Now, personally, I always took the Panic At the Disco song “That Green Gentleman” to be more about the, um, 4:20 club than the Sierra Club, if ykwim. The band, however, wouldn’t cop to that when I talked to them yesterday…Whatever.

But Panic did want to talk about the environmental consciousness of their current trek, the 2008 Honda Civic Tour. Before each night’s show, singer Brendan Urie appears in a video, encouraging fans to take part in an “eco-contest” to decide how a large chunk of change raised on the tour will be used to help the planet. (For more info on that, go here.)

Brendan also explained to me that the band is working on the tour with two non-profit eco organizations: Reverb, which facilitates environmentally friendly touring; and Global Inheritance, which seeks to inspire more eco-activism. “Plus, at each show there’s a few things to get kids involved,” he told me. “Honda have a bike setup where you can charge your phone, and there’s pamphlets and information. Lots of good stuff.”

Ryan Ross said the band has been doing good things as well, from traveling on a biodiesel bus, to re-using plastics, and recycling more backstage. “It’s been cool for us because we’re young guys — we’re still learning about what’s going on, too. So it’s been personal,” he said. “I think it’s been good for everybody to try and do a little something.”

Now fellas, back to this “Green Gentleman”? “Green can be so many things,” Brendan said with a smile. “You’re new to something…You’re jealous…It could be my favorite color…” But Ryan stopped me in my tracks: “You’ll never know, John. You’ll never know!”

Earlier, we visited a behind-the-scenes clip from John Norris’s exclusive interview with Madonna and Justin Timberlake backstage after their recent Roseland show. Well, there’s more…

We couldn’t resist sharing this with you: John getting schooled by the Queen of Pop.

Ever the dutiful journalist, John refuses to give up on his line of questioning about Madonna’s “milestone” 50th year – but Madge is having none of it. She even starts quoting her own lyrics from her song “Give It 2 Me” to prove her point. As the interview ends, John is still trying to defend himself, telling the diva how much she’s going to miss him when she’s stuck talking to some real idiots during her Hard Candy press junket…

Watch and enjoy. And John, we think you’re adorable — and we kind of suspect Madonna thinks so too.

In case you hadn’t noticed in Newsroom, in the 400 articles on MTVNews.com, and on TV, John Norris got to sit down for an exclusive interview with Madonna and Justin Timberlake last week after their surprise NY show at the Roseland Ballroom.

While we’ve shown you just about everything there is to show from the interview — from Madge and Justin’s take on Miley, to how they created Hard Candy together — there are still a few amusing moments that hit the cutting room floor.

As here, when John goes fishing for some drama, and Madonna gets all confessional — about her gardener. Even Justin looks confused…

In the latest edition of “The Loder Files,” we head back to 1994, when Kurt Loder spoke with Courtney Love in the wake of Kurt Cobain’s suicide.

She talked about the long — and nearly impossible — road to recovering from her husband’s death: “I don’t know, I haven’t processed things. I’m just working…I’m putting one foot in front of the other but I’m numb.”

Love also talked about their daughter Frances Bean, who was only two years old when Cobain took his own life. “He prayed every night,” she told Loder, surprising many Nirvana fans. “He taught our daughter how to pray.” She wonders aloud if maybe having a son would have been even harder, since she feels that “the male progeny of a dead celebrity I think might have a harder time.”

But most surreal of all is the moment when Love admits how hard it is to help a toddler process the death of her incredibly famous father. “Daddy’s a little like Barney,” she says, “because he’s on TV. And there’s videos of Daddy, so we can see Daddy on TV.”

From Eminem to Ice Cube and Prince, check out Loder’s interviews from the MTV News vault, in The Loder Files. More rolling out soon…

On Wednesday, MTV News super-producer Matt Elias interviewed one of our favorite bands, The Breeders, in anticipation of their new album, Mountain Battles (due out April 8). They were out in Los Angeles to shoot a video for the song, which is a performance video based on old clips Kim Deal has been watching on “the You Tube.” Also, if you’re a DJ, she hates you.

While she shows her age with the sentiment, it’s hard to hate on the sisters Deal, who are just super-goofy and cuddly and stuff.

The song, “Here No More,” was about Kim and Kelley’s mom, who has Alzheimer’s, and Mama Deal actually contributed a line to the song, which ended up becoming the song title.



More from this interview next week.