Artists who can speak knowledgeably about sharing a bill with Bob Dylan, hanging with Pete Townshend, being there for the beginning of Coldplay's career and performing on the original 'Beverly Hills 90210' are in a pretty exclusive club. In fact, it may be a party of one.

But then Wayne Coyne and his Oklahoma City brethren in the Flaming Lips have always done a masterful job of straddling the line between indie cool and the mainstream. Whether appearing on '90210' or rocking out on the soundtrack to one of Hollywood's biggest blockbusters, 'Spider-Man 3,' the Lips have maintained their cred by being the same fun-loving group that became stars on the festival circuit when Coyne started coming out onstage in a giant bubble.

When Spinner spoke with Coyne recently, we found that same mix of passionate music fan and indie celebrity as Coyne shared some of his favorite rock stars, how he handles success and why he's happy not being considered great.

Which bands are fun to be around on tour?

Well, I don't want to throw anybody under the bus. I do that too much, but we've been on tour with the Red Hot Chili Peppers, a big, giant organization that you think would be wanting to crush everything in its path, full of giant egos. And those guys are a lot of fun. We did a thing with the Who, Pearl Jam, Tenacious D last summer, this Who tribute at Pauley Pavilion. As much as you think, "Oh, there's a bunch of giant rock stars in the building, this should be awkward," that was wonderful. All the people working with the Who were always wonderful, even a couple of years ago when we played with them in Leeds, England, for the first time. So if you're lucky you gravitate towards people who go about their day the same way you do.

And to run into Pearl Jam and Eddie Vedder and go, "Oh, those guys are into this because they love the music and to have a good time. It's not about egos and showing who's more powerful." Even being around Chris Martin of Coldplay, I've really seen them from their very beginning. I was at one of their shows in England when their very first single, 'Yellow,' went No. 1 on that day. I've seen them be very gracious to people that didn't deserve it. I think there are plenty of examples of people, giant rock stars, who are simply being normal people. I wouldn't want to even speculate or talk about the people who are just horrible humans in general. There are plenty of them out there, sure. [But] I don't want to get in any trouble.

You've gotten in some trouble as of late.

[Laughs] I'm not saying I was taken out of context, the things I said about the Arcade Fire I never said them in a sort of statement that everybody should take serious. I probably said it to someone just speaking in general, like, "Oh, whatever." And I really do regret that it got so blown out of proportion. I thought it was a joke, to tell you the truth. I almost thought it was started by us as a joke in a way. I went, "What is this?" I do regret the Arcade Fire took it as serious. It was just a dumb comment.

On a more positive note, could you have ever imagined that one day you'd be saying, "Getting to know Pete Townshend"?

No, especially after seeing the Who here; their performance utterly changed me. When we knew that we were gonna play with the Who -- we had already had some contact with their folks; we knew already that they were fans. But I'll go back to the previous day: We arrived in Ireland to play a little festival where Bob Dylan was headlining and we were playing before Bob Dylan. And the headline on the newspaper when we arrived at the airport was that Michael Jackson was coming to this festival to meet Bob Dylan. And we thought, "Oh, how great is this? Not only is Bob Dylan gonna be there but f---ing Jacko and his kids were gonna be at this festival." So we play the festival, it goes well, we clear the stage of all of our confetti and our animal dancers and all that sort of stuff, and before we know it there's a big lockdown, a SWAT team kind of effect is happening in the backstage and they're like, "You gotta clear out." In our minds we're thinking, "Michael Jackson obviously is here."

And we saw, like, six giant Hummer limousines pull up to the stage there and we watched from the end of the stadium to see if Michael Jackson and his weird entourage gets out. And Bob Dylan and his band have had to clear the whole place just so they can come up and play this festival. You would expect that from Michael Jackson, [but] we assumed Bob Dylan was sitting in his dressing room all day picking a guitar and having fun. But he and his band demanded that the whole place be kind of overly protected so they could pull in their limousines there. It was shocking: Not only do you not get to meet Bob Dylan and his band, you don't even get to be within a quarter-mile radius of them. And everybody at the festival, from what I could tell, was a little bit like, "Oh, boy, this is silliness, but this is what you gotta do if you want Bob Dylan to play." So, a very strange moment, there's no Michael Jackson, you don't get close to Bob Dylan.

So the next day, 18 hours later, we pull into this festival in England. We go to our dressing room, and there's Pete Townshend simply walking around. I go up to him and go, "Hey, Pete, we're doing this radio show with you in a couple of hours." He goes, "I know, Wayne, it's great to meet you." We talk about music ... and he's charming, nice and nice to people around him. I thought, "Gee, if anybody deserves to have the armored limousines, it would be someone like Pete Townshend. If Bob Dylan was worthy of them, certainly he was." And I just saw how you can do this thing any way that you want. You can make yourself this immaculate, untouchable superstar, or you can really just let your music and your art do all that for you.

Is there anything else you've picked up from Townshend on how to handle things?

