Q: Thanks to Google, I was able to call up the infamous cover of the 1970 album you made with your heavy-metal duo Atilla. Why were you dressed as a barbarian and surrounded by hunks of raw meat?
A: I knew that was going to haunt me all my life. I hated doing the photo session. I thought it was a horrible idea. But I was like 19 or 20, and you don’t know—the guys from the record company are going, “No, this is a great idea,” and the art director’s saying “Oh, it’s going to be fantastic.” I said, “This is stupid and I feel like an idiot.” I was right. Go with your gut.

Q: Is it true that after the failure of Attila you tried to kill yourself by drinking a bottle of furniture polish?
A: That’s true. Yeah, I was suicidal. I was 21. It’s a tough age. Things hit you really hard. A relationship with a girl had ended and I was devastated, and then it didn’t work out with the recording we did, and I just figured the world didn’t need another failed musician. You take yourself so seriously—you’ve got your head so far up your ass you can’t see straight.

Q: But why did you use furniture polish?
A: I was just lookin’ for poison. I looked in my mother’s closet and there was bleach, and it had the skull and crossbones, and then there was furniture polish. And at the time I thought, Well, the furniture polish will probably taste better than the bleach, so I’ll drink the furniture polish. And all I ended up doing was farting furniture polish for a couple of days and polishing my mother’s chairs.

Q: It’s amazing and horrifying to think that your life might’ve ended there, when so much success lay ahead.
A: I suppose that is part of the reason I wrote the song “The Stranger.” We’ve all got a dark side. And maybe we’re not always aware of it. Maybe it shocks us when it pops out.

Q: Now you’re 59, your album The Stranger is getting a special 30th-anniversary reissue treatment, and you’re about to play the final concerts at Shea Stadium—which the Beatles christened.
A: I think it’s kind of strange that in my lifetime I’ve seen a stadium come and go. I remember when Shea was built—it was state-of-the-art, like a big Roman edifice. Now they’re taking it down because it’s out of date. I find that a little odd. I said, “Wow, am I that old?”

Q: Your wife, Katie Lee, is 26. How is it to fall in love at this stage in your life as opposed to when you were younger?
A: It’s really no different. It’s the same feeling as when I was a teenager and I had a crush and I was in love with somebody. Some of those things just don’t change. It’s different because it’s a different person, but the intensity is very, very strong, just like it was.