POP MUSIC : The Return of Rock’s Good Humor Men : The Traveling Wilburys continue to offer sly nods to pop tradition in the all star group’s second album

If respectable, middle-aged rock ‘n’ roll is suddenly enjoying a second childhood, the Traveling Wilburys are the superstar enfants terrible of the back-to-basics movement: major artists and elder statesmen who’ve joined forces to cast off the onus of artistic sobriety.

And proud of it, man.

“There’s nothing worse than a serious pop singer,” said Tom Petty, prompting laughter from his bandmates George Harrison and Jeff Lynne--all Wilburys and each one a convicted Ex-Serious Pop Singer in his own right.

When these three got together with rock giants Bob Dylan and Roy Orbison in 1988 to record an album, fans might have reasonably expected some sort of timely summit from these beacons of several generations.

Instead, the Wilburys took the only logical approach that important talents can take in collaboration . . . serious slumming. An off-handed but lasting gem of deadpan humor and sly nods to pop tradition, the record was more a barroom battle of the bon mots than a weighty meeting of the minds.

Orbison died shortly after the release of the well-received “Vol. 1” album two years ago, but the four remaining members have gotten back together to record a follow-up, the purposely misnamed “Vol. 3.” And this album, which arrives in stores this week, is even rootsier and even cornier than the first one. (See review on Page 78).

“You can still say things while you’re lightening up,” Petty said, sitting with his partners at a Warner Bros. Records conference table in Burbank.

“But I think we’re all weary of people who come on for an entire LP . . . and give you the impression that this person is trying to tell you real serious things that they couldn’t possibly have an impact on.

“A lot of lyrics that I hear on the radio these days sound pompous. I’m not against people being serious with their work, I just think they have to be careful that it doesn’t come off as pretentious--and sometimes I feel refreshed when I get on the other side of the picture.”

The loose, roughneck Wilbury spirit--be it the sillies, or the Willies, or what have you--has infected the solo work of its members as well.

Though it was recorded prior to the Wilburys’ working together, Harrison’s 1987 solo effort “Cloud Nine” showed evidence of a definite lightening of sensibilities--as did Petty’s “Full Moon Fever” and Lynne’s “Armchair Theatre,” both post-Wilbury releases.

And Dylan? One listen to “Wiggle Wiggle”--the leadoff track of his latest album, a song that treads the fine line between sexual suggestiveness and infantilism--demonstrates beyond the shadow of a doubt that he too has succumbed to Wilbury-itis.

The three Wilburys on hand for this interview admit that their more serious instincts tend to melt away when they’re around one another. They seem to hold each other accountable as partners in levity; left to their own devices, they might feel compelled to uphold their reputations as respectable artists.

Said Petty, “I think the last album (the Lynne-produced “Full Moon Fever”) was more like me, more honest in a lot of ways, than a lot of them I’ve made. I feel like I’m more comfortable being myself than I have been in a while. Because I’ve always had a sense of humor, but I (used to feel) that if I used it, that it would perhaps give the impression that I was throwing away things or just fooling around.”

Harrison concurs that working with the Wilburys “gave us a bit more freedom than we’d have had individually. Well, I’m talking about us three, not really Bob. He always did what he wanted when he wanted all the time. But the rest of us have tended to feel a bit more restricted, I suppose.”

The first and most obvious question this time around: What happened to “Vol. 2”?

“We haven’t made that yet,” Harrison quipped. “Is that an obvious enough answer?”

The title is indeed probably just an offhand joke--just as the group’s moniker is--though one might speculate that the missing volume could be, by implication, a sort of tribute to the missing Orbison, and what could have been had he lived to record with the group further.

Orbison’s death in December, 1988 put a damper on the acclaim and popular success the band was enjoying with the first album, which had just entered the Top 10 at the time.

“You always think, ‘Oh (damn), he would’ve loved this, he would’ve been thrilled to bits with it’,” said Lynne, who also produced several tracks on Orbison’s final solo album.

