Michael Penn Fights Fire With Fire on ‘Free for All’ : Pop music: The singer, who admits he used self-censorship on his debut hit, ‘No Myth,’ gets more extreme on his new album. He begins a string of shows tonight.

Michael Penn thinks the song that won him a mass audience three years ago was probably widely misunderstood.

“No Myth” was a wistful bit of Beatles-influenced pop about a guy who gets dumped and begins to wonder whether it takes the romantic charisma of a Romeo or a Heathcliff to succeed in love.

“I think the song’s a lot more cynical than most people got from it, which is perhaps my fault in not being more specific,” Penn said in a recent phone interview as he took a break from rehearsing his touring band at a North Hollywood studio.

Penn, who plays tonight at the Coach House in San Juan Capistrano, Thursday at the Ventura Theatre in Ventura and Sept. 16 at the Roxy, says the song’s cynical edge was softened because “I censored myself” on the key chorus line, “Maybe she’s just looking for someone to dance with.”

“My instinct was that ‘dance’ has always been a great metaphor for (intercourse),” Penn said. Maybe the blunter language he considered using would have gotten the intended sentiment across. But it certainly would have disqualified “No Myth” from becoming a radio and video hit and, along with the rest of the tracks on his solid debut album, “March,” establishing Penn as a promising pure-pop contender.

There’s no mistaking the barbed tone of many of the songs on Penn’s new album, “Free for All.”

“I hope the album is a bit more extreme, a bit more aggressive than ‘March,’ and a bit more folky,” he said.

The typical Penn lyrical scenario is the troubled, one-on-one romantic clinch. But the 33-year-old, Los Angeles-reared songwriter says that in some cases his intended scope goes beyond bedroom fireworks: “I think quite a bit of the album is topical,” although he acknowledges that it isn’t obvious given his oblique lyrics.

“I’m not interested in getting up on a box and yelling, ‘Sinner repent,’ ” he explained. “This is the way I know how to do it. Maybe it will communicate, and maybe it won’t. I know it’s not overt. But the people who are (messing) up the world are doing it in the most covert way possible. Maybe by being covert myself, I’m doing my job by fighting fire with fire.”

There’s no myth-making involved in Penn’s live performing approach. He’s not to be confused with any of the charismatic Romeos and Heathcliffs of the rock stage.

“I’m not going to be an entertainer, in the sense of trying to do more than get across the song,” he said. “There are undoubtedly people who think I should. . . . They’re going to be disappointed. Performing is not the most natural function of a human being, I’m convinced.”

In that, Penn seems to go against the genetic grain passed from his parents, both actors, to his acting brothers, Sean and Christopher.

“I never had any interest in (acting),” he said. “I have no idea why--maybe because it’s the family business.”

In the current commercial environment, there seems to be a glass ceiling on the prospects of ‘60s-influenced pop classicists like Penn. They still can forge careers, but it’s punk- and hard-rock-influenced bands that reap huge returns.

“I really don’t spend my time thinking about that,” Penn said of his prospects of building on the audience base he established with his first album. “I’m very happy for the success of Nirvana and Pearl Jam. First of all, they’re both good records, and they’re writing songs. It may not be the style I’m doing, but they’re songs. Technology has enabled people to make very professional-sounding records very easily, and songwriting has gotten lost in the process. I can appreciate a great record as opposed to a great song, but for me, I need both things.”