told that touring would be harder on me than making a record, so I decided to make a record. Touring was impossible, and it's too much fun to mess with in that way. DiS: How did you feel while making the album? Terrible. Awful. And listening back it feels alien to me. In hindsight, I think I made a pop record to offset the misery of the treatment, thinking that it would make me feel better. When I got better I got interested in the difference between Bowie's Station To Station and Sly Stone's There's A Riot Going On . They were both recorded under similar circumstances, I think both of them were living on a diet of cocaine and milk, or whatever the raw ingredients are, but Sly Stone was dark and menacing and up against it, and Station To Station has this pop sheen over it, like a glisten. I'm not a big fan of Station To Station , I only started reading about it because of the Iggy Pop connection in Berlin, but I can understand why he doesn't remember making it. I think my record wound up with a pop sheen for that reason, I was trying to embrace what a dark time I was having, but a little part of me wishes I'd gone the other way. DiS: Did it work, making a happier record? Did it alleviate the misery? No, not at all. It's just as miserable making a pop record as it is