Well, obviously there are people who are insecure about their looks or their music or their integrity as an artist, all that; that probably is the worst of it. When you're around people like Eddie Vedder and Pete Townshend, you see they're not insecure, they find it very easy to be a normal person. I think it would be impossible to walk around thinking you're the greatest thing in the world and to be around people all the time who are like that. It would just wear you out. So to me I'm always relieved when we're putting on a show. I know the audience comes to see the Flaming Lips and to hear that music. They're not coming because I'm the greatest thing ever. They're coming because Wayne says he's gonna entertain us. "Let's go and be entertained by him." And that to me is a great relief. It's not that we're great; we can offer you a really great show.

Have you had any feedback from Madonna on the Lips' cover of 'Borderline'?

No, and we never really thought we would ... When you cover someone's song, you end up hearing it a million times. I think she's great. She's an unstoppable force for sure, and in a way I think she's a great inspiration. I can tell by the way they produced her records she's not the best singer in the world, but she doesn't give a s---. She's like, "I'm Madonna. I don't have to be the greatest singer in the world." And I think that's great. I draw inspiration from all those people who aren't singers but sing anyway, whether it's Henry Rollins or Ian Curtis or even the guy in Duran Duran [Simon LeBon], John Lydon, all these guys -- they're not really singers, but they do it anyway. Bob Dylan would probably be a great example, even though I think he's a lot more skilled than he lets on.

Are there any new songs you're already excited to play live?

There's one called 'Convinced of the Hex' that is very strange ... the only comparison we have is there's a period of Miles Davis starting about 1969 that goes to about 1974 where he would have sometimes a couple of drummers, maybe even two bass players playing along with this very strange, intense kind of rock rhythms but kind of otherworldly rhythms, as well. And some of that we've kind of stumbled upon in two of the songs. I know for sure, 'Convinced of the Hex' really flies along and to me it feels like if Joy Division was transported from 1980, thrown into a session with the Miles Davis Group, and they had to make music together. As uncanny as it sounds, there's a moment where it kind of feels like, "Man, that's cool." And I don't know if it's really cool or it's just cool 'cause we're in the middle of it right now, but that song I'm really looking forward to seeing. It's got strange lyrics about some kind of woman being involved in S&M and discovering religion through sadomasochism, and it's awesome.

Joy Division and Miles Davis, huh?

I know it sounds horrible. It kind of sounds like Mexican food while you're on a roller coaster, but sometimes we stumble upon these combinations like, "Damn, I don't know why that works, but that does work." And so there are other songs that seem more in the vein of classic Flaming Lips, more piano ballad kind of things. We have one called 'I Don't Understand Karma,' which sounds like a John Lennon-type ballad. So there are different flavors; obviously we're looking for a bigger, sprawling, not-one-theme thing since we're doing a double album. So I think part of it is gonna go in this Miles Davis freakout sort of way and part of is gonna go in a milder John Lennon plays piano, sings about the existential dilemmas of being a human. And then, hopefully, there's some area in between where I don't really know what's gonna happen.

It's been 19 years since Devo, who scored multiple hits in the early days of New Wave with 'Whip It,' 'Girl U Want,' 'Freedom of Choice' and 'Working in a Coalmine,' last released a new studio album. But the band famed as much for its flowerpot-reminiscent "energy domes" and yellow hazmat jumpsuits as its smart, eccentric pop tunes are coming back this fall with new music.

When Spinner visited with the group's founding members Gerald Casale and Mark Mothersbaugh at the West Hollywood offices where Mothersbaugh has done much of his film scoring work, ranging from Wes Anderson movies including 'The Royal Tennebaums' to childrens fare such as 'Rugrats in Paris: The Movie,' the pair talked about the world then and now, and where Devo fit in today. They also talked about being scolded by Neil Young and praised by David Bowie, their founding concept of de-evolution and the difference between quirky and neurotic.

Take us back to the early days of Devo.

Mark Mothersbaugh: When we first signed with Warner Bros., they had no idea what they were getting involved in and they did anything they could to lessen anything we were talking about that might've made sense. They did their best to sabotage anything that they saw happening with us, and their best method was to refer to Devo as quirky. That was one of their big words: quirky.

Gerald Casale: I'd have to say, in all fairness, if you watched us back then and you see the evidence, the clips, listen to the first records, you could say at least we were neurotic [laughs]. It trivializes what you're doing, which is what media is designed to do. And compared to then they have it down to an art, trivializing everything into a ridiculous sound bite. It's all like 'Entertainment Tonight' now. Everything is tabloid and reduced to sound bites. Content has meaning, meaning is dangerous to corporate society. Should be meaningless, everything should be like fast food, it seems. They have decided that.

Did the sociological and cultural climates influence the decision to make a new album after 19 years?

GC: We're right back where we started from, like during the Reagan-era, Devo had the right-wing evangelicals to rail against and to protect the population from as much as possible, and what's changed? It's even more of the same, more devolved than ever, but the same problem and we wanted to do something before we went into assisted living. So it was now or never.

In the last year, so much has changed in the cultural climate. How has that affected the new music?

GC: You know, so much has supposedly changed, but I don't believe it has.

MM: Yeah, I think Devo is still on message from even 30-some years ago. What we were about are the same issues we're addressing now. It's about the human mind.

