Three years ago, when grunge still ruled the charts and minds of America, Portishead came seemingly out of nowhere with "Dummy" to offer an antidote to the frenetic emptiness of techno and the mundane formulas pop had become mired in. Hailing from Portishead, England, producer/mixmaster Geoff Barrow laid down layers of lazy hip-hop-inspired grooves under the woman-on-the-verge-of-a-nervous-breakdown vocals of Beth Gibbons -- a combination that critics dubbed trip-hop and, surprisingly, became an unlikely commercial success.

In the years since, acts like the Sneaker Pimps have taken the genre pioneered by Portishead and Massive Attack to the bank. But as fans anxiously awaited "Dummy" part deux, Barrow spent much of his time struggling to infuse his textured beats with a few new twists. After a painful bout of writer's block, Barrow, Gibbons and new members guitarist Adrian Utley and "sound whiz" Dave McDonald finally came up with enough songs for their second record, "Portishead." In the process, they all but abandoned outside sampling. With Gibbons' soul-baring phrasings and tracks manipulated to replicate the nostalgic hiss of vinyl, their second album is contemplative, sometimes even wrenching. In the middle of a tour that's taking his complex music on the road, Barrow took a break to talk about hip-hop, musical schlock and the genre formerly known as trip-hop.

You've said that you wanted your second album to be very different from "Dummy." Do you think it is?

I didn't mean that in the sense that we created a new sound or people copied us, but we heard a lot of the sounds that we used on "Dummy" on TV adverts in England and on other people's records. It made us massively distrust what we were doing. But I'm really pleased with what the record sounds like. I think we all are ... It was a bit of a reaction to "Dummy." "Dummy" did start becoming a bit of a fondue evening record. It doesn't sound as extreme as when we first did it.

It took two-and-a-half years for you to release "Portishead." How did you overcome your writer's block?

We didn't use any samples specifically from other people, so we decided to go one stage further and write our own. Because of that we ended up with loads and loads of bits, but nothing solid. I think Adrian was getting pretty pissed off because I was being really negative about everything. It just wasn't a good vibe until Adrian said, 'Look let's actually just finish something here.' That was a pretty major turning point. We recorded "Half Day Closing," which hasn't got any samples or any sequences -- it's just me playing the drums, Adrian playing the bass and building it up like a normal band from start to finish. After that, things kind of slipped into place. Adrian pretty much saved the album, I would say.

Were you ever worried about not having more than one good record in you?

No, no we never thought that, because music is the only thing we do. It's the only thing that I'm good at. It's totally my life. I think it's all our lives, so we have to do it. It was going to work one way or the other. And being that depressed for so long actually helped. After a successful record, you can sit on your laurels a bit. For us we had to go through hell to make another record that actually meant something to us.

Is that depression reflected in the lyrics?

A lot of the depression, a lot of the frustration, a lot of anger. But I think those things fired us up to make music that is actually emotionally charged in some way rather than some non-emotional, turgid piece of radio music. It has to be from a real angle. It has to mean something or else there's no point doing it, unless you're in it for the big cash.

Beth has refused to grant any interviews this time around. Has that caused any misconceptions?

If you meet her, she's the same as all of us, really. But when she writes her songs, she gets into some deep, personal things. I think that's the reason it's difficult for her to do interviews. I can talk about music and I can talk about my emotional ties to the music. But as soon as someone meets Beth, they automatically start talking about her childhood and the traumas she's been through, and there aren't any.

You're credited with pioneering trip-hop. What do you think of it now?

Trip-hop to us is music that was made in London, that was instrumental beat music for clubs with no vocals, no songs. [Saying we're trip-hop] is almost like saying that Prodigy is straight-up techno. But for some reason, because we were noted as successful people -- us, Massive Attack, Tricky or whoever -- it was like, 'Oh, that's trip-hop,' when really, in reality, it's not. I don't know what it is.

Do you enjoy other groups associated with the genre, like the Sneaker Pimps?

I don't really listen to modern music. Drum-and-bass and hip-hop and Radiohead and Oasis and the Foo Fighters are really the most modern things I listen to. I don't really listen to dance records. I've got nothing to do with dance culture, and I especially don't listen to any stuff that's supposed to be in our area. It's just never interested me.

You mostly listen to hip-hop?

Yeah, and in saying that, I don't mean that in the sense of 'I'm a hip-hop kid,' because I'm not. I'm a little white guy from Portishead. I would never make out that I was from some area like the Bronx or Queens or Brooklyn or L.A., South Central. I find that massively disrespectful of people who are forced to live that lifestyle because of their surroundings or