If you meet Josh Ritter in Oxford next week, feel free to give him a present.

Just make sure it isn't chocolate - particularly the brand that shares his name.

"I'm the owner of a great collection of Ritter chocolate!" he laughs.

"Everywhere I go, people give them to me and I can't eat them. I've about 70 of them right now. I'll never turn them down though!"

As far as rock & roll vices go, however, it's hardly shocking.

But then it's kind of what you'd expect from this easy-going Idaho singer-songwriter - one of the most exciting names in Americana folk-rock.

"I'm pretty un-rock 'n' roll," he says, basking in his lack of debauchery.

"In fact, you could say I'm de-rock 'n' roll. I'm even learning how to cook. I've started with peanut butter sandwiches."

Josh's devious sense of humour and breezy, yet buzzy, outlook is what sets him apart from more downbeat alternative country artists.

Take his latest album, the 14 track epic The Historical Conquests of Josh Ritter. The themes may be serious, violent and funny - singing about whisky, his lover's underwear, shooting at outlaws, and generally keeping his Colt cocked - but it's all so passionate, upbeat and exhilarating.

"For me. Writing is not torture," he explains.

"It's always been the simple part of my life.

"I love writing but laid down a law for myself that I was never going to write my autobiography. If I'm not writing about myself, it means I'm writing about something more interesting.

"I don't write about my girlfriend breaking up with me for the 50th time. That really must be torture."

Josh is talking to the Guide from New York, where he is hanging-out before flying to the UK. And, though the city has become his second home, he admits he misses the remote charms of the American North West.

"Unfortunately, I now seem to spend most of my time living in cities. But Idaho is a really great place. It's got everything - mountains, deserts and one of the deepest canyons in the world, and it's got potatoes a-plenty."

Josh admits he is very much a product of his rustic home state - a notorious haunt of outcasts, dropouts, hillbillies, hippies and survivalists.

"Anybody who's there is there for a reason," he confides. "It's an interesting place. It's also quite conservative.

"There are also lots of guns. It's certainly easier to be 'packed up' than it is, say, in Swindon.

"I don't carry a gun though. For me a mechanical pencil is a deadly weapon. For someone with my lightning reflexes and violent nature, I have to be sure I don't carry a gun!"

Josh's gig, at the Oxford Carling Academy on Tuesday, is part of a UK-wide tour which follows a series of shows in Europe, the US and Canada, and will be followed by a 'small town' tour of the States - with gigs in such musical hotspots as Nashville, Spokane, and Athens, Georgia.

And such is Josh's cult following, there is never a quiet night.

"It surprises me that people find my music at all," he says.

"There's so much music out there. People come out of nowhere - and are gone.

"It's never happened so quickly. You can really be the toast of the town and then you just disappear. Fifteen minutes of fame seems like an eternity these days. Now it's more like 15 seconds.

"I've been doing this for six or seven years and have seen so many people come and go.

"But success fuels survival, and a mark of someone that lasts is a willingness to go on the road.

"And I've got a good Idaho work ethic!"

Though, he says, touring brings its own rewards. "It can be difficult," he admits, "But it also leads to more interesting problems and solutions. And you learn to pack in fun times with your friends.

"There's all sorts of stuff that can happen. On this last trip we got stuck in snow outside of Montreal. Before that, I was on tour with Joan Baez in Italy, and it was so hot the bus broke down. It was 9am, and Joan said 'come down the road', and bought me this huge beer. It was like an enormous oil can!

"We were sitting on the kerb outside this gas station, drinking, when a bus turned up which had also overheated. It was full of beautiful Italian models, who all got beers, and joined us.

"That was my perfect beer commercial!"

Josh Ritter plays the Carling Academy on Tuesday. Tickets are £12 in advance.

New single Empty Hearts is out on Mercury, on March 31.