me, and you're going to get all messed up if you do. It was a pretty crazy experience. I think it would be fun to do again sometime. I also think it was enough work and it was sort of a unique enough experience that we might just sort of leave it at that for a little while. It was also the chance for us to play in front of very different crowds. In Atlanta, at Chastain Park, it was a very different crowd from playing the nightclub. We were playing at, like, 7 p.m., and people had their picnics--bread and cheese and olives and white wine. It was a very different crowd than you get at the nightclub.

Have you started writing new material?

Colin just brought us a bunch of new songs. After this tour, we're going to have some time off. We're not going to rush into the studio or anything, but there's already a good amount of material for us to get started on.

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