Veteran mod rocker Morrissey is nothing if not honest.

In a lengthy interview chock-full of spectacular soundbites at the South by Southwest (SXSW) festival today, the former Smiths front man took on every topic tossed his way with a level of honesty that was engaging, comical, and, at times, brutal.

He even made some news, saying that the organizers of the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival offered him and his former Smiths bandmates $5 million to reform for this year's festival in late April. They declined.

"I think I was always very honest--brutally honest," Morrissey said in the interview with Rolling Stone's longtime writer David Fricke in a packed conference room at the Austin Convention Center. "Some people thought I was too open. You're not supposed to say those things and sing about those things. But I didn't want to ever be one of the headless pack."

Moz was speaking about his often emotionally charged song lyrics and sexual themes in his songs. But he then went on to display that honesty for all to hear.

"The word is a curse--because it's just so old," Morrissey said of his much-publicized declaration of celibacy. "[Celibacy] was me for a while, but then it wasn't me. I think everybody goes through...dry spells."

Morrissey's new album, Ringleader of the Tormentors, comes out in early April, and he plans a lengthy tour of the UK in support of it. He's playing a live set tonight at the Austin Music Hall.

He said the album includes some material that is less melancholic than a lot of his previous work.

"I'm seeing more joyful things in life," he said. "I didn't in the past, which maybe you noticed. You can't just present a smiling face of the world the whole time--who needs it."

But it's not all sunshine on Ringleader, of course. Of his song "Life Is a Pig Sty," Moz said, "I think life for many people is a pig sty. We're not supposed to say these things--it's supposed to be rock and roll and beer and madness."

Ringleader was made in an increasingly difficult climate for honest, meaningful songwriting, Morrissey said.

"You have to compete with people who aren't doing something meaningful," he said. "If you're a complete imbecile and make dreadful, meaningless music, they'll throw all this money at you. I find it unfair, to be honest."

"The people that are celebrated are actually only celebrated for being known," he said. "They're not celebrated for giving something or for enriching the world; they're just celebrated for being known."

He praised Johnny Marr, the lead guitarist of The Smiths and his co-songwriting partner during the band's heyday in the mid-'80s.

"He was very melodic and very prolific," he said. "Many people couldn't reproduce what he did. He was very talented. It was very fruitful and it was a fantastic journey and it ended--thankfully, really. I thought we should have continued, but [Marr] wanted it to end, so that was that."

In one 15-minute span, Morrissey took on David Bowie, Joy Division, and Cure front man Robert Smith.

He said Bowie's Ziggy Stardust tour in 1973 was "full of wonderment for me" and that "Bowie was going where nobody else had gone before with the music and the visuals. He was extraordinary."

"He gave so much--it was incredible--but it ended," he said. "He has made lots of albums since that aren't fantastic."

"Certain people seem to think I don't like him," he said of Smith. "I'm not crazy about him, but I don't mind him. He cuts a reasonably original figure."

"I saw Joy Division and they were always incredibly boring," he said. And their records? "Flat as pancakes."

Even in handing out lavish praise to American punk pioneers New York Dolls, Morrissey had barbs at the ready.

"I thought they were the best group to ever come out in America--funny, intelligent," he said. "And of course the American press ignored them, which made me like them even more. Every one of their songs should have been a top 10 American single."

Morrissey also addressed his recent comments about being interviewed by the FBI and by British intelligence after having spoken out against the American and British governments, particularly his vitriolic protests against the Bush Administration.

"It's quite frightening," he said of being interrogated. "They could shoot you."