THE USED

Bert McCracken, 21, lead singer of the fiery band the Used, rebelled against his strict Mormon upbringing in Orem, Utah, battling homelessness and substance abuse on the path to artistic freedom.

After releasing its debut album last June, the Used, which meshes wailing guitars with McCracken's sustained yelp, amassed a steady following. And McCracken dabbled in rock star excesses.

Most famously, he dated (and broke up) with Kelly Osbourne. And he recently recovered from a serious case of pancreatitis.

On the phone from his hotel room in San Antonio, Texas, McCracken seemed to be in good spirits, perhaps a combination of the band's success on the Warped Tour so far and what sounded like a party in his room.

Some of his thoughts:

On his health:

"It was pretty severe . . . but I'm doing all right now. I'm taking care. Trying not to drink. Trying not to drink a lot, at least. Keep being good to myself." (He laughs.)

On his relationship with drugs, in light of a New York Times Magazine story that quoted him as saying he had sworn off drugs and alcohol:

"No, I never really said that. I think it was probably just printed that way. I'm high as (expletive) right now; I'll tell you the truth." (McCracken laughs.)

On the Warped Tour:

"Man, it's awesome. . . . It's our second year. We know the ropes. Last year we felt like we were kind of lost, like junior high school kids or something. But this year there's a lot of familiar faces and there's a lot of new bands that I'm stoked to be playing with, like Poison the Well and, I don't know. It's a big shout "hooray' in general. The whole tour. Summer camp. Hallelujah. Hell, yeah, for the Warped Tour. I think it's the best tour of the summer."

On Warped vs. Ozzfest, which the Used also played last year:

"There's just a more family vibe on the Warped Tour. Anyone will tell you. It's true. There's no rock stars on the Warped Tour. Everyone just hangs out. There's a barbecue every night. It's cool."

On Maybe Memories, the band's latest album:

"It's a DVD and it comes with a live disc. It was originally just a DVD, but it's cool, man, it's a show we played in L.A., a bunch of songs from that and there's a bunch of old, unreleased demo songs that we tracked in our drummer's closet of his bedroom at his house. There's a few new tracks on there. The DVD's like an hour and 45 minutes, just kind of the story of our band from then till now. So, it's cool."

On growing up in Utah:

"Everything influences you in the way that you present your art to other people and the way that you create your art for yourself. Life is pretty much the influence, so growing up in Orem, Utah, and growing up in the church is obviously a huge factor in it for me. But there's a few others in my band that weren't raised in the church. So it's a combination of a lot of things."

On fellow Utahans, the Osmonds:

"The Osmonds? Do we have any thoughts on the Osmonds? They're all pretty cute. They're all pretty hot. Actually, I used to play in a band with Donny's son, Jeremy, in a metal band called Cobra Kai . . . before he went on his mission."

On his inspirations: "Um, I've been really interested in soft-boiled eggs lately."

As a food? Or art? Or both?

"Both, of course. They're so amazing how they're halfway hard, but they're really not hard; they're still soft. They call them soft-boiled eggs because the middle's kind of soft and the outside's kind of hard. But, you know, hard-boiled eggs aren't really even that hard. They're still kind of soft. I don't know. Where do these people get it? How do they come up with this (expletive)?"