“But he did see it happening, though,” added Harrison. “He was very happy, at least the last time I saw him, about his involvement in everything and the album he was doing. He was really up. . . .”

In the two years since the release of the first Wilburys album, there has been much speculation about whether there would even be a follow-up, and if so, who would replace Orbison.

Veterans Del Shannon and Roger McGuinn were most often named, perhaps because Lynne produced some tracks for Shannon (who has since died as well) and Petty did some studio work with ex-Byrd McGuinn, but these possibilities existed more in the minds of the press than of the band.

Harrison maintains that it never occurred to the surviving members to bring someone else in because “we didn’t really bring Roy in. He just happened to be there, you know, and that’s how it came about. So there was no reason to go looking for somebody.

“If somebody else happened to have been there that seemed to fit in and everybody was happy with, it would just happen like it happened with Roy. And I think to try and contrive to make some other new member, it’s not worth the trouble. I mean, there’s already enough of us anyway.”

“Four singers is a lot,” agreed Petty.

Harrison, Petty and Lynne had all worked together on various projects in the meantime, but the instigation to dig in and begin work on a second Wilburys album actually came from Dylan, according to the other members.

That’s surprising, because the popular assumption might be that Dylan is the most reluctant Wilbury. The image of Dylan as someone who just gets dragged into the process is belied, however, by a quantitative breakdown of front men on the album.

Though it’s a fairly egalitarian affair--with most of the Wilburys’ group-sings involving at least two, and often all four lead vocalists--Dylan easily does the most lead singing of any of the members on “Vol. 3.”

This verse-count, when pointed out to the other three, provided them with a good laugh. “We love to hear Bob sing,” Petty said, still chuckling. “It was hard to rub Bob off the track once he sang something, because he’s a really good singer.”

All 11 songs were conceived by all four members as a group. The first song recorded, “Inside Out,” was written “within an hour or two of arriving” at Harrison’s private studio in England for the first session, and the basic track--Wilburys on guitars, sideman Jim Keltner on drums--was laid down the same day.

Subsequent songs followed much the same course, with casual strumming and free-for-all lyric contributions leading to basic tracks very rapidly. And nearly all the instrumental tracks were cut “live” in the studio, with minimal overdubs and no electronic click track.

“It’s all done so fast it’s really hard to sit back later and analyze how it was done,” Petty said. “Because that’s one thing we’ve done over both albums--everything was done at a really quick pace, without much room for second-guessing anything.”

Don’t expect to see the Wilburys actually traveling.

Harrison and Lynne both hate touring. The ex-Beatle hasn’t taken his act on the road since 1975, and studio hound Lynne tired of the live circuit with ELO a decade ago. Dylan and Petty are road regulars, but it’s unlikely they’d convert their more reclusive partners to their way of thinking.

“No, they all knew that I don’t . . . “ Harrison said, trailing off.

“I never liked to tour,” piped in Lynne, a bit more firmly. “So I’m not gonna miss it much if we don’t.”

Fronting ELO might have turned into a drag in its later years, sure, but might it be more fun going out with these three, sharing the duties as equals?

“I think it would be fun with these guys, yeah, but to actually organize it would be a different thing. It would be great, I would enjoy it, but . . . “

“But he doesn’t want to do it,” Petty said, finishing Lynne’s sentiment for him.

Road rat Petty seems the most agreeable to a tour, but he’s resigned to its unlikelihood. “I think it would be fun, myself, but I don’t want to do it unless everyone else feels real gung-ho about doing it. Jeff really likes the studio the most, and George too.

“I think the only way it would happen is if everybody all at once has this urge to go on the road. I really couldn’t see us out there whipping it on the road real hard, doing a long tour. By the second week the thrill of going up there and doing it would become sort of normal. I would hate to see all the fun go out of it.”

And besides, continued Petty, sounding more doubtful as he went along, “It would make it awfully official , you know.”

And, as part of a group that prides itself on being removed from the vagaries of the music business as the fictitious rural bumpkins whose names they’ve appropriated as pseudonyms, Petty has just said the official dirty word.