True Blood Cast Naked, HOT On The Cover Of The Rolling Stone (Photo, Scans)

I've been reading Rolling Stone since I was 14 and subscribing since age 16. That's oh, let's say about for about 30 years.

Suffice to say that this is the most excited I've been about a Rolling Stone cover and it's accompanying interview (with freakin"Alan Ball(!) since David Cassidy posed on the cover of Rolling Stone in his altogether when I was 12 years old.

With the hues and cries of "too much blood" in season 3's True Blood here are our heroes' (literally) cheeky reply.

This is gonna sound snooty, but I've actually been hoping that the gore--which hello! is funny in it's over the top-ness--would turn the  "jump-on the bandwagon"- types off the show. And it is--with some at least.

Today, while fishing for True Blood news I saw a comment--someone actually wrote that "True Blood would be so much more popular without the gore." LOL. Might as well take out the sex, too. But no one is complaining about too much sex. Isn't that interesting?!

I love you Rolling Stone for the much-anticipated Alan Ball interview and for putting some of his pretty people/main characters/terrific actors on the cover!

By Rolling Stone

Aug 17, 2010 12:56 PM EDT

The following is an excerpt of an article from the September 2, 2010 issue of Rolling Stone. This issue is available tomorrow on newsstands.

"I've had 10 piercings in my ear, and a bellybutton pierce (sic), and a tongue ring. My tongue, as it turns out, is not really appropriate for piercing, because the webbing is too close to the font, and the bottom barbell kept hitting against my teeth... and it gave me a lisp, which isn't great as an actress." ANNA PAQUIN on her history of piercings.

The idea of celibate vampires is ridiculous, True Blood creator Alan Ball says. "To me, vampires are sex," he says. "I don't get a vampire story about abstinence. I'm 53. I don't care about high school students. I find them irritating and uninformed." On his show, every available orifice is used for intercourse: gay, straight, between humans and supernatural beings, and supernatural being on supernatural being, whether he be werewolf, dog or an enormous Minotaur-looking being called a maenad. None of the sex is quite as good as vampire sex, though, which can happen at the astonishing rhythm of 120 bpm while simultaneously devouring one's neck and making your eyes roll back into your head. Says Stephen Moyer — who plays Bill Compton, the undead Southern Civil War Veteran — "If we go from a base level, vampires create a hole in the neck where there wasn't one before. It's a de-virginization — breaking the hymen, creating blood and then drinking the virginal blood. And there's something sharp, the fang, which is probing and penetrating and moving into it. So that's pretty sexy. I think that makes vampires attractive." He laughs a little. "Plus, Robert Pattinson is just hot, right?"

Keeping in mind that there are some great supporting actors on True Blood we have a few bits from Kristen which in a style typical of bits from Kristen don't tell you a whole lot (but they are served up with such verve!) In re: Carrie Preston's Arlene: Carrie Preston w/Michael Emerson credit: FilmMagic Inc/FilmMagic

Keep your eyes on Arlene (Carrie Preston). According to her real-life hubby Michael Emerson, he's "glad she's able to be the one human story this season so far, because there needs to be a human element." But he warns us ominously: "She's going to have some superhuman challenges coming up."

In re: Joe Manganiello: 's Alcide: "you get to seen him scantily clad in an upcoming ep of True Blood…" Good to know he'll be back before season's end. As a shifter however, scantily clad is a normal condition. Finally, Carrie Preston's spouse, Michael Emerson, again talks about someday (next season perhaps?) having a part in True Blood written in for him by Alan Ball.  As Emerson puts it,  "Whenever I see Alan Ball he says, 'I must write something for you,' and I say, 'I'll be there in a heartbeat.' So we have an understanding and liking of one another. I certainly think he's a fantastic talent and maybe they'll find some little tidbit for me next season."