English folk rockers Mumford & Sons thrive on touring

With the downtown Manhattan skyline as a backdrop, a big rock concert stage has been constructed for the first time at Pier A Park in New York City, a grass-covered former pier on the Hudson. Loud bursts of static compete with planes flying overhead as the last components of the sound system are plugged in. It's the day before Mumford & Sons headline a triple bill at the park, playing for 15,000 people to start the band's late-summer US tour.

When everything is plugged in, Mumford & Sons will do a thorough sound check. But in the meantime the four members - guitarist, lead singer, main songwriter and sometime drummer Marcus Mumford; bassist Ted Dwane; keyboardist Ben Lovett; and banjo player Winston Marshall - sit out in the park, dining on steak and potatoes from takeout containers and sharing an interview.

Adele's album 21 blares to test the speakers. "I'd love to write a country album with Adele," Mumford muses.

The tour includes day-long festivals - named Gentlemen of the Road Stopovers, after the band's own label - that will have Mumford & Sons headlining along with half a dozen kindred bands on two outdoor stages. (They take their music - and the Stopovers - to Australia in October.)

"We love playing live, and there's that whole adrenalin-filled thing," Mumford says.

"But we're still singing about some darker things because it's just songwriting that comes from our heads. There are those corners in our heads that are obviously there, just like anyone, so they've got to be expressed. Just because they're expressed in a major key with a banjo doesn't mean that they're any different. And that can be quite fun, playing a jolly-sounding tune with darker lyrics."