Eminem's attempt to be Detroit's new Berry Gordy, dragging fellow Motor Town rappers to his own elevated heights, has only been a qualified success. To that end, he has gathered about 15,000 handwritten petitions highlighting the polluting and destructive effects of fossil-fuel consumption. The singer is also utilising text-messaging networks with a view to organising peaceable "flash mob" protests."Before I leave the planet, I'd like to see us go alternative energy and renewable fuels," Farrell says, clearly excited at the prospect of cleaning up the planet. "People say it would take 20 years, but if we really made an issue of it, I believe it could be done in seven to 10 years The Earth is very much alive, yet it has no voice.

"Crazy attracts crazy, I guess, because this woman sat down next to me and asked what I was doing."I explained that I was trying to write a song about the riches of the Earth, and she said: 'I have a song that I made up to sing to my kindergarten group. It goes: "I'm happy that the sky is blue and that the earth is green/ And that there's lots of fresh clean air sandwiched in-between."'" With the woman's permission, Farrell appropriated her lyric for "The Riches", promising that he would do something to help the environment in return. "I was sitting with a poetry book, trying to do a bit of a cabbala on language," he says. Packing artful ferocity and a magical waltz-time denouement, it was partly inspired by an encounter Farrell had on an aircraft. Bob knows everybody, and he got Paul Stanley from Kiss to come down and sing 'Happy Birthday' to her.

Then Gene Simmons turned up to show us his latest merchandising idea." But you wouldn't want to leave Gene alone with your wife, right? The drummer doesn't miss a beat: "Not for too long, no.""The Riches" is one of Strays' many aces. "These days, the producer is normally the guy lying on the couch ordering Thai food," he says, "but Bob's work ethic was incredible One of the best sessions was on my wife Cindy's birthday. Having noted the lucrative comeback of their close friends the Chili Peppers after a cleaned-up John Frusciante returned to the fold, Jane's reasoned that they could follow suit, and so it has proved. In the US, Strays debuted at No 4 in the Billboard Top 200, selling 110,000 copies in its first week.Navarro describes his and Ezrin's relationship as being a bit like that of magnets, "sometimes with reverse polarity and sometimes attracting", but concedes that the producer was largely responsible for getting Jane's Addiction back in the same room and talking again.Perkins is obviously an Ezrin fan, too. Navarro, meanwhile, released a 2001 solo album, the unremittingly bleak Trust No One. He then joined the Red Hot Chili Peppers for a four-year stint in 1993 - replacing John Frusciante, who was, ironically enough, himself succumbing to the excesses of drug abuse.These days, the diminutive, if impressively sculpted, guitarist is just as loved-up and perky as Farrell, but perhaps that's what comes from being engaged to the former Baywatch actress Carmen Electra.