GC: But if you're referring to the fact that there's been a happy face put on the change of administration as if all the woes and issues of culture that were kind of pushed by the Bush administration have suddenly just dissolved and floated away, that's a lie. These posters where Obama's looking up towards the heavens and it says "Hope" really remind anybody with any sense of political history of communist Russia -- it's like Lenin and Stalin [laughing]. So I don't think we're watching a return to democracy and the burgeoning of the Bill of Rights and civil liberties at all. I think we're watching a happy face being put on the New World Order as we all go down. Devo's just the house band on the Titanic; we're here to entertain you until the last moment.

And you still feel like we're getting there?

MM: It's only exponentially getting more acute. What we said a long time ago was obviously just a pose or an art joke, it was a good art joke. Ironically, Devo was kind of optimistic. All we had to do was talk about things and people would say, "Wait a minute. Let's do the math here, it's not gonna work." And then the humans would wanna change things.

GC: But what we were joking about and that we didn't really wanna see happen happened. Nobody thinks the idea of de-evolution is far out anymore. If you think about it, the crystal ball, if somebody would've showed you today in 1978, would you have really believed it was possible? I don't think so. Just look at the decimation of the air, land and water, and the crisis with the food supply on a global level, and the fact that people are still playing politics, wanting the other guys to fail, rather than rowing the boat in the same direction. That's the darkest side of human nature you can have, when everybody is going down and they just wanna be right. They'll go down just to be right; it's unreal. Rush Limbaugh to me is a great example of de-evolution, exactly what we were sickened by, the kind of human being we talked about back then, that was it. He's a bad spud.

Is there still optimism then today?

GC: I think what Mark was saying is there is a bit of romantic optimism in being upset or criticizing, pointing something out, because you feel that things are fundamentally OK and it's a warning, "Hey, quit looking around; look out the windshield, because otherwise you're gonna take the boat into the rocks." And now, personally, I don't feel that things are fundamentally OK and we just have to correct the course a little bit.

MM: Now we're much closer to the rocks than we were before. They were way out there when people were talking about it in the Sixties and they were saying, "You know what, do the math: There's only so much space on the planet and there's so many people. If you want everybody to come out of the starvation situation, you have to have some overview of the whole thing of how many people you're gonna let be on this planet and how many people you can support." And it's way beyond that now. There's still nobody even considering that an important issue to put out there. It's like everybody is arguing for procreation as fast as they can and as much as they can.

GC: Octomom.

MM: She's probably started a new trend. You know, right now there are people all across this country going, "Wow, honey, I know you can have more than eight. I know you could do a litter of 10. You could do a litter of 12. Let's show them."

But if Devo started off with a sort of romantic optimism, doesn't a new album suggest there may still be some hope?

GC: I think we better get Shepard Fairey [designer of the Obama "Hope" poster] to do our record cover. [Laughs]

MM: A lot of the things that we hoped for 35 years ago there's no chance for now. There are too many people for everyone to eat; they aren't all gonna get to eat. And it's not gonna be through educated decisions that we decide how to thin the flock; the flock is going to take care of itself through means that are going to be ugly, brutal -- and we're in for a dark period, I think. But it's gonna get nastier because at least in the West you could ignore it, you could watch your TV shows and ignore what was going on in the rest of the world. Now you're gonna see it 'cause it's coming to us.

What is the role of music today, then, in dealing with all this nastiness?

MM: If you look at what most bands are about or what most pop music is about, music's gone through a long period of conspicuous consumption.

GC: And wallowing in the darkest side of human nature; just excess, violence, rough sex, consumption -- that's certainly the message put out by most mainstream hit music and hip hop. It's certainly not trying to turn anybody on to anything new or lift them out of their daily reality by some imaginative musical means, it's wallowing in the mud and celebrating stupidity. So in that sense, Devo is not doing that; what we tried to do is lift people out, make them think and entertain them at the same time. That's certainly what we're still doing.

Given the dearth of what you see as intelligent pop music, does it give you hope to see how much interest there still is in Devo and this new album?

GC: Yeah, that is heartening, really, no cynicism inherent. I mean the fact that anybody even wants to give us an opportunity now, when the economy is in the toilet and the musical landscape is overrun with tons of songs that nobody can even find half of and bands basically living and dying 24 hours a day to get a break. And somebody wanted to talk to Devo and give us an opportunity that's heartening because we must've done something right to even be remembered.

You guys were very involved in the business side well before a time where that was acceptable. How was that perceived?

GC: That was the problem: That's why we said we were pioneers who got scalped, because we were met with negative attitudes for being creative. Especially when it came to marketing and packaging; that was supposedly anti-rock 'n' roll. And they would say as much: "That's not rock 'n' roll."

MM: I remember people like Neil Young scolding us: "Why did you have a merchandise catalog inside your record sleeve?" "Well, it's kind of like the back page of a comic book." I was really trying to explain it to him, why we were doing it.

Was there anybody then on the other end who was really supportive?

GC: Certainly the fact that David Bowie and Brian Eno really liked our music ...

MM: They were very supportive and Brian was our producer of record on the first album, and they liked what we did, they saw what we did and they got it. It gave you a boost of confidence that you're doing the right thing, and that's hard to even put quantifiable value on. It's huge to an artist, somebody you respect says, "This is great; you should keep doing that."

What are some of the songs that either stand up best for you or you're looking forward to revisiting?

