Moving to Los Angeles from his native England was a bit of a culture shock for The Wedding Present frontman David Gedge. Initially, he wasn't very keen on the move, which was a necessity to be closer to bassist Terry de Castro.

"It's such a big, stupid kind of cartoon city in a way," Gedge said with a laugh during an interview with LiveDaily. "I think the people who go to live there tend to be very self-focused, obviously, because they want to be music stars or rock stars. It's a bit of a "me, me, me" kind of society.

"But then I think I got used to it. The weather's brilliant. It's a bit surreal to be in the place that's the entertainment capital of the world. One minute, you're watching a DVD in your apartment and then there's the actress who was in the film walking down the road. These things happen on a very frequent basis. It's amusing. I've always been interested in pop culture. I've always been more a fan of films, pop music, comics, than architecture and literature and stuff. It's quite an obvious place for me to live here."

The Wedding Present--which also includes drummer Graeme Ramsay and guitarist Chris McConville--will remain in the United States through Oct. 17 while it promotes its latest album, "El Rey." For the itinerary, see below.

"It's quite a rocking set," Gedge said about the tour. "Our bass player does the set list these days. I'm too close to it and some of these songs. It's hard for me to do it. She's done it. She's a rocker. ... She's able to look at the old songs she didn't actually play on with an unbiased view. I think she just favors the rocky, darker ones."

Gedge said the band entitled the album "El Rey"--Spanish for "The King"--for two reasons: it pays tribute to his newfound California influences and to one of his musical heroes in particular.

"A bit more stupidly, it's a little tribute to Elvis, really, in that I always thought he had the greatest voice in pop music," Gedge said. "I thought I'd have some sort of tribute to the king and keep it more subtle."

"El Rey" was produced by Steve Albini (Nirvana, The Stooges), who owns Electrical Audio, a studio complex in Chicago.

"When we became aware that this LP was being a bit more guitary, we decided to record with him," Gedge said. "The last one was 'Take Fountain,' and it had a little bit more in the way of orchestration and keyboards. It sounded great, but then these songs were going back to the traditional rock 'n' roll line up. We had this big discussion about who we should use. He's the best person in the world to record rock bands like that.

"We went to Chicago and it was really painless and easy and it sounds great. It's always a pleasure to go there. He is really good at his job."

Albini taught the band to unite in the studio, playing live instead of each band member recording pieces individually.

"I think when bands first start, they kind of do things together in terms of recording," Gedge explained. "They basically play live in the studio. When you get a bit more successful and you get a bit more of a budget, there's a tendency to, in the studio, do parts separately and spend ages on the things that are absolutely perfect. He has no need for all that. He's a big fan of George Martin producing The Beatles, where there's albums that were recorded and mixed in a weekend. Obviously, he hasn't done too badly. People love the sounds of those records. There's no need to spend half a day to get a snare drum to sound right.

"As a band, part of the magic comes from four people in a room playing together. It becomes more than the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. I think that's how he always records bands. I think it's the obvious way, really."