I'm doing fuckin' great. I've been sober seven months. No drinking. I'm sober and totally digging it. I helped write some stuff with the Breeders, but I never really wrote anything [by myself]. But when I got into treatment, I started writing songs. And now I just can't stop. I'm ready to record the next album.

CAN YOU GIVE A CHRONOLOGY OF YOUR LIFE FROM LOLLAPALOOZA '94 TO NOW?

At the end of Lollapalooza, I was doing a lot of heroin. And I was still doing heroin when I got arrested at the end of November ['95], didn't use heroin for like thirty days, somebody went to my house, knocked on my door and handed me some. And I got started again on it. Continued to use and got involved with the court system. And that was a pain because I was so addicted I couldn't not use, even though I was going to have to drop a urine test and it would come up dirty. So that was a pain. Then I went on the road with Frogs for like three or four shows, playing bass. Then I came back home and did more heroin and more heroin and then my sister and my family did an intervention. I was broken hearted about it and stuff -- I think I didn't use for like two days. And then started right back up again. Kim thought that having me involved with the Amps record would take my mind off of doing dope and stuff. Although it seemed like a great idea, she realizes now that it was wishful thinking. So I went down to Easley Studios with them, I went to Chicago with Steve Albini there and then Dreamland Studios in Woodstock. We started recording there and at that point I was getting so high that I wasn't even trying to hide it from her any more. I was too high to even try to successfully hide a it and then that's when she realized something had to be done. I went to Hazelden, got there April 11th of last year.

UNDER YOUR OWN STEAM?

My dad and brother and mother actually came by. My dad flew there with me. Stayed at Hazelden for a month. When I got there, everybody was talking about going to a halfway house and there was no fucking way I was going there -- a halfway house? What? I'd been doing drugs since before my first period. And that stretch of time was the longest I had ever been sober since I was thirteen. And that was not even a month. Two weeks had gone by and I hadn't had a drink -- are you kidding me? It was like, sobriety -- a new drug -- I think I'll try it. It was a different way of thinking. It was exciting and a new thing and that's really what held the appeal to me at first. Hmmm, I'm in a treatment center -- I've never been here before. It was interesting. And I'd get to listening to these different people's stories and stuff and God, they were so bad off. I started to think about the fact that I'd lost my family, my income, my job, I was hugely in debt to the IRS, I had felony charges against me and I had a really bad drug addiction. I thought God, how depressing. And I just started feeling more open to the idea that maybe I had a problem. Before it didn't even occur to me -- life without drugs or alcohol was not life. So I did whatever they wanted me to do, I went down to the halfway house in St. Paul. You have to get a job at a halfway house and my job was selling Guatemalan and Ecuadorian goods. I'd go to these blues festivals and sit out there and sell stuff.

DID PEOPLE KNOW WHO YOU WERE?

No. I sold some stuff at McAllister College and some people would ask me "Are you Kim Deal?" And I'd say no. So I stayed there for three months and all during that time I was writing. I met a guitarist in treatment -- his name is Jesse Roff -- and we had similar musical tastes and we'd hang around and play guitar and stuff and August 2nd is the day I got out of the halfway house and that's the same day I went into the studio with Jesse.