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 pretty easy to lose money on tour - most bands do on their first couple of tours. We're more established, but I think it was just poorly booked. It was a mess from the get-go.

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."

Nobody really wanted to do that one European tour. For one, it was budgeted to lose money. They would've made something, but I would've lost a lot of money.

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'm glad that, despite everything, I was able to get work done and finish something. I never finish anything. So just being able to finish record and to make music is a great gift.

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