I've already had a hard time dealing with some of the trappings of success and turned to some pretty stereotypical escape routes - ways of escaping my own reality and falling into some pretty clichéd situations.

I had these glorified ideas about San Francisco and its drug culture - I thought inspiration would just hit me and I would get these San Francisco drugs in my system and all of a sudden an amazing record would come out. But that's not really what happened at all.

It's totally true: Ariel, Christopher Owens, me, and Courtney Love, all in Saint Laurent ads, all with the same haircut.

I wanted to show a different side of ourselves. I wanted to see in what ways I could explore something new. I felt like working on a double record would give people a lot to have.

Three years between records is longer than average. Double albums are much more of a statement. I really wanted to put myself out there as much as I possibly could.

It's not like I had a breakdown, though it kind of felt like it at the time. I agreed to everything that happened. You can't really be at work and be like, "That's it. I've had too much. I'm going home."

Generally, I think people are just going through the motions now. There's so much stuff that people are doing today that has already been done. I kind of like that new Savages record, but I don't know why they take themselves so seriously.