I think the secret to the guy was that he was very simple, not stupid, but not a genius, and he ended up being something like an elaborately clothed emperor in a kingdom full of people with no clothes.

'Sweethearts of Rodeo Drive' is inspired by the fact that a lot of people are being killed on both sides in Iraq and the average person in the States that I run into is a lot more concerned with how big their TV is. That's pretty weird. I look at my granddad's meticulously clipped headlines from World War II almost daily and I see that every action in that war was a two-inch bold print headline even if it wasn't one of the biggest battles. It was all major news. The scale of this war is a lot smaller, but someone being killed or a group of people being killed might be Page 3 or Page 12 news in the U.S.

Most folks don't know about it. But I thought it was worth a shot, as I could direct my fans to it via my Web site.

When you're just moving forward and you agree that you're just going to stick with the results, you don't allow room for too much self-doubt.

Being emotional people and being in our 20s, we couldn't see a reconciliation ever happening at that time. It seemed so over. It seemed like the energy in it was completely played out. We didn't want to leave the door open. In pruning it back so viciously we didn't think it would grow again. But here it is growing again.

[While Auer noted that hooking up with a new rhythm section] made it easier to move forward, ... We weren't really sure about yet another go-round with yet another team: Was it going to be mining past glories for ever diminishing returns? Or was it going to be able to generate something new. With a little time, it did generate something new. Somewhere along the line, we went through the appropriate bonding experiences to feel like a band.