Alessandro [Michele] has really done the impossible. He's taken this classic brand [Gucci] and really turned it completely around and taken it in a direction that was so unexpected. [Alessandro and I] met and became friends here in L.A., and then we got to know each other and he asked me to do this. It was really organic and not the way this stuff normally happens.

I like Fashion but Fashion doesn't really like me, obviously.

Alessandro [Michele] has really done the impossible. He's taken this classic brand [Gucci] and really turned it completely around and taken it in a direction that was so unexpected. [Alessandro and I] met and became friends here in L.A., and then we got to know each other and he asked me to do this. It was really organic and not the way this stuff normally happens.

I thought it would be a great opportunity to work with someone that I really like and really respect as an artist [like Alessandro Michele].

I like to think that people can see that and appreciate that idea and then, by some mechanism of wearing the fragrance, sort of carry that idea with them in their own life. Whether it's a weekend in Louisiana or in New York City or in Venice, Italy, or wherever they may be. I think there's something kind of fascinating and powerful about that.

It's nice if people ask to use your song. You have to make a decision as an artist how you feel about that.

When I was a kid, I used to live in New York City. There was a guy named Michael Alig. He used to throw parties. And a couple of times, I even worked for him and his crew, and handed out fliers, and had my super-high shoes on, and wearing silver Saran Wrap around my head or something. It's a world I was really comfortable in: a world full of individuals. I think what I like about that world - besides my own personal interests - is the individualism, the investment in the self.