Erlandson: It's a lot of editing.

Love: And there's so much more to my feelings and emotional life than this stuff that people are going to project or do project onto me. So it's just sticking with what's in my heart.

ATN: The cover is reminiscent of X's first album, Los Angeles (which featured a black and white photo of a burning "X"). I assume that's intentional.

Love: No, actually we weren't even gonna use that picture. But, yeah, I like it. It's that Los Angeles thing. It came out that way. It's just a Polaroid. We spent all this money on that shoot and we ended up using a Polaroid that cost nothing. It's got the nice 'Beavis and Butthead' fire. Yeah, it is that Los Angeles thing, and then it sort of expounds on the theory of the X/Los Angeles thing and goes further and further along.

ATN: What is burning behind you? Is it one of those ...?

Love: It's a palm tree.

Erlandson: It's a palm tree, yeah.

Auf Der Maur: [pointing to other artwork that's included in the CD booklet] And that's the Malibu fires.

Love: And that's the Malibu fires. But then there's water. There's water. This is the gates to Modesto. [the back cover] Of all the water that's stolen from Owens Valley that's dried up. The sort of Chinatown water that we stole to make this big garden, which if we stopped pumping fake water into it would shrivel up. Then there's just an old Department of Water and Power [building]. I haven't intellectualized it completely, but I'm working on it.

ATN: Was that first X album ... all of you, did you relate to that album? Did you listen to it much?

Erlandson: Even if we didn't get into it musically, the tradition of an L.A. record -- the impact of that ...

Love: Yes and no. It was impactful. We didn't consciously try and copy the X cover.

ATN: It just happened.

Love: It just happened.

Erlandson: We were consciously making -- somehow consciously making -- maybe we were just making, we knew we were making an L.A. record, a classic L.A. record that fits in before X, '70s ...

Love: The Doors. Don Henley. Buckingham, Nicks ...

Erlandson: Up through the punk thing.

Love: The Descendents.

Erlandson: Gun Club.

Love: Channel 3.

Erlandson: We knew we were doing that, and so then it's nice to look back now and see the connections. And actually have the cover ...

ATN: Just echoes ...

Erlandson: Yeah. Even the cover.

Love: It wasn't supposed to, but it does. It's cool.

Erlandson: Yeah, and you know, that X record probably didn't really reach as many people as, like, what we're hoping.

ATN: No it didn't. It certainly didn't.

Love: Damn, that cover moved me when I first saw it. And the title of the record. It moved me. I saw it in a magazine and just ... oh, I caught my breath, it was crazy.

Auf Der Maur: Is there always an out-to-lunch foreigner involved in these projects? 'Cause none of that means anything to me. I'm learning about it as I go ... I'm from a northeast community...