So shout it from the rooftops: Elliott Smith is back! Instead of holding their breath, most fans would rather wait and see it to believe it. There’s been talk of Smith being clean, sober, and ready to get back to work. You see, over the past few months another little rumor has also been floating about. So, if you’re still interested, he would like to set the record straight…in his own words. He is a musician after all, and, with his new record almost complete, Smith has a few things on his mind he wants to talk about. Not only has he been combating a problem with drug abuse, but Smith has also been working hard on a mammoth new album. He’s been quite busy for the past few years.

The fact of the matter is Smith cares about what’s been said about him. Of course, real life is never as black and white as the rumors tend to paint it. Either he was content to let the rumors fly, or he was just too busy doing whatever it is he’s been doing to deal with it. Yet through it all, Smith has remained mysteriously silent.

The sordid details of his run-in with the law at the Flaming Lips/Beck show in LA last November have now become infamous among his rabid fans. There are the tales of Smith nodding off between songs at various shows, fabrications about finding him passed out in the bathroom stall of a Silver Lake club with a needle in his arm. Over the course of the past three years, the Elliott Smith rumor-mill has been working overtime. But I guess, why hide it? It’s a lot easier to tell the truth usually.”

“I wondered if I would talk about drug use. That's no one's business but you and the power company.“This is the first interview I’ve done in a long time,” mumbles a slouching Elliott Smith. The power lines are your body and the electricity running through them is your life force - who knows where you'll end up if you follow it all the way, maybe back home in your bed, maybe somewhere lost in your dreams, or maybe nowhere. That's where the name came from, 'going out sleepwalking.' refers to the trance of your energy moving you in your sleeping body. When I look at powerlines I can't help but wonder where they go. I've always been mesmerized by powerlines, the way that they represent very different things: unfathomable energy and domestication. This one was something I decided to draw to get out of my comfort zone.

Elliott smith either or photoshoot