Anyone who watched the riveting 2002 Wilco documentary I am Trying to Break Your Heart witnessed a band at the height of dysfunction, worn down by personality conflicts and record label woes. If the critical and commercial success of Wilco's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot looked like a happy ending, that triumph proved only part of the big picture: as the band finished that disc's follow-up, A Ghost is Born, Wilco leader Jeff Tweedy checked himself into rehab to treat an addiction to painkillers. The band canceled its highly anticipated appearance at Coachella and, for the first time, its future seemed in doubt.

At this point, though, people expect the unexpected from Wilco, so it's not all that surprising that such inner and external turmoil has resulted in a newfound stability. If you count 2005's live disc Kicking Television: Live in Chicago, its new Sky Blue Sky marks the first time in Wilco history that the band's same lineup has remained intact from one album to the next. It also features Tweedy at his most straightforward, both lyrically and musically, though like many things in Wilco's world, that may be an illusion as well.

On its surface the album is sunny and packed with early '70s production flourishes, but the lyrics are among Tweedy's most personal and direct. Then there's the matter of Wilco's impressive current lineup (which includes improv vet Glenn Kotche on drums and jazz guitar giant Nels Cline, who know just the kind of left turns a song needs to make it sound right).

"I don't know if it was a matter of writing for the ensemble at hand or just having everyone there long enough to get some songs to work," says Tweedy. "We'd worked on some of these songs with other lineups of the band and never figured out a way to get them to make sense."

So if Tweedy sounds oddly happy these days, maybe there's a simple reason -- he has a lot of reasons to be happy. When Playboy.com spoke with him shortly before the release of Sky Blue Sky, Tweedy was affable and at ease, whether talking about drugs, James Joyce or his long track record of inadvertently pissing off the fans who have supported him from the start.