"I know what I want to do," says Craig Nicholls. "I want to write a lot of songs, and then play live. It's good to still be really interested in music and have other people interested in it."

The career of the Vines, the band that is essentially the vehicle for Nicholls and his songwriting, has gone through too many phases to make easy sense of. The usual rules of music narrative haven't applied since the cataclysmic hype of 2002 – when the Sydney trio's single Get Free sounded like a changing of the music guard.

They became the first Australian band since Men At Work in 1983 to feature on the cover of the US magazine Rolling Stone and were spoken about in the same breath as the White Stripes, the Strokes and the Hives. The hype continued at home - the band were nominated for several ARIAs, winning best breathrough single for Get Free – but there were soon worrying reports revolving around Nicholls' mental and physical health.

Now, unexpectedly, the Vines – currently Nicholls backed by bassist Tim John and drummer Lachlan West – are back with a new double album, Wicked Nature. It sounds like much of their back catalogue, heavy on metal buzz-saw pop songs and psychedelic-flecked autumnal ballads.

"I'm obsessed with writing songs. I definitely do more than one album's worth a year, which is not exactly what a band releases these days," says Nicholls. "There are some days I'll do it for hours, or just play my guitar while I'm working something out. I rarely finish the whole thing in one go. Usually I work on a whole bunch of different songs at a slow pace, going back and forth."

A brief court appearance in 2004 revealed that Nicholls had been diagnosed with Asperger syndrome, which is part of the autism spectrum and can involve difficulties in social interaction, restricted and stereotypical patterns of behaviour, and high levels of linguistic and cognitive development.

Nicholls last made headlines two years, when he was arrested and charged with assaulting his parents and resisting arrest. A year ago, however, the 37-year-old moved back home, and he has seemingly found a sense of equilibrium. Nicholls keeps to himself, works at night writing songs and painting, watches comedy DVDs (Jim Carrey and Will Ferrell are favourites) and eschews digital age detritus such as a smart phone and social media. It's a smaller life, but manageable.

"Asperger's is something I've always found hard to describe," says Nicholls, over the phone. "Whatever weird state I'm in, I've managed to use it to my advantage. When I started music I was very serious about it and that's been the main thing in my life."

Music is very good for Nicholls, but the music industry that surrounds it is not. Lengthy tours and too much promotional work have been his downfall in the past. He doesn't regret the hectic early years, when he was self-medicating with marijuana and his behaviour was considered mere "antics", and he also acknowledges that he's financially secure from the group's first album, 2002's Highly Evolved, which sold several million copies, but he knows he won't be venturing too far outside his routine.

"I just want the songs heard, and that's what it's been all about the whole time since I started writing songs," Nicholls says. "The music industry is business and people, and I guess I'm out of it. I don't think there's much that I'm missing."

On a Wicked Nature track, Anything You Say, Nicholls repeatedly sings the line "live by the music", and that could be his motto now. The Vines will play their first show in several years next month, at the Victoria on the Park Hotel in Marrickville and he's not sure if his old habit of smashing his guitar at the performance's end will resurface.

"It feels like a long time ago now," says Nicholls. "It sometimes happens when I don't want it to happen, when I just want to be calm."

The Vines

Gig Sunday, October 5, 1pm, Victoria on the Park Hotel, 2 Addison Road, Marrickville

Tickets Free, limited number available on a first come, first served basis

Best track Killing the Planet from the album Wicked Nature (2014)