Speaking of the future and all this—last fall we had this huge thing happen [Attack on America!] and I was wondering if you had any thoughts on that.

Well, it’s just part of what the future is … a small part.
In a sense we’re in a negative peak now, so what’s going to be the creative element and going to affect people now, is going to come more from the negative side of creativity.

Some of the lyrics on The Power in One, like in “Misleading,” really struck me, in the context of everything we’ve been talking about.

See, that’s where the idea of Power in One actually came, because I couldn’t find a direction for that record … so I kind of came up with the theory that everybody is, subconsciously, completely clairvoyant, and so … it changes the mood and the ideals that people go off of.

Maybe everyone sees the future  [subconsciously] and maybe it's not good.
It could change the mood and creativity of people globally.
People would naturally close themselves off to many things and stop looking ahead subconsciously.

So that’s where the future really is, in the power inside yourself. Because it’s not going to be a collective thing, not like what we were talking about in the ’80s. Basically, artistic survival of any kind is going to have to be self-motivated. It’s got to the point where I figured I’m going to have to change my direction, and the Wipers thing, for me it was over. … Since 1990 I haven’t wanted to continue the Wipers because it just felt to me as if the idea behind it couldn’t survive, and it was just a lot of circumstances that kept it going. … I don’t like to look back, so looking forward musically is a challenge for me. The box set was kind of my way of putting that to rest, and I’ve been working on another record, a solo project I’ve always wanted to do—Electric Medicine.