PETER MURPHY: A CHEEKY ROCK STAR-IN-WAITING

“Glamour belongs to models,” Peter Murphy says with a trace of contempt. But the English rock singer and songwriter can’t easily dismiss the issue of glamour in rock ‘n’ roll--after all, his intense performing style has established him as a successor to a line of erotically stimulating--and threatening--performers like Iggy Pop and David Bowie. And Murphy does admit that he doesn’t mind.

“I suppose people consider me a glamorous figure because of my cheekbones,” he continues, softening up after his opening quip. “I like that. I’m like a rooster in a Chinese horoscope--they like to show their feathers. But that doesn’t dominate me. I do like to present something, but it’s not a contrived image, not a ruling force. Just a facet.”

It’s one facet that has helped make Murphy a star-in-waiting. He’s thin, but he does have cheekbones. He’s articulate and well-read. He projects an ominous sexuality. He’s English. What more could you ask for in a pop star?

Murphy (who appears tonight at the Palace, Friday at El Cortez Convention Center in San Diego, Saturday at Fender’s Ballroom and Sunday at the Coach House) is closer to that status in Southern California than in most locales. In Los Angeles, he’s a cult hero for the teeming hordes of gloom-rockers, most of whom probably own a copy of “Bela Lugosi’s Dead,” a charming little bit of funeral-rock that Murphy performed with his original band, Bauhaus.

Though it never established a commercial foothold in America before disbanding in 1983, Bauhaus is one of the those influential groups that seem to have even more of a following now than when they were extant.

The other three members of Bauhaus--guitarist Daniel Ash, bassist David J., drummer Kevin Haskins--formed Love and Rockets, a group that’s gained a stronghold on American college radio with its trippy neo-psychedelia.

But for those who want the darker, slightly morbid thrills of Bauhaus, Murphy’s new album “Should the World Fail to Fall Apart” (on the English label Beggar’s Banquet, distributed by PolyGram) is filled with its share of sophisticated decadence, from the Euro-rock dance music of the title track to a chilling version of “Final Solution,” an underground classic by American avant-rockers Pere Ubu.

Murphy insists that his music is more about contacting the subconscious self than simply wallowing in a trendy gothic bog.

“My songwriting tends to cut through any of the conditional personalities or responses to situations, and tries to find a source or a kernel of reaction that’s not just based on emotional reactions, which can be pretty clouded by misinterpretations,” he said during a recent phone interview from London.

On stage, Murphy often crosses the line from preconceived theatricality into over-the-edge catharsis where anything seems possible. It’s reminiscent of the film “Performance,” where Mick Jagger’s character proclaims that the only performance that really counts is one that leads to total madness.

“I’m not always conscious of what I’m doing,” Murphy said of his shows. “The best performances seem to last 30 seconds when they’ve been an hour and a half. And they’re often the performances where you’ve let go of your rational grip on things and you stop getting in the way of what you’re doing.

“The subconscious takes over and it can be very frightening if you’re not prepared for it. It’s misinterpreted as the evil side, but it’s more like discovering what really makes you tick, the real root cause of a lot of your manifested personality.”

With all his links to the Bowie tradition, you’d expect him to be excited about the current glitter-glam revival in America. But he finds it irrelevant to his current music.

“There’s not so much of that (glam) influence in what I’m doing now,” Murphy explained. “It was perfect for Bauhaus to do, it was something we had our roots in.

“Glam-rock to me was something like the Velvet Underground--Andy Warhol was glam. I liked the appeal of the sexually oriented eroticism that a person like Lou Reed or Bowie put across--like, ‘For God’s sake, look at him!’ Now, there’s a whole spate of tacky British glam artists. I don’t feel that I’m past it. I just don’t see how it can be developed any more.”