GC: For me, they're actually the ones that everybody likes. I like what people like. I really do. 'Uncontrollable Urge' -- every time we play the song I like what I'm doing. Even things like 'Peekaboo,' I love it every time we do it.

What was the moment where you decided you would do a new album?

MM: There was a slow build to it 'cause we talked about it for years and then when we really decided was we got asked to do music for a Dell commercial and they were going to just license -- we license our songs all the time -- and they wanted 'Whip It.' And Gerry is friends with the creatives on the project. He worked with them on something before and he said, "Hey, would you be interested in a new song from Devo?" Instead of going, "No, no, we want the same thing as everything else," they were like, "There is such a thing?" And we said, "Well, there could be." We had sketches and things, and Gerry played some stuff for them and we finished one of the songs off because of the commercial. And we got paid for doing something new and it kind of eliminated the need to have to sell it later on.

Does finally having new material to mix into the set give the older songs a new sense of life as well?

MM: The first six songs we play, three are new and they fit in pretty well. That's the good thing; they don't sound like they come from another time period. And I think that has a lot to do with the way Gerry and I and the band write music. The things that concern us now are still the things that concerned us then. So I read Gerry's lyrics; he has lyrics he writes that could be on an early album. I write lyrics and I try to make them that way, too. I try to make them so they sound like they came from that time period, and sometimes we even borrow stuff we never finished back then.

GC: There was something about Devo that wasn't trendy. There was nothing trendy about our yellow plastic-covered paper suits that everybody laughed at or the red hats. It wasn't like you could say, "Oh, yeah, it looks like a baseball cap." It was one step removed from reality, and so were we. In other words, we were never just about being famous or being young or "look at me in leather pants." In some ways, Devo is timeless. There's no reason to change being yourself. As much as Neil Young is himself, we are ourselves. What makes us ourselves is that it was always conceptually generated. So it was never just about what was going on in 1980, had nothing to do with it. And we just lucked out in the sense that you intersect with the culture, it's like aliens happen to drop down, but they just happen to look right for that moment so the people at the party aren't afraid of them.

Since his signature dance-floor anthem 'Go' debuted in 1992, Moby has consistently been one of dance music's most recognizable stars, even making the jump into pop stardom when 1999's 'Play' became a surprise multiplatinum success.

Additionally, albums such as 'Animal Rights,' which found him exploring his punk roots, and '18' have shown him to be a thought-provoking artist. His magnum opus, 1995's 'Everything Is Wrong,' is a sublime work that will have you dancing at moments and then nearly moved to tears at the lush, orchestral gorgeousness at other times.

Moby's latest, 'Where It's At,' hearkens back to 'Everything Is Wrong,' creating a rich world of musical moods and styles. Yet, as Moby shares with Spinner in an incredibly revealing chat, he's not kidding when he says he doesn't expect anyone to listen to the album.

As he talks about the pluses and minuses of fame and success -- with the benefits being playing alongside his musical heroes David Bowie, New Order and Lou Reed -- it's clear no one is more surprised by all this than the man born Richard Melville Hall.

Who's on that list of the people you admire that people might be surprised about?

I love Neil Diamond, and part of it is a very genuine love and there is also a degree of nostalgic irony. Someone I have an almost non-ironic love for -- it's one of those things, maybe, I shouldn't admit this, but I really love Rod Stewart. Like when he was in the Faces, and all his early solo stuff. That voice, 'cause I've always wanted to be a singer. When I was young, I would listen to Beatles records and sing along and I had myself convinced that I would be a great singer. Then I tried out for school choir and I was one of the three people rejected. A class of 60 people, 57 were accepted into the choir, three people were rejected, and I was one of them. So I've always been in awe of people who just have not only amazing voices but amazing, idiosyncratic, really distinctive voices, like Rod Stewart.

Rod Stewart isn't such a bad one. Why should you have kept that to yourself?

I think I have interview Tourette's, like you put a microphone in my hand and all of a sudden I'm saying, out of nowhere, bizarre things about Scientologists and Tom Cruise. Maybe it's like the signal passing through the microphone short circuits my brain and all of a sudden I have to say the most inappropriate thing I can think of. And afterwards I'm like, "Why? Haven't I learned my lesson? Like, haven't I pissed off enough people?" I think I need a minder or, like, a chemical nanny or something.

You recently played with Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr. Do you still get a sense of amazement about something like that?

Without question, because I define myself as being an obsessive fan. There were certain musicians like John Lydon, David Bowie, Ian Curtis and Ian McCulloch who I just loved. I revered them. I wanted to dress like them, sound like them, find out everything about them, buy their posters and records. I was an obsessive fan, and one of the strangest things about having my own career as a musician is I've been able to interact with my heroes, and it's so disconcerting. When I was growing up, I never expected to have a career as a musician. I thought that I would make music in my bedroom or my basement that no one would listen to. Musical careers were for the exalted ones, the David Bowies of the world. And I felt like my lot in life was to be a perpetual fan. And then I sang a Joy Division song with New Order; I played 'Me and Bobby McGee' with Kris Kristofferson, 'Walk on the Wild Side' with Lou Reed and traded verses. I played 'Whole Lotta Love' with Slash and we traded guitar solos, and I know it sounds like I'm being immodest and bragging, but I'm more just trying to say it's almost like there's a shift in the space-time continuum and this is a reality that was never supposed to happen, because I was never supposed to meet my heroes, I was never supposed to make music with them. I was just supposed to sort of observe from afar and buy their records.

