This last year I have written the best songs of my life. I know I always say that. I think I would be worried if I didn't always think that. It depends on what mission I'm on at the time. Back in 89' to 93' I felt that way. Our mission was to write the trippiest, deepest, most intellectual and spiritual songs we could. It was always a contest between the toad and I, and the other guys around. That whole deep trippy sound.

And then again in 95' and 96', the mission was to write the most majestic, long-lush orchestral, open-tuned magnum opuses I could. And then in 98' and 99' it was all about planet music and how many languages I could write in and how many different types of styles I could fuse into one song or one album. You just get on a roll and you ride it. I wrote maybe thirty or forty songs in the last year. Not a lot. But a good number of them were classics, you know, meaning I really dig them still. They're holding up. "Keep Moving On," "Sleep with You," "The Ambassador," "Where is My Love," "Beautiful One."



This last year my focus, subconsciously but deliberate, was to write good catchy pop/rock songs under four minutes long. Try to make them as simple and mundane as possible. I had never tried to do that before always so focused on being a songwriting genius, or an innovator, something tremendous that has never been done before—the art of it, never focused on just letting go and trying to write really simple catchy tunes with lyrics from the heart about things we all could relate to. I ended up writing a lot of songs about girls and love, drugs and being a loser or a winner. And that's what the new album is going to sound like. Writing songs makes me happier than anything else. It makes me feel like my life has meaning. I have been writing since I can remember. I don't know what I would do if I didn't write songs. I think I would write them anyway. I would just pretend to. I'd be one of those guys with a wife and kids and a dog, a nine to five job, and a receding hair line who goes up to guys like me and says, “you know, I write songs myself in my spare time… I'm working on a CD…” the horror. Kill me first.

Current Spin: Iggy Pop, the idiot.
Last Great Movie: Sex and Lucia—amazing. Inspiring. Vivid. Erotic. Thought provoking, moving, emotional experience. If only America made movies like this.