Concrete Blonde in Transit : After a troubled year, the L.A. trio is now ‘Free’ and a quartet

The first track on the new Concrete Blonde album is about teen warfare and the toll exacted by urban violence. The second song is about the hyperactive hypocrisy of the cocaine and speed generation. And the third is about the love of money, money, money, muhnee. . . .

Too bad the title “Los Angeles” already has been taken.

Like the great band X before it, the slightly more mainstream Concrete Blonde speaks for its city in a time of transition, uniting fears of social ills and the dread of personal commitment in one pretty, supremely emotive package. (Reviewed below.)

On the band’s second album (due in stores Monday), singer/songwriter Johnette Napolitano sounds both angry and scared, weary and hopeful, ravaged and naive. And though she may seem a tough cookie to some--she’s proudly tattooed and given to rough language--she abhors the outlaw image of groups like Guns N’ Roses, talking up horseback riding and family life instead.

Given Concrete Blonde’s well-publicized business troubles of the last year, which had the band playing almost as many court dates as concert gigs, one song on the album--Thin Lizzy’s “It’s Only Money”--is clearly being sent out as a message.

“That song just seemed like what we were going through,” said Napolitano, sipping tea at dusk in a Silver Lake apartment decorated with religious icons.

“We found out our accountants and manager and lawyer were making three-quarters of what we should’ve been making. It was a pretty bitter realization. They feel like they deserve it more than you, because hell, you’re just a dumb musician, what would you know what to do with $20,000?

“And they’re right . As long as these heavy-metal type guys go out and just drink beer and (pick up) chicks and do blow, you’re damn right, they don’t know what to do with 20 grand. But the guy in the suit knows exactly where to put it.

“That doesn’t mean that if I earn a million dollars I don’t want it. Because I may not choose to live like a millionaire, but I definitely know what I would do with it. I have a mother and a family. And instead of buying drugs you can save a kid’s life.

“We ‘adopted’ some kids. The band owns four children now,” she says with a laugh. “We have three in Chile, Bangladesh and Mexico sponsored through World Vision, and we’re getting an American Indian.

“If half this city would have all the money they spent on blow last year, God, we could feed a whole lot of people. I feel very strongly about that. And I’ve definitely had my experience with it too, but I’m a lot happier since I stopped. I haven’t touched that stuff in a year . . . because I just don’t see the reason to hurry. It makes people ugly; people talk so fast.”

The song “Run Run Run” is about drugs people use to “keep up with a pace that needs to be slowed down. Nobody can keep up with it. . . . They put a moratorium on mini-malls in L.A. Thanks . Should’ve done it five years ago. . . . I took the call-waiting off my phone. It’s very rude. . . . I take a lot more time now. I sit and talk with my nieces, hear what they have to say. There’s no rush. What are you rushing for? Death? Great! Why? For the next life?”

And as for the metal bands? “I was walking down Hollywood Boulevard and saw a Guns N’ Roses T-shirt in a shop window showing a needle sticking out of a skull. . . . It’s a very superficial existence. If you have the attitude of ‘Let’s spend it and enjoy it because the world’s going to hell anyway,’ well, that’s fine. I don’t begrudge anybody their philosophy. But when I look at my nieces, why should I have that attitude for them? That’s not fair for them.”

Nonetheless, she says, “God, money’s a great thing. . . .”

But not for making music. “I think it’s obscene to spend the money that the companies seem to feel is necessary,” Napolitano says.

“Why give a producer $60,000? Give it to me! When you know how a studio works, then there’s no reason to waste money. Videos, too. We made two at the same time. We took some beers to a 24-hour Copymat in the middle of the night and made the whole album cover there. Maybe we’re just cheap, but I’d rather spend it on other things than making a record. . . . Rock ‘n’ roll seems to me to be something that you do when you have no money to do anything else. It shouldn’t be such a high-overhead thing.”

Still, money has been of paramount importance to the band these last couple of years. Claiming they had none, the trio (recently expanded to a quartet) filed bankruptcy proceedings, claiming its label, I.R.S. Records, would not provide the cash needed to pay off its debts and that contractually it had no other way of accruing cash than through the company.

Speculation ran rampant in town that what Concrete Blonde was really after was a much more lucrative contract, preferably with another label. (Geffen Records formed an alliance with the band for a time last year.) What’s certain is that the group withdrew from Chapter 11 proceedings, ended up back at I.R.S. with a renegotiated deal, and severed all other business alliances--legal, financial and managerial.

Napolitano now says that though the group’s original contract with Miles Copeland’s I.R.S. label was less than fair and really did leave the band broke, her advisers at the time pushed her to try and break with the label for their own political reasons.

“Miles did try over the year to renegotiate the contract and to make us happy,” Napolitano says. “And by that time we were deep in court and everybody was telling us, ‘You can’t (withdraw), because if you win this case it’ll be a landmark.’ ‘For what? Because you want to go golfing and show your name off in the Law Journal?’

“We were basically used. It could’ve been settled a lot sooner if I would’ve been advised differently.

“I never learn. If somebody tells me something, I just believe it. I don’t want to be cynical. I don’t like to be that mistrusting. And I don’t think I ever could, because I don’t think it’s my nature.”