When was the first time the opposite happened and someone came up to you that had that same sort of hero worship you had for others?

When I first started making dance music in about '90, '91, and I don't know what this says for me and my sort of unresolved psychological issues, but a woman came up to me and said, "Oh, I really like your records." My instinct was to try and convince her she was wrong. I was like, "You must be mistaken." As a musician, I make music that no one cares about, and even to this day I've been making records for 20 years, it's still incredibly disconcerting to me when someone tells me that they like me or they like my music, you know. Hopefully, a few more years of therapy, I'll have it all worked out.

What does your therapist say about it?

That emotional habits founded in childhood are really hard to get rid of as an adult.

Have you stopped trying to convince people that they're wrong?

There are some musicians who expect fame, and there are some musicians who expect success, and there are some musicians who when they put out a record they expect people to listen to it, and whatever success I've had is an anomaly -- and when I put out a record like this new album 'Wait for Me,' I put it out and I don't expect anyone to listen to it.

Was the success of 'Play' difficult then?

I started putting out records in my name in '90 or '91, then from '91 to '99 some of my records were successful, some weren't successful, and it was always like the unsuccessful ones made me a lot more comfortable. The successful ones made me a little nervous, and then when 'Play' came out it was such a bizarre thing 'cause at that point I was kind of a has-been. I made this weird record in my bedroom. I was signed to a small independent label, and I certainly didn't expect it to be successful, and the success of 'Play' just grew and grew, and one of the ways I dealt with it, I just drank a lot. And by staying drunk for a few years, it made the attention a lot more tolerable, and I'm not complaining. There truly are fewer things less annoying than a public figure complaining about the perils of public figuredom. But the attention that comes with the degree of success, I can't say that I like it all that much; but then, the flip side of that, the paradox is when I get no attention, I get really anxious. So attention makes me nervous, lack of attention makes me nervous. What do you do? Go with Leonard Cohen to Mt. Baldy for 10 years.

Do you feel like though having gone through a level of celebrity it was much easier to give it up because you realize the idiocy of it?

It's more subjective, in a way, 'cause when 'Play' became successful, I found myself getting a little too involved with the institutions of fame -- like going to red carpet events and celebrity parties because I couldn't believe I was being invited to these things. So I went and drank and did drugs and it was fun, but from my experience it was all like junk food. Celebrities might be OK, but not when they're getting a lot of attention because, for example, when my friends when go to a dinner party, they're judged on how much they contribute at that dinner party. Meaning they're judged if they're funny, if they're erudite, if they're respectful, and celebrities feel like just showing up is enough, and so you go to these celebrity parties and it's a bunch of people who think that just showing up has made it a special event, so it's kind of tedious, and the conversations with celebrities – it's so tautological. Like you just keep repeating the same thing over, "What are you working on? So, where are you staying? So where are you going for vacation?" So it just gets really repetitive and I just wish I was at my friend's house playing scrabble and watching 'The Simpsons.' That ultimately seems a lot more fun, healthier, sustainable.

Was there anybody who really guided you or at least you looked to as like, "All right, well, now I know how to sort of deal with the success and keep going"?

There are a couple ways to learn. One is learning from people who are doing things right, the other is learning from people who seem to be doing things wrong. So standing back and observing public figures who are desperately clawing for more fame, more attention, more drugs, more sex and more everything, that desperation leads people to make bad decisions. It led me to make a lot of bad decisions, and it's really unattractive. So, sometimes, I wasn't so good at seeing my own desperation and sometimes I wasn't so good at seeing my own bad actions, my bad judgments, but I could see it in other people and realize I was doing the same thing and it made it a little easier, like being a drunk. If I'm out and it's four o'clock in the morning, and I'm really drunk, I'm thinking to myself, "I'm so witty and full of insights." And the truth is I'm just an idiot.

Talk a little about working with David Lynch, being inspired by him and then having him direct the 'Shot in the Back of the Head' video.

David Lynch is probably my favorite American filmmaker. Honestly, I think everything he's done has been pretty remarkable. [Of] all the musicians I mentioned who were my heroes, David Lynch is sort of above all of them, and there's a danger, some of my heroes when I've met them, it's actually compromised my ability to go back and listen to their records. So now I'm a little weary of meeting my heroes 'cause I don't want to screw up my fandom. But I DJ'd at his wedding, that was my wedding gift to him. He's such a kind, gracious, generous man it's actually made me like his movies more. I understand them less because his movies do have quite a lot of darkness in them, and he's such a happy person.

When you hear the finished version of 'Wait for Me,' what do you take from it?

