SuicideGirls.com recently caught up with CIRCUS DIABLO frontman / CAMP FREDDY founder Billy Morrison to discuss his career and the new self-titled Circus Diablo debut. The following is a brief excerpt:

SG: Where does the value lie in collaboration for you as opposed to solo stuff?

BM: "I think the collaborative effect of songwriting is most evident in how I get pushed and how my limits are pushed. For instance, playing live, bands like Camp Freddy push me. I stand on stage next to Ronnie Wood, Slash, Dave Navarro, fucking Lou Reed -- the world’s best -- and I’m standing next to these guys so I need to up my game, you know what I’m saying? When I come to write songs and I collaborate with [other musicians] I am being forced to up my game and to look outside of my box which is a real safe place for me to be because I know my chords, I know my song structures and I know my lyrics. When you write songs with other people, when you collaborate, you get forced to live outside your box, which is a very creative thing to do."

SC: What was the songwriting process like for this record? Were you the primary songwriter?

BM: "No, it was a three way effort. I wrote all the lyrics but the music was a three-way effort between Billy Duffy (THE CULT), myself and Ricky Warwick (THE ALMIGHTY). Matt (Sorum) played drums in the studio. It seemed like a good idea at the time and it turned out really well. It was really easy. We didn’t actually know we were writing a record. We were just kind of messing about, which I believe is why the record sounds so good. So not under any pressure to write a record but by the time we finished and we realized it was a record we were done and it was great."

SG: Do you ever look back on some of your first bands and think “What the hell was I thinking?” Or do you look back on it like, “Oh those were the days...” ?

BM: "I remember doing gigs when I was 15. So when I was 15-years-old there was definitely a different attitude to doing gigs [than there is] now. I think to be able to do tours like we do now -- which is two months, that’s a long fucking time -- everyone on the tour needs to be calm, respectful, those kinds of things. It’s not about [whether or not] you can play your instrument because we’re all professionals. Everyone brings a calm, professional air. There’s the gig on stage, you do the gig, you get on the bus and we go to the next town."

Go to this location for the complete interview.