‘Excitable Boy’ Now ‘Mr. Bad Example’ : Warren Zevon’s Latest Album Recalls Twisted Wit, Rocking Sound of His Defining Works

At 45, Warren Zevon might finally be outgrowing the “Excitable Boy” epithet that’s been applied to him since his 1978 album of that title. But even sober and mature, he remains a loose cannon in the Eagles-Linda-Jackson axis of L.A. pop, the rowdiest guest in Hotel California.

On Zevon’s latest album, last fall’s “Mr. Bad Example,” a man stomps a dying relationship into oblivion. The title character swindles his way around the world and revels in his treachery. A crack addict sinks deeper into anxiety. A “model citizen” approaches the breaking point in suburbia. In “Quite Ugly One Morning,” they drop the big one.

In the school of elite L.A. singer-songwriters, only Randy Newman can claim a comparably twisted wit. With the hard-rocking backing of his old L.A. cronies Waddy Wachtel, Jeff Porcaro, et al, “Mr. Bad Example” recalls the tradition of Zevon’s defining works--scathing, satirical works such as “Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner,” “Lawyers, Guns & Money,” “Werewolves of London” and “Detox Mansion.”

And on his current tour--which stops tonight at the Coach House in San Juan Capistrano, Friday at the Variety in Los Angeles and Saturday at the Ventura Theatre in Ventura--Zevon takes a cue from fellow graybeard Neil Young, stepping away from his customary piano to throw some raucous lead guitar into the mix of his backing group, Canadian rock band the Odds.

“I guess every year is a kind of a contrast to the (tour) before it,” Zevon said. “I had done the rock band with no drummer--in spiritual intent it was like an acoustic trio. The ‘Transverse City’ tour was band and computer. I really didn’t want to see that screen flickering on a stage for a few years after that tour.”

This tour and album find Zevon settled back into a regular writing-recording routine--it’s his third biannual album following a gap of five years without a record contract. In order to keep things going and to pay the bills, he hit the road.

“I found myself touring for a couple of months, even a couple of times a year,” Zevon said. “I think in that regard it was a very good thing for me. It put me in touch with the reality of what I was doing, and who was listening to it, and what it was like to go out and play, earn a living that way.

“I suppose I was vain enough or optimistic enough to figure that when I wrote 10 new songs, I’d get an opportunity to record them. . . . The unfortunate thing is, if you take the deadline away, those 10 songs can be a long time in coming.

“The weird phenomenon in my songwriting is that there are never any more songs than I record. The whole Neil (Young) and Bruce (Springsteen) deal is inconceivable to me: ‘I wrote 100 songs and I didn’t like ‘em so I wrote 10 more and we cut those.’ I can’t imagine. For some reason when I get an idea for a song, I’ll always carry it through. . . . It’ll eventually get finished and recorded. It’s taken from a few days to 12 years.”

Zevon characterized writing as “painful.”

“Certainly, the hardest thing is waiting for the next idea,” he said, speaking in a deep croak. “If I’m really desperate, either because I have a deadline or because I haven’t thought of anything in so long that I start getting real uncomfortable, all I can do is be extremely alert, just be in songwriting mode.

“I have to listen acutely to everything that goes through my mind and everything that goes on around me. I drive around. That’s why we like L.A. . . . I think one of the advantages to my job is you can do it anywhere. Pulling the car over and running into a drugstore to buy a ballpoint pen and a pad is a great feeling. That’s when I feel like a functioning member of society.”

Zevon cites Norman Mailer, gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson and director Sam Peckinpah as key influences, and like them, he’s found his later songs being held to the high standards that he established early. Does Zevon ever feel intimidated by that past work?

“You know, to be really truthful, I suppose you occasionally think that,” he said. “But then people always regard writers’ earliest work as their best. I mean, nobody’s ever gonna say anything but (Mailer’s) ‘The Naked and the Dead’ was the guy’s (best work) . . . . There may be an aspect of that. There may be a way that writers are taken seriously twice if they’re lucky--at the beginning and the end.”

* Warren Zevon plays tonight at 8 at the Coach House, 33157 Camino Capistrano, San Juan Capistrano. Tickets: $19.50. Information (714) 496-8930.