When I make records, I do the engineering, production, songwriting, and playing the instruments, so a lot of the time when I listen to the record I'm evaluating it in all those different ways and it's this sort of dichotomy between fault and praise. So sometimes simultaneously I can be listening to something, criticizing part of it but also giving myself a little credit for other parts of it. I think it's actually quite a nice album, I'm really proud of the way I produced it, and I'm going to sound like Grandpa Simpson, but I got tired of all these modern records where everything is in your face and loud. What's happened in the last 20 years is when people mix records, they mix records for radio, and that means there's no subtlety, no quiet bits, even if it's a ballad, it's a loud ballad, and so when I recorded and mixed this record I wanted it to have dynamics. I wanted it to have space and atmosphere, and I didn't want it all squashed and put in a box. I wanted it to feel in a weird way like the first Jefferson Airplane album felt.

Between Jimi Hendrix and Slash, there was Eddie Van Halen. For rockers who came of age in the late '70s and early '80s, EVH was the ultimate guitar hero. From his showcase piece on the first album's 'Eruption,' as well as FM staples like 'You Really Got Me' and 'Running With the Devil,' he consistently tops the list of most influential guitarists of his generation.

In recent years, though, the guitar god has battled throat cancer, gone through rehab and divorced his wife, actress Valerie Bertinelli, positioning him more as tabloid fodder than rock idol. However, sober, healthy and happily engaged to publicist Janie Liszewski, he's back, as evidenced by the chants of "Eddie! Eddie!" that awaited him every night on the recent sold-out Van Halen tour that reunited him with frontman David Lee Roth.

With the band that bears his surname currently between projects, Eddie has turned his attention back to his passion of guitars, specifically designing them. With the recent release of the Fender Wolfgang guitar, named for his 18-year-old son, now Van Halen's bass player, Eddie spoke with Spinner. Though his interviews are rare these days, he proved to be very forthcoming, sharing stories about several of Van Halen's signature songs, including 'Jump' and 'Ain't Talkin' 'Bout Love,' touring with AC/DC, learning to play sober and how his guitar riffs are literally God-given.

You didn't start off playing guitar, did you?

I never took guitar lessons. I took classical piano lessons from the age of six when we lived in Holland. And when we moved to America, it was just the typical thing except I was really good at it; so was my brother. Long Beach City College had this contest, it was a piano recital, and I won three years in a row. But I stopped playing piano for one reason: I was forced to do it and I wasn't allowed to play what I wanted, so it wasn't fun. So I rebelled and bought myself a drum kit. And my brother quit playing piano, too, and he started playing guitar. Well, Alex started playing my drums and he got better than me, so I said, "OK, f--- you, I'll play your guitar."

Talk about your recording/writing technique now.

It takes me a good hour to loosen up my fingers and I always just leave the DAT tape rolling or something, or a cassette, anything, and after two and a half, three hours, you kind of get into a zone that I'm kind of relearning because I'm not drinking anymore. When I used to drink, it would get me there quicker. It's kind of the zone where you're not thinking, where you're just open to anything and I just believe that when you play long enough you're able to execute with your fingers, whatever God gives you, and God's not gonna give you nothing if you don't practice or play. So after a couple, three hours, God says, "OK, he's ready. I'll throw him a bone." And God's got a sense of humor, too -- sometimes he gives me s---, 'cause not everything I do I like.

I think every writer hits upon moments where you know you've reached something special. What are a couple of those moments for you?

It's like 'Jump': It was our only No. 1 single, and believe it or not I built my studio to put that song on our record 'cause everyone hated it, same with the song 'Right Now.' Alex and I tracked the whole thing, certain people didn't want to be a part of it, then it wins a Grammy and a MTV Award for Video of the Year, and all of a sudden it's like, "Hey, yeah, great!" But it was like pulling teeth to get the person to sing the damn song. And there are certain things that I fight for because I do write all the music so I think I have a little bit of say in how things should go. I'm not a tyrant, as a lot of people think. I just expect other people, if you're in this band, to work as hard as I do.

How did not taking lessons influence you as a guitarist?

I started doing all kinds of weird stuff on the guitar, which became part of my playing. I started doing harmonics and tapping on the guitar and pulling off strings and doing all this weird stuff that no one had ever done before. And if I would have taken lessons I probably wouldn't have done it, and what forced me to do all this weird stuff on the guitar was I couldn't afford effects pedals, I didn't have all this stuff when I was a kid so I just tried to squeeze all the weird noises I could out of the guitar, which brings me to building guitars. Nobody built the guitar that I like or that did what I wanted it to do, so I built my own. And to this day it's still a great guitar.

On this last tour, I had a chance to see a few shows, and especially at the Philly show, there was that moment when you're playing at the end and the crowd is just chanting "Eddie!"

It brought tears to my eyes. It makes me feel kind of weird, but obviously the Man Upstairs gave me something and it touches people, and I'm just so blessed. And now I got my son in the band and it makes it even more ... Alex, Wolfie and I, it's a family thing. And by the end of the tour, Wolfie was just incredible. For a 16-year-old to get up there and play in front of these people, he pulled it off very, very good.

My favorite moment in the Philly show came where you reached over and mussed Wolfie's hair in a fatherly way. You looked like you were having so much fun up there.

