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With her new album, Auf der Maur goes from side person to center stage (© Contographer/Corbis)

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Most people know bassist Melissa Auf der Maur from her stints in the bands Hole and Smashing Pumpkins. But that's likely to change with the release of OOOM (Out Of Our Minds), her ambitious second solo CD due out 23 March.

"I see this project as a way of utilizing all of my talents and interests," says Auf der Maur. And she isn't kidding: OOOM is a multi-media experience, encompassing a CD, comic book and a 28-minute film directed by Tony Stone, the storyline of which is best described by Auf der Maur herself (see the interview and listen to the podcast below).

Auf der Maur, who financed the project herself after being dropped by Capitol Records in 2004 ("the best thing that could have happened to me," she says, "because creative survival took over"), sees OOOM as a natural extension of her creativity. "From grades 1 through high school I studied music, visual arts, performance arts, everything. So I never thought I had to choose one or the other."

MusicRadar spoke with Auf der Maur recently (she was gracious enough to school us in the correct pronunciation of her name) about the ambitious OOOM extravaganaza, what it was like to work with her idol, Glenn Danzig, and we also got the skinny on her time spent with Courtney Love and Billy Corgan. Hear it here or scroll down to read it...

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What's the basic storyline of the comic book behind OOOM?

"The comic book reflects the film and the film reflects the song, so it really comes down to 'What is Out Of Our Minds, the song, about?' Out Of Our Minds is the heart of this record. It's a cry to travel out of our minds into our hearts, standing by.

"It's about a need to go from the masculine, intelligent, intellectual side to the emotional, feminine side of everything. It's the feminine force in all of us that is on the hunt to connect with the heart of the matter in the center of all things emotion.

"Quite literally, it's a woman who is trying to unite her heart side with the rest of the world. The story of the film, which the comic book reflects, is about a timeless female character who gets into a collision and travels through time, and through that comes in contact with a Viking's heart and the center of a bleeding tree and back again. It's time travel and blood; it's the female connecting with the heart of everything."

Well, that is quite a story! Now, on the album, you have some pretty cool collaborators, people like Alan Moulder and Mike Frazer - what did they bring to the project?

"Those guys are the magic mixers. But to explain the making of the album, it was one woman and a hard drive, going from many different collaborators and studios. I worked with a couple of different producers, an old Canadian collaborator, Jordan Zadorozny, and Chris Goss from California, who I made my first record with.

"The actual making of the songs was over the course of many years and many different trips to different places and different friends. Those guys that you mentioned, the mixers, were some of the most crucial elements to tie this all in to itself. In many ways, it was like 12 different films that needed to live within one roof."

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