As soon as Puddle of Mudd's Wes Scantlin wrote the song "Psycho," he knew it would be a hit.

"When I wrote it, I thought, 'That's really catchy,'" Scantlin says, calling from his California home. "And I don't really have any way of recording at home because I'm stupid and old school, so I learn things by playing it over and over 'til I'm blue in the face. So I sat around for a few hours playing it over and over again and I enjoyed listening to it and I thought a lot of people would like it because everybody's a little psycho, you know?"

Man, was he right. "Psycho," from the band's third Geffen album, "Famous," has been No.1 on Billboard's mainstream rock charts for nine weeks and counting, and last week it moved to the top of the modern rock charts as well.

The song - as well as its clever video, which spoofs both horror movies and celebrities like Paris Hilton and Pam Anderson, filmed at the same Bates Motel set where the "Psycho" movie was filmed - has pushed Puddle of Mudd to the front of the rock pack again, back where it was after its multiplatinum smash album "Come Clean" and the massive hit "Blurry" in 2001.

"There are kids coming to the shows who might not even know "Blurry,"' Scantlin says. "They come for 'Psycho' and 'Famous.' It's cool to see a lot of little kids coming up and knowing all the words."

It's a bit of a change from the last Puddle of Mudd tour, following its "Life on Display" album in 2003, which came out in the midst of a bit of record company upheaval and ended up being lost in the shuffle. "I love that album," says Scantlin. "But there was a lot of merging going on and a lot of bands joined our label at that time and they ended up getting a lot more attention than us."

That didn't happen this time, as the band worked on "Famous" for nearly four years, with Scantlin writing songs not only with bassist Doug Ardito, but also Brian Howes, of Hinder and Daughtry fame, and Kara DioGuardi, who has written for everyone from Christina Aguilera and Marc Anthony to Ashlee Simpson and Lindsay Lohan.

"It has a different feel and it feels pretty good," Scantlin says. "You learn a lot from writing with different people. You kind of get a piece of them, and they get a little bit of your flavor. There was a lot of riff-swapping going on."

The collaborations gave Scantlin the kind of album he was looking for. "These days, you need an album where every song can be a single," he says. "You want something different, but you also need a whole record where you push play and you don't fast forward through anything."