Life on the road gives Jake Bugg a new perspective on growing up in Nottingham

It's the kind of hit song that takes on new life in concert, with rowdy, caution-to-the-wind lyrics that spawn boisterous sing-alongs. Now if British rock wunderkind Jake Bugg could only teach American audiences the proper hand salute alluded to in his breakout hit Two Fingers.

"It's great when everybody starts singing along and all that, but over there they always throw up their fingers the wrong way," Bugg explains with a friendly laugh. "That's cool, though. I've got nothing against the peace sign."

England's biggest new rock star at a mere 19, Bugg is actually singing about the two-fingered gesture that is his country's answer to flipping the bird. You know, the sort of gesture he would want to make to all the British tabloid photographers who stalked the "new Dylan" singer when he was dating "new Kate Moss" model Cara Delevingne last year.

Bugg's thick Nottingham accent and mannerisms offer a dose of Britishness in a phone interview from London, where he is resting up at a hotel while waiting to start his US tour.

"It's got PlayStation," he happily reports of his temporary London digs. "I'm basically homeless at this point, but it's all right. I'm getting to see the world instead."

Bugg has gone from playing a BBC-sponsored new-talent slot at 2011's Glastonbury Festival - back when he was still living with his mother - to an act listed near the top of major festival line-ups on both sides of the Atlantic in 2013. In between, his self-titled debut album made it to No 1 in the British charts and earned oodles of critical praise stateside.

While his raw delivery and nasal singing style vaguely recollect a young Bob Dylan, Bugg more accurately draws a line from American rock and English skiffle acts of the 1950s and '60s, and 1980s and '90s Brit-rockers such as The Smiths and Oasis.