When talk turns to Anton Newcombe of the Brian Jonestown Massacre, people usually want to know two things. Is he coherent? And is he on drugs?

The answer to both questions is yes. In interview, the cult singer-songwriter from California proves lucid, witty and entertaining. He also happily admits that his band's new album was fuelled by hallucinogenic substances.

"I was recording in Liverpool last year, in the same studio where Ladytron, Echo and the Bunnymen and Coldplay recorded," he says. "But then I had a falling out with my former business partner and I thought, 'F--- it, I'm getting on a plane and going to Iceland.'

"I didn't have a plan. My plan was just, 'Let's do a bunch of drugs, get really f---ed up and let it all out. I thought, 'We'll eat mushrooms and go into the studio.' And we made up rules, like, 'We don't talk in the studio.' Or, 'Today I'll move fast and you move slow.' And when a song sounded weird enough I left it and said it was time to get a beer.

"I made up four songs a day, did an album and an EP, and then we made videos for them all."

For a frontman renowned for his volatile excesses, the drug-taking is hardly a surprise. Nor is the fact that he had a falling-out. In a 15-year career, Newcombe has notched up more falling-outs than a skydiving school. Since forming in San Francisco in the early '90s, the Brian Jonestown Massacre has had a revolving roster of no less than 25 members.

You'd hardly expect stability from a man who named his band after a hard-living, early-dying founder of the Rolling Stones (Brian Jones) and the site of a mass cult suicide (Jonestown). In DiG!, the marvellous documentary about the rivalry between the band and fellow psychedelic rockers the Dandy Warhols, Newcombe is shown starting a fist fight with his own bandmates during an industry showcase gig at LA's Viper Room.

Last month, police questioned Newcombe after guitarist Frankie "Teardrop" Emerson was reportedly knifed in the stomach during a show in London. No charges were pressed and the band's management later released a statement saying the cuts "were caused by some glass splinters [and] were superficial ... These injuries were caused by horseplay ..."

Newcombe's detractors argue he is a troubled, talentless self-promoter but there are many who see serious talent in his trippy, hypnotic pop-rock. Their new album, the band's 13th, should further polarise audiences.

Called My Bloody Underground, it's just as '60s-influenced as its predecessors. It's also a woolly, unpredictable beast that lumbers and sprawls over 75 minutes. It features songs with big riffs and Icelandic lyrics ( Golden-Frost), shoe-gazer anthems worthy of My Bloody Valentine ( Just Like Kicking Jesus) and mellow Eastern-influenced instrumentals ( Who F---ing Pissed In My Well?).

Newcombe says it was made sequentially, so that after recording a few atonal psychedelic tunes, say, he would record something light and melodic. Such as track four, We Are The Niggers Of The World, which, despite its name, is a lilting piano instrumental. Apparently Newcombe wrote it when he was nine years old. The odd thing is that it contains a lot of bum notes.

"I was drunk for that one," he says. "I wasn't concerned to hit personal highs here, where people say, 'He's done it, he's pushed the limits.' What I like is the suspension of disbelief. And there were a couple of times recording where we were, 'Holy s---, we're communing with other planets on that.' It was like being a little kid - except that the studio is the most expensive place in the world to be like a little kid."

If Newcombe's talent is evident in his music, it's also evident in the accompanying low-budget videos he made with his mates, which can be seen on YouTube. As always, he does things his way, well outside music industry channels. In one home-made video, he has his lip tattooed; in Monkey Powder, he takes to a white hallway with spray paint, leaving a surprisingly impressive artwork.

His next stop is Sydney, where his band has only played once before: at the Gaelic Club in 2004, where Newcombe yelled profanities and threats at the crowd and his band, performing only seven songs in two hours.

"I wish that had never happened," Newcombe says. "People spit on me when I walked out and that set me wrong for the whole trip. That really was a shame, because we have a considerable amount of support down there.

"You can't take back yesterdays but I'm looking forward to coming back and having a great go of it."