A New Environment for Mould : Music: The former member of Husker Du has turned inward with his ‘Black Sheets of Rain,’ which expresses a period of transition.

“The fish in all the streams are dying, fluorocarbons fill the sky, and I don’t really want to die before my time has come,” Bob Mould writes in his latest single, “It’s Too Late.”

Has Mould channeled his desperate Angst, galvanized throughout and beyond his Husker Du days, into a blistering crusade to save the Earth? Has the recent greening of pop music seeped into Mould’s songwriting too?

Well, he says, it’s not that simple--or that dogmatic.

On the title track of his new “Black Sheets of Rain” album, from which the single is drawn, he elaborates on the subject, wondering, “Is there an upside to every downside?”

The record is flecked with hints of environmentalism, which, he says, reflects a longtime awareness and reverence of his natural surroundings. That sentiment, he said, fermented during the 18 months he lived on a Minnesota farm, while sorting through the ashes of Husker Du’s sour collapse of 1987.

And, upon moving to New York last year, “it became obvious to me that a lot of things were going wrong” with the planet, he said during a telephone interview this week from Sacramento, where his current U.S. tour had stopped. “It’s not so much New York City itself, but the amount of decay you see all around you.”

But don’t expect to see Mould doing one of those MTV save-the-planet spots.

In “Black Sheets,” for example, he raises the other side of what is usually painted as a tedious working-class existence of blue-collar towns that are mired in pollutants and drudgery. He said the song was inspired by his visit to Cleveland steel mills to get a firsthand glimpse of the workers and their squalid daily surroundings.

“And I walked away from it really disliking the environmentalists,” Mould said. Granted, the mills poison our rivers and sully our skies, he said, “but these workers have to have a way to survive. If all these things (environmentalists) wanted to go away went away, what would happen?”

The silver-lining theme is one that has surfaced intermittently through Mould’s work, both with and without his Husker mates.

It also could well serve as a thesis statement on his career since the Minneapolis trio vaporized.

Although Husker Du’s abrupt demise marked the end of one of the alternative-rock bands of the past decade, Mould, like his former songwriting cohort in the band, Grant Hart, has since embarked upon an intriguing, dynamic new musical endeavor.

For Mould, that artistic excursion has been decidedly inward.

His 1989 solo debut, “Workbook,” boiled his Husker despair down to a deeply personal concentrate, which he vented with a heavy dose of melancholy and a smattering of fury.

As for “Black Sheets,” he said the songs illustrate a cathartic expression of a trying period of transition. But that centered on his relocation from the farm to Minneapolis and his subsequent move to the East Coast, he said.

“It was a wrapping up of a series of events,” he said, which included “some pretty bad relationships, and seeing friends of mine in pretty bad relationships.”

Musically, whereas he employed acoustic and electric guitars, assorted percussion, keyboards, the mandolin and the cello on “Workbook,” his new record is a return to Huskerian basics: a driving drum and bass, combusted with Mould’s scorching guitar/vocal assault.

“Black Sheets” is also the product of a cohesive band, rather than a Bob Mould solo project with mere studio accompanyment, he said.

In his new trio, Mould is joined by Pere Ubu bassist Tony Maimone and Golden Palominos drummer Anton Fier.

Maimone and Fier appeared on “Workbook,” but they took shape as a group during Mould’s tour last year in support of that album, he said. And their more physical treatment of those songs during live performances forged the sound exploited on the new record.

His new record and tour--which includes stops tonight at the Embassy Theater in Los Angeles, Sunday at the Ventura Theater and Monday at the Coach House in San Juan Capistrano--”brings things to a head for me,” he said. “It’s a culmination of what this band can do.”

Mould seems to harbor little regret or anguish anymore over Husker Du’s breakup. But it is still too soon for him to evaluate the impact the post-punk vanguards had on music, he said.

Husker Du “spoke of a certain time and place and what three people were thinking about,” he said. “You can say it was a reaction to the Reagan years and the collapse of the music industry in 1980. A lot of ideas were brought into that band.”

While he finds it “flattering” that a flurry of young bands today have borrowed heavily from his old group’s style, he said he is most proud of the example Husker Du set by jumping from an independent company to a major label, Warner Bros., without auctioning off the band’s ideals.

“I see that sentiment coming up more with newer bands, and that’s the most important thing we contributed, I think,” he said.

Only occasionally does he speak anymore with his ex-bandmates. However, he says his widely publicized feud with Hart was exaggerated and has since cooled. Soon after Hart’s debut solo effort, “Intolerance,” was released last year, Hart “cornered me and made me listen to it,” Mould said.

His critique? “That’s the music he hears now, and I wish him well.”

Husker Du’s bassist, Greg Norton, who has been playing clubs in and around Minneapolis with his new band, visited after one of Mould’s shows earlier this year, Mould said.

Norton wanted to say hello, and talk about the prospects of re-releasing some of the Huskers’ early material.

Mould cringed. “I just told him, ‘Look, I’m in the middle of a tour. Maybe someday we can reissue those old records, but right now, I gotta get to Madison.’ ”

In addition to his solo projects, Mould has produced records by a pair of promising, upcoming bands, the Zulus and Friction Wheel.

After his tour concludes next week in San Diego, Mould said he plans to return to New York to “take a break from the treadmill. I know when I’ve had enough. . . . I want to take some time to sit back and reorganize what I want to do from here.”

In addition to weighing his next step musically, Mould said he hopes to experiment with other artistic outlets, perhaps film or photography.

“Some people I respect in those fields have suggested I do some things in those areas,” he said. “A part of me has always been curious about these things. I have a lot of ideas.

“(And) I think it could be a real learning experience--which is ultimately what I’m always looking for.”

Bob Mould performs with Firehose at 8 p.m. Monday at the Coach House, 33157 Camino Capistrano, San Juan Capistrano. (714) 496-8930. Tickets are $18.50.