Leif Garrett [ tickets ] was a teen star before Britney Spears was born. The early part of his life was spent in movies (“Walking Tall,” “The Outsiders”) and as a teen pop singer covering the likes of the Beach Boys and Dio. He scored his biggest hit with the disco song “I Was Made for Dancing” from the 1978 album “Feel the Need” (Scotti Bros.).

The next 20 years were a struggle. At age 17, Garrett was behind the wheel during the car accident that paralyzed his friend Roland Winkler. (The two didn’t speak for nearly two decades, when VH1 reunited the two for a “Behind the Music” episode.) Garrett battled drug addiction and for the respect of the music industry as he tried to jump start his career.

He made a brief comeback in 2000, when he lent his vocals to the Melvins’ cover of “Smells Like Teen Spirit” on their album “The Crybaby” (Ipecac). Garrett and his band Godspeed then opened some tour dates for the Melvins, and broke up soon afterwards.

Now Garrett has formed a new group, F8, which he describes as a cross between Led Zeppelin, the Who and Alice in Chains. On Sept. 23, he joined more than 75 artists to record a new version of the Sister Sledge hit “We Are Family.” Proceeds from the song will benefit Sept. 11 victims.

Earlier this year, Garrett visited Michigan to appear in the Barn Theatre’s original rock musical “Old Timer.” Last week, he appeared on the newsmakers’ edition of “The Weakest Link,” and VH1 is slated to begin airing a 90-minute updated version of Garrett’s “Behind the Music” soon.

Garrett, who lives in Hollywood, talked to liveDaily about F8, that band’s songwriting process and his return to acting.

You spent this summer performing at the Barn Theatre in Augusta, Mich. Which do you prefer, acting on stage or in films?

Being on stage, you get the immediate feedback from the audience, which is a great thing. You know when you got them or you don’t. When it’s great, it’s great. Then again, when you make a movie, and it becomes a family for two, three months--when you’re on location, you go into a town and you take over, you’re your own little unit--that’s just as great. I enjoy both sides of the spectrum.

Tell me about your current project, F8

I hate categorizing music. I’d like to think everyone’s unique. I think we are, and I think everyone else is as well. [There is a] Led Zeppelin influence, the English sort of rock and roll, that melodic and hard kind of mixture--we have the strings. And then I guess, on the American side of it, it’s a mixture between those bands that I just said and then Alice in Chains and maybe Stone Temple [Pilots].

From what I understand, you’re writing songs.

We’ve got our own studio, our own space. We’re recording the rehearsals. The reason we’re going on the road with this stuff is because we want to work them [the new songs] through. We’re going to take some of them away that we won’t put on the record. We’ll see at the end of the tour what songs we want to keep and which ones we don’t.

It must be helpful to be able to road-test material.

There’s a certain luxury to it, that’s for sure. If you can do it, why not? We’ve been rehearsing in the studio, and we could just go and record the stuff now. I think [touring will] be fun. I think we could find some other little nuances that we didn’t think of before.

How did you meet the guys in your band?

I’ve known Chuck [Billings, drummer] for 23 years. He was in a band called Virgin a long time ago. They used to open for Shawn Cassidy. [laughs] They wore tighter pants than I ever wore. They were supposed to be these squeaky clean dudes, and they were anything but. They wore super tight white pants and little tiny baby white T-shirts that said Virgin on them. It was just funnier than hell. Anyway, he came to see Godspeed’s last show at the Viper Room. He said, “Hey, if you’re not happy here, and you want to be in another band, we’ve got this thing going on.” I ended up playing with him and two other people. The bass player and guitarist ended up leaving. We found Karl [D’Amico, guitarist] and Darrell [Arnold, bass]. I’ve known Darrell since, I guess, last year this time. I’ve only known him for a year. He was in a band called Trash Wednesday. I went and saw him play and I thought he was cool. Karl came about because we were looking for another guitarist.

What’s the songwriting process like in your group?

That’s been the easiest thing. I write all the lyrics and the vocal melodies, and Karl’s been writing all the music. Darrell wrote one of the songs by himself. It’s been coming out very easy. We’ve got an abundance of material. It’ll be fun to figure out which ones we really want to do.

You’ve been in the music business for so long, and I’m sure you’ve learned from so many different people. What’s the most helpful thing you’ve ever learned?

The most helpful thing I’ve ever learned is just do what you like to do, and do it all the time. Write songs all the time. There’s going to be crap and there’s going to be good stuff. There’s gonna be stuff that you can turn into great stuff, stuff that will be brilliant. Just do it as much as you can. The more knowledge you have about something, the more you can understand and control it, and play with it and mold it.