MTV: So did, did you know before going into record that, that you eventually wanted...

Jeff: I knew, I knew when I was doing the solo shows I knew that I wanted a band, but I just didn't want pickup musicians and didn't want a transient situation, you know? I had enough of those. I wanted to find an ultimate, at least one ultimate in my life and somedays I would you know meld with. And I knew, I knew Mickey was right, we were right the first night we jammed. It was about two o'clock in the morning and we had to play very quietly and, and he was very melodic and very strong. And so I knew. And when Matty, when me and Mick and Matt got together, the drummer, the very first night we made up the music to Dream Brother. Everything that we played, me and Mickey threw at Matty, Matty ah helped turn it into and arrangement. So yeah I mean, if you can get that in a drummer, you're set. Besides that, he's very handsome.

MTV: Um, how did Andy Wallace come into the mix?

Jeff: I'm not sure, I just met him, in an office at the label and we just started talking about, I don't know I was really into this Hillbilly album and I was playing Sun Ra and mondo movie music.

Mick: Oh yeah.

Jeff: And I was saying I wanted to do things old style. Just like you know the band in a room, a bunch of mikes, no overdubs. It didn't turn out that way because we weren't very strong. We weren't as strong as we are now as a band. So we had to do things differently. But he was, he was just very into it. And he was going to be the engineer and the producer and the mixer. Very, very insular, very tight operation. And it was great.

MTV: Were you familiar with the work he has done before...

Jeff: Oh yeah, sure, sure.

MTV: And what do you think he brought to the record, more than say if you had someone else?

Jeff: Andy Wallace brought focus. And ah where like where when sometimes Matty couldn't get a direction from me because I was in a mood, he would go to Andy. And, any producer is there as an identity, as an idea. You know, an idea person, and he was and he was very receptive to a lot of things. Basically a lot of the ideas on the album are mine, but his input sort of kept me grounded and kept us sort of thinking and talking amongst ourselves about what, how we wanted to do it. And that's, that's half the song right there.

MTV: So what do, how do you feel about all the acclaim that's, you've received recently? Ever critic has put you on the map, on the...

Jeff: It's a moveable feast. Let's see what happens next year. But I'm happy, I'm you know, I'm pleased. It a, it get, I don't know. Critical acclaim is really something you really can't look at as something as a, as a, um...

Mick: A measure.

Jeff: Yeah you can't measure yourself against critics. They ah, they have a very different experience of music than a normal person. They, they have a stack of CDs on their desk in order to criticize it. And in order to put it into a picture that they know will make good copy and all that stuff. But they've been pretty genuine. And then of course some people totally hate my guts. So I expected that. It doesn't matter though.