Armed with an acoustic guitar, Badly Drawn Boy – aka Damon Gough – and his equally bare trio will visit clubs and theatres around the Eastern seaboard and into the South from November 1 for three weeks.

It’s been a year since the Boy last toured the States. This year has found him in Australia and playing the festival circuit in Europe. In between jaunts, he’s been back in the studio working on his fourth album and the follow-up to 2002’s Have You Fed The Fish?

As to the seemingly odd album title, Gough said it’s “the question that gets asked the most at home.”

“The whole album is a reflection of real life versus the incongruous stupidity of the life I now lead as a minor celebrity,” Gough said. “So the statement that meant the most to me was ‘Have you fed the fish?’ The fish angle is symbolic of the fact that it’s the tiniest things that need the most looking after, as opposed to the jet-set lifestyle that’s occurred because of my songs.

“And that’s the thing I’m trying to understand a bit more about and whether it means anything to me.”