The Beastie Boys are visibly unnerved by Utah. On their first visit to the Beehive State, to promote their fan-filmed concert movie Awesome; I F---in’ Shot That!at the Sundance Film Festival (in theaters now), they’re chafing at surroundings far blander than their native New York. Taxis stop for pedestrians. The beer, by law, is weak. The hotel suite taunts them with its mining-chic blend of earth tones and Old West motifs. And no, they haven’t met Sundance founder Robert Redford. But they detect his fingerprints.

“These sofas were actually used in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,” deadpans Mike Diamond (a.k.a. Mike D), sunken into distressed leather next to Adam Horovitz (a.k.a. AdRock) and Adam Yauch, a.k.a. MCA, a.k.a. Awesome director Nathaniel Hornblower. “Robert conceived of this coffee table while working on the movieThe Hot Rock. He just thought of it in his trailer one day.”

EW managed to interrupt the decor deconstruction long enough to learn some five new things about the 25-year-old band:

1. MCA reads his own reviews Surfing beastieboys.com in 2004, he saw a 30-second cell-phone clip posted by a fan and got the idea to give 50 diehard fans Hi-8 cameras to document a concert . “It just had this energy because of the low quality and the fact that it was hand-held,” MCA says. “That gives the film sincerity.” His bandmates skipped out on grueling months of editing overseen by MCA, who used a head-expanding 6,732 cuts, or 75 for each of the film’s 90 minutes.

2. The circus affected them deeply Talking in overlapping riffs, almost as they rhyme onstage, the trio goes from Madison Square Garden, where the concert film was made, to seeing the circus there to the lore of P.T. Barnum. Just don’t dare mention Cirque de Soleil (“a sore topic,” says Mike D) or Ringling Bros.’ radical consolidation of the traditional three rings into one. “What the f--- are they doing?!” sputters MCA. “No, no! That’s the whole thing!” says AdRock. Adds Mike D: “I’m starting a new non-profit called Bringbackthethirdring.org.”

3. Their own movie surprised them “There were parts where we’re talking in between songs and it’s like, ‘What the hell are we saying?!’” says Mike D. One example is the intro to “No Sleep Till Brooklyn,” in which they try to orchestrate sections of the crowd to yell out in sequence, “No!” “Sleep!” “Till Brooklyn!” “We’re trying to explain stuff to them but even now I don’t get it.”

4. Hornblower will sound again The director of many Beastie Boys videos, including “Ch-Ch-Check It Out” and “Intergalactic” is branching out into narrative filmmaking, writing and planning to direct a story about graffiti artists set in 1981. “Movies are a different mentality than music videos,” says MCA, who adopted the nom de film to direct the band’s 1989 video “Shadrach.” “This is going to be amovie movie.”

5. They'd make good narcs As his bandmates talk with EW, AdRock’s attention wanders and he clucks at what he’s convinced is “weed” smoke blowing out a nearby window. Finally a break from the Utah tedium! He names a faded tabloid star. “That’s probably him right there, having a party.”