Steve Burns spent six years hosting the Nickelodeon kids' show Blue's Clues. He left the show earlier this year to become what he calls a "rock godlet." NPR's Steve Inskeep talks to Burns about life after Blue, and his new album, Songs for Dust Mites.

Steve Inskeep: If you've got small children, you probably know who Steve Burns is or who used to be. Preschoolers were on a first-name basis with Burns when he hosted a cable TV show called "Blue's Clues."

Steve Inskeep: Every week on "Blue's Clues," Burns bounced around a cartoon house solving many mysteries with an animated dog named Blue. And here's a clue that might help you guess Steve Burns' new career: On that show, he sang a song when the mail arrived.

Sound bite from Blue's Clues: Here's the mail. It never fails. It makes me want to wag my tail. When it comes, I want to wail, 'Mail!'

Steve Inskeep: Although he's a superstar to kids, Steve Burns left Blue's Clues earlier this year to pursue the dream of becoming a rock star or as he calls it, a rock godlet.

Steve Inskeep: That is also the voice of Steve Burns. His new album is called Songs for Dustmites, grown-up music, he says, about love and science and, of course, dustmites.  Steve Burns, hello.

Steve Inskeep: I'm doing great. Why dustmites?

Steve Burns: Well, a very good friend of mine sent me a photograph of dustmites battling micro gears, and I became instantly obsessed with it. They've made machines so small now that microscopic dustmites fear them and attack them [laughs].

Steve Inskeep: Now you're trying to reintroduce yourself to the world, and I want to help a little bit here. Kids have seen you on the Nickelodeon cable TV network wearing kind of pleated pants and a striped shirt and looking at the camera strangely bug-eyed. Umm ...

Steve Burns: [laughing] Earnestly.

Steve Inskeep: Earnestly. Oh, is that--OK.

Steve Burns: [laughing]

Steve Inskeep: I was actually wondering if you always looked like that or if that was just acting.

Steve Burns: I very, very rarely look that way.

Steve Inskeep: OK.

Steve Burns: [laughing]

Steve Inskeep: But now you're trying to make a considerable change from spending your days talking to an animated bar of soap.

Steve Burns: No, that's true, although to me it doesn't feel--I mean, it's not really any kind of willful public reinvention strategy that's going on. It's just a labor of love that developed quite a bit of momentum naturally. You know, I'm not seeking to turn my back on the fact that I was on "Blue's Clues." I'm, in fact, extraordinarily proud of it. I was on that kids' TV show, and I'm also the same Steve Burns who made a rock record with the Flaming Lips about science and love.

Steve Inskeep: Well, this album, "Songs for Dustmites," is a lot of fun. Let's listen to the beginning of the first track.

Steve Burns: OK.

Steve Inskeep: It's called "Mighty Little Man."

[Sound bite from "Mighty Little Man"]

A tired man in his chair
he doesn't move he only stares
At the machine across the room
There's nothing there it's not getting through
He shakes his head
Finally stands up
Throws his hands up
In the air

Steve Inskeep: You're working with a group called the Flaming Lips.

Steve Burns: That's right, yeah.

Steve Inskeep: Can you just describe them for people who aren't familiar with their work?

Steve Burns: That's really difficult to do, but they're an extraordinary rock 'n' roll band from Oklahoma City. They recently won a Grammy for their record "Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots." They're just very triumphant, a hopeful-sounding music, with big, epic strings and gigantic drums. And it's really just some of the most intelligent music I've, I think, ever heard.

Steve Inskeep: And you just called them up and said, 'Do you need a lead singer?'

Steve Burns: I found someone who had their producer's phone number, and I called him. And I just wanted to tell him how much I enjoyed the record. And it turns out he had had a "Blue's Clues" party the night before, so... [laughs]

Steve Inskeep: For his kid?

Steve Burns: Yeah, for his kid.

Steve Inskeep: Or for himself. Who knows? I...