It was. Whoever thought that my own son is the one to kick my ass? That kid is so good, you have no idea. When I first heard him sing, it was, like, fifth grade for a science project; he came up with the craziest idea ... I think it was an 'N Sync or New Kids on the Block song. I went out and bought a karaoke track of it, and he and a buddy changed the lyrics and called it 'Dirty Cell.' I still have that recording, and he blew my freaking mind how great his pitch was. I named him after the right guy [Mozart], that's for damn sure. A lot of the stuff on the Van Halen records is very basic and simple; live, midway through the tour, he started noodling around. He got bored just doing the simple stuff that's on the record. His first instrument is drums, he's an amazing drummer; he's got the Van Halen gene, I guess. Nobody thought that he'd be able to pull off Mike Anthony's background vocals, and he did.

So will we ever hear the 'Dirty Cell' song on a Van Halen box set?

That would be funny. It'd be up to him [laughs]. Believe it or not, it holds up. If we ever did put out everything in the kitchen sink, I have footage of me playing guitar when the guitar is actually bigger than me in the sixth grade talent show, all kinds of crazy stuff like that.

It would be a different approach to a box set, like a family album.

There's all kinds of stuff. So much stuff, I have so much music, so many CDs, DATs and cassettes in boxes, and just recently I'm starting to kind of listen to stuff because I never label stuff very well. I'll pop something in, world music type of stuff and all kinds of stuff. But I was always up against certain people saying [about 'Jump'], "That doesn't sound like Van Halen." [I was told] verbatim, "You're a guitar hero; nobody wants to see you playing keyboards." Well, I didn't mean to ram it up their poop chute, so to speak, but it's our only No. 1 single.

And that closed the last tour.

Yeah, because it's our only No. 1 single ever, right now. It's a keyboard-based song. "That's not Van Halen." Well, what is Van Halen? Van Halen is whatever I write because I write all the music [laughs]. But I get outvoted because we are a democracy, so to speak: Dave, Wolfie, Alex and I are a band. I hope that after Janie and I get married in June and Wolfie graduates that we sit down and discuss recording new music, which I have tons of, if Dave's up for singing ... and then do another tour and just see where it takes us. But it is true that people expect a certain thing from Van Halen. But the stuff that Janie's talking about I wrote years ago. I've always been this way. That's why when people ask me, "Who's your favorite band?" I don't have one; I like songs by people. The only band I was really over-into was Cream. And the only thing I really liked about them was their live stuff 'cause they played two verses, then go off and jam for 20 minutes, come back and do a chorus and end. And I love the live jam stuff, the improvisation. Ginger Baker and Jack Bruce pushed Eric Clapton; I almost feel bad for Eric because these guys were jazz players playing Marshall amps and loud as s---. Listen to 'I'm so Glad' on 'Goodbye Cream'; if that doesn't blow your f---ing mind, I don't know what will.

If you're writing different styles of music, are there chances for you to collaborate with different people?

I think as long as we're a band I've always pretty much felt I could get my ideas out in the form or the unit of a band 'cause I do write all the music, except I write a lot of different types of music that doesn't necessarily fit the mold. So yeah, if Van Halen as the world knows it right now is over, then ... Put it this way: Originally, when Dave quit in '85, I'd already spoken to Phil Collins, Joe Cocker, Pete Townshend, all kinds of people to have different singers on every song. But my brother talked me out of it. He goes, "Let's just take Van Halen to what the world knows." But it's never too late. And now with my son in the band, he brings a whole new aspect to it 'cause he's into a whole different trip; even though he loves Van Halen, he listens to all kinds of the current stuff, which I'm really not that up to date 'cause I really don't have the time to listen to anything.

If you look at the rock bands who have longevity, they are the ones who are honest, as opposed to those who are writing songs for a commercial.

It's funny, when bands or younger musicians ask me, "So, what does it take to make it?" Well, first explain to me what you mean by "making it": Do you want to be a rock star or do you want music to be your livelihood? If you want to be a rock star or just be famous, then run down the street naked, you'll make the news or something. But if you want music to be your livelihood, then play, play, play and play! And eventually you'll get to where you want to be. What's the old cliché? "It takes 10 years for an overnight success." If it's your passion and it's from the heart, you just keep playing, playing and playing, and eventually somebody's gonna notice. That's how we got signed; we just played, played and played and Warner Bros. came to us; we never shopped a tape. Gene Simmons tried to help us, but that went nowhere. It was kind of a brief, fabricated idea that he had and it just wasn't us; wonderful guy, don't get me wrong. He tried to help, but I guess he and their manager at the time had a different vision of what are and what we could be and it just didn't work out.

Has your approach changed as you've gotten older?

I don't feel a day older when it comes to my approach to music or what gets me off than when I was a teenager. I've always been into different kinds of stuff and when I play I like to play loud. I like my arm hairs to move and I like my body to vibrate 'cause I like the feel of it; I'm still a teenager at heart. My favorite record by AC/DC is 'Powerage.' And 'Down Payment Blues' off that record is my favorite song by them. They never play it live. We did a co-headlining tour with them back in '83 or '84 and we had a gas. I kept asking, "Angus, you plan on paying 'Down Payment Blues'?" And 'Riff Raff,' all that stuff is great on that record. To me, it's not to take anything away from Brian, 'cause when I saw him he actually sang better live than he does on record, he does a great job, but 'Powerage' and 'Highway to Hell' are probably my two favorite records by them -- 'Powerage' even more so than 'Highway to Hell.' There's something about that record.

