Singer Peter Case Returns With a Six-Pack of Rock

Los Angeles’ quintessential rocker-turned-troubadour has come full circle.

Peter Case, the singer who fronted the fiery, erratic Plimsouls through the L.A. nightclub wars in the early 1980s before disembarking for a more intimate brand of folk-flavored pop, has pumped up the volume on his third album, the recently released “Six Pack of Love” on Geffen Records.

“It’s sort of been a thing over at Geffen for a long time that they put out whatever I did and they let me do whatever I want,” Case said recently as he downed a bowl of Jell-O in a Fairfax district deli.

“But there was always a sort of a vibe that I would make another rock ‘n’ roll type record, and that’s what I just did. And as soon as I did that, it somehow has clicked in with people in a way that the other stuff (didn’t).”

The “other stuff”--1986’s “Peter Case” and 1989’s “The Man With the Blue Postmodern Fragmented Neo-Traditionalist Guitar”--found Case retreating as hard as possible from the high-powered Plimsouls sound with the former’s “tribal folk” and its successor’s moody introspection. Both earned Case critical respect, but neither found a huge audience.

“I knew that when the deejay at Live 95 or something puts on ‘Blue Guitar,’ it’s not necessarily gonna blow his socks off like Guns N’ Roses would,” Case, 37, said. “It wasn’t made for that. It was a midnight record, and that’s what people found in it.”

In a similar spirit, Case spent a lot of time playing solo shows around the country and in Europe, cultivating a loyal following and refining non-rock modes of expression that came into play when he returned to the rock-band format in the new “Six Pack.”

Said Case, “You really get inside the music when you play solo. You get really in touch with your singing and how deep you’re reaching for the songs and what their effect is on people from second to second as you’re playing for ‘em.. . . Whether they’re laughing or whether they’re crying. You’re not just out there blowing the place away.

“Now it’s a combination of that and the rock band dynamics that I know how to do. I know how to put a rock ‘n’ roll band together and really make it groove. It’s a talent I have that I haven’t used for a few years. As soon as I got back into it, I was real excited again.

“I don’t see a huge dichotomy between the folk and the rock ‘n’ roll thing. To me they’ve always been the same thing. When I was a kid, I got into Muddy Waters via the Rolling Stones and after I got into Muddy Waters I started checking into country blues players. . . . For a while the only records I was listening to were the Plastic Ono Band and Mississippi John Hurt. It’s all the same to me.

“I always hated like real wimpy folk music anyhow. I never really liked the singer-songwriter kind of music. I never felt like I was part of that, really. When I went out and played folk music in clubs I always played it really intensely. I mean, the best thing you can do for somebody these days is (to) break their heart, do something to them, move them.”

Store-Bound: Chaka Khan’s “The Woman I Am” heads next week’s mainstream releases, while the Jesus and Mary Chain’s “Honey’s Dead” joins Peter Murphy’s “Holy Smoke” and Charlatans UK’s “Between 10th and 11th” on the list of college/alternative rock collections. They should all be in the stores Tuesday. Also due: A House’s “I Am the Greatest,” the Beautiful South’s “0898-Beautiful South” and Howard Jones’ “In the Running.” Due April 21: the latest from the Cure and Slaughter.