Steve Burns: [laughs] No, no, for his kid, actually. And, you know, I seized the opportunity and sent him a CD, and he was very surprised and he liked it, and he asked me if I wanted to work with them.

Steve Inskeep: Is there any material from that CD on the album, or did you come up with all new songs?

Steve Burns: Oh, no, it's all there. "Mighty Little Man" was one of the songs I sent him. But I think all the songs that I sent him made it to the record.

Steve Inskeep: Is there a track you would point us to that particularly has that Flaming Lips sound?

Steve Burns: [laughs] I think there are moments in the song "Troposphere" that are a nice homage.

Steve Inskeep: I wanted to hear that song anyway. Let's take a listen to "Troposphere," the fifth track on "Songs for Dustmites."

Steve Inskeep: Oh, darn, we put it in backwards again!

Steve Burns: [laughs]

Steve Inskeep: Just kidding. No, keep playing.

Steve Burns: [talking over the top of Troposphere] A lot of what you're hearing right now was recorded in my bedroom in Brooklyn.

Steve Inskeep: Really?

Steve Burns: Mm-hmm. After the show was over I had so much time, and I just poured myself into all of this music that we're listening to now. The backwards guitar part that you pointed out in the beginning, that was all done in my apartment in Brooklyn. And then a lot of the large bass sounds you can hear were all done there.

Steve Inskeep: How are you recording it?

Steve Burns: I record with very cheap microphones just into a Macintosh.

Steve Inskeep: Your bedroom in Brooklyn, is it soundproof in some way?

Steve Burns: Not at all. There's a few songs that if you listen loud enough I think you can probably hear the Brooklyn Bridge rumbling around.

Steve Inskeep: The traffic going over?

Steve Burns: Sure.

Steve Inskeep: Oh, that's great [laughs]. Can we crank it up? [laughs].

Steve Burns: Here's where it gets large and Flaming Lips-esque, I'd say.

Steve Inskeep: Here we go.

[Sound bite from "Troposphere"]

Now I'm waiting here to disappear
Have you ever been so tired of yourself?
And I'll meet you here in the troposphere
Lately I just haven't been myself

Steve Burns: And, obviously, most of that section was done in the studio [laughs].

Steve Inskeep: Now I think you may have added something to the language here in that I think it's probably pretty rare in rock music that anybody's written a rock song about the troposphere.

Steve Burns: [laughs] I hope I'm the first. It's actually about--this is something I haven't actually told anyone yet, but I wrote it about the layer of the atmosphere right before outer space, which isn't really the troposphere. It's actually the ionosphere. But that didn't scan as well in the song. So...

Steve Inskeep: [Laughs]

Steve Burns: ...the troposphere actually refers to all the layers of the atmosphere, or, more specifically, it can refer to the layers of the atmosphere where weather takes place.

Steve Inskeep: I'm glad you cleared that up...

Steve Burns: Yes.

Steve Inskeep: ...because we would have gotten letters from people.

Steve Burns: [laughs] Well, you probably would have. There's probably one guy at the severe weather station in Oklahoma. But I wrote that song on an airplane just kind of pondering, you know, 'Boy, I'm 35,000 feet in the air, and I used to be on the ground. And I'm going to wake up in Los Angeles, and that's completely miraculous.'

Steve Inskeep: That sense of curiosity...

Steve Burns: Yes.

Steve Inskeep: ...that you encourage in kids is, I guess, the same sense of curiosity that got you thinking on the plane.

Steve Burns: Exactly. It's, you know, kind of--you know, most of the best people I've ever met have been four years old, and they're just amazing people. And just that completely unadorned, enthusiastic sense of wonder is really something to aspire to, I think, and hopefully something that I've been able to retain.

Steve Inskeep: Steve Burns. His new, first album is called "Songs for Dustmites."  Mr. Burns, thanks very much.

Steve Burns: Thank you so much.