Having gone through everything you've undergone with the illness and the rehab, do you have a different appreciation for we're you're at in life and music?

Yeah, I thank God on my knees that I'm alive and obviously to be sober and to be working with my son. I'm so damn blessed it's beyond words. And sometimes the reason I get emotional when people chant my name is because it's like it's really not me, I'm not a rock star, I'm just a musician. I make music for a living, I wouldn't know how to act like a rock star. What is a rock star anyway? I think people pick up on the vibe that I'm not bulls---ting, that what I play comes from the heart. Of course, sometimes I have off nights, but when I'm on people do feel the message that I was given, and I think that they feel that and that it's not just some prefabricated moneymaking thing. I would be doing this still in the clubs if we never made it, 'cause that's just what I do.

If 1994's 'Dookie' elevated Green Day from the Bay Area to national punk kings, 'American Idiot' -- the band's 2004 rock opera which chronicled the adventures of fictional character St. Jimmy -- cemented the trio's status as a world-class rock band. This time 'round, the band is doubling down on ambition.

Green Day's highly-anticipated new album, '21st Century Breakdown,' produced by Butch Vig, is as grand as it is adventurous, featuring 18 songs broken up into three chapters -- 'Heroes and Cons,' 'Charlatans and Saints' and 'Horseshoes and Handgrenades' -- and two new protagonists: Christian and Gloria.

In a wide-ranging, hour-long conversation, frontman Billie Joe Armstrong talked with Spinner about the new album, what he thinks of right-wing conservatives, his love for Robert Pattinson and the two things he'll never, ever do.

How did the success of 'American Idiot' influence '21st Century Breakdown'?

The success definitely created an opportunity for us to push even further. I remember right before 'American Idiot' coming out I was like, "Man, I don't know what the hell is going to happen. Are people gonna think I'm nuts? Probably a little bit." And it's even gone beyond that. We took a lot of time and we just wanted everything to come natural to us -- everybody had to be really patient with me as a songwriter. It was like, "We gotta go for it. We can't let ourselves down." I'm getting reaction now for the first time.

Do people still think you're nuts?

[Laughs] No, people have been really cool. Maybe I think I'm a little nuts every once in a while. If you're not climbing to the tents of your vulnerability, then you're not doing it right.

Marianne Faithfull's days of excess may be behind her, but she remains wild at heart. "Decadence isn't something you do, it's something you actually are," the 62-year-old British singer declares in her deep, smoky voice before dissolving into a throaty laugh. "You know, my so-called decadent days are long past, but I'm still very decadent."

These days, Faithfull, who became famous at 17 when she recorded the Mick Jagger and Keith Richards composition 'As Tears Go By,' says her decadence expresses itself in her music.

'Easy Come, Easy Go,' her new CD -- and 22nd album overall -- blends well-chosen covers from such legendary artists as Bessie Smith and Billie Holiday with Faithfull's striking interpretations of tunes from contemporary songwriters including Neko Case, the Decemberists and Espers. Faithfull is a patron saint of sorts to many younger artists who admire that she has lived life on her own, albeit often troubled, terms. Many of them, including Chan Marshall (aka Cat Power), Sean Lennon, Rufus Wainwright and Antony Hegarty of Antony and the Johnsons appear on 'Easy Come, Easy Go.'

Faithfull talks to Spinner about the one sad theme that recurs over and over for her, spills a few secrets about her longtime pal Richards and reveals why she won't give Amy Winehouse any advice.

What were your criteria for picking material for 'Easy Come, Easy Go'?

Really, really, really good songs and a lot of my old favorites, too. I think it's a question of taste. I didn't do it alone. I chose a lot of the songs and then [producer] Hal [Willner] came in October 2007, and he had a lot of things to play me ... He brought the contemporary stuff; I didn't know that. He brought the Decemberists, Espers, Neko Case, all that stuff. The rest of it, I did.

For your 1987 collection of covers, 'Strange Weather,' you and Hal went through hundreds of songs. Was it different this time?

Yeah, we were much more focused. It took maybe a bit more than a week. When I got to New York and started to work with the band, we were working very fast because of, you know, money, really. I was literally jumping into space without anything, just hoping I'd land right, and, really, we did.

Neko Case is the farthest thing from a diva, unless you try to take her Sun Chips. But we'll get to that later. She even snickers at herself as she recounts the story because it is so atypical of the low-key Case, who just released her sixth solo album, 'Middle Cyclone.' Case, who also often performs with the New Pornographers, is one of today's most literate, intriguing alternative singer-songwriters. She spins stories with a twist, such as the first single, 'People Got a Lot of Nerve,' which examines why we still think we can tame the wild kingdom.

Case talks to Spinner about man-eating tigers, killer whales and why sleeping with your bandmates is never a good idea.

The album's titled 'Middle Cyclone,' and several of the songs have cyclone or tornado references. What about this force of nature captivated you for this album?

I don't really know how it got started. I only kind of realized the thread of the theme about half way through the mixing process, but I had a dream where I was speaking to a tornado, and it was a person and it wanted me to read it a book because it couldn't hold the book. It was trying to get me to help it, but I was scared so it kind of had to figure out how to be a little nicer. It was a really short dream, but it really affected me and I woke up feeling really giddy about it and really excited.