No Looking Back for the Jam’s Weller : Pop music: The British rocker, on the verge of quitting music a year ago, is on the scene again with his first solo album and a U.S. tour.

Paul Weller, who ranks as one of the most popular and acclaimed figures to graduate from the British punk-rock movement, found himself without a record contract and on the verge of quitting the music business just a year ago.

But now, with his self-titled first solo album released and in the midst of a tour that will include shows here tonight and Tuesday at the Roxy and Thursday at San Diego State University’s Montezuma Hall, Weller makes it clear that he’s not one to harbor regrets or bemoan lost glories.

After all, though the 34-year-old singer-guitarist has not duplicated the success he had in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s with his band the Jam, he still thinks he was right to break up that trio in 1982.

“The Jam still means a lot to me, but I’m not a person to get teary-eyed,” Weller says from a Detroit tour stop. “I don’t have any regrets when it comes to music and the decisions I made. I realized you have to move on.”

In albums such as “In the City” and “Setting Sons,” he wrote about youthful aspirations and frustrations with much of the biting insight of Pete Townshend and Ray Davies. Unlike those artists, however, the Jam never caught on commercially in the United States. At home, though, it was the early ‘80s equivalent of the Who and the Kinks.

So, he caught everybody off guard in 1982 when he called it quits with the Jam, arguing that things--for all the group’s success in England--had become stagnant.

Dramatically shifting musical gears, Weller teamed up with ex-Dexy’s Midnight Runners keyboardist Mick Talbot to form the Style Council--a hit-and-miss exploration into soul, jazz and R&B; that received short shrift from critics--and failed to recapture the fan enthusiasm of his Jam days.

“It was a difficult time really,” Weller says, remembering the Style Council’s last years before going under in 1988. “We got more and more isolated and indulgent. We asked for it really. We also lost enthusiasm for the music, and it showed in our work.”

Weller’s longtime record label, Polydor, had such misgivings about the group’s last album that the company refused to release it and terminated the singer’s contract.

“It was the low point,” he says with the authority of someone who has been there. “It was the first time in 12 years that I didn’t have a record contract and I wasn’t sure what I was going to do. It really made me question if I wanted to keep playing music. But I found there is nothing else I really get turned on by.”

Cast adrift in the music world, Weller spent the next few years directing his attention to his wife, Dee C. Lee, and their two children.

In the summer of 1991, he started work on his solo album. By December, the songs were in the can and Weller was still without a record contract.

Considering his past troubles with American audiences, it is ironic that his five sold-out shows at Los Angeles’ Variety Theatre late last year buttressed the singer’s lagging fortunes.

“It was a boost for my self-confidence and it happened at exactly the right time,” he says of the L.A. shows. “It was the first time I had played in America since 1984 with the Style Council, and to feel that kind of warm, it was kind of spiritual, magical in a way.”

With a new record company, Go! Discs, and an album hovering near the Top 10 on alternative music charts, Weller says he is satisfied with the way things turned out.

But what about a Jam reunion?

“It will never happen,” he answered curtly. “The band belonged to that time and those feelings. It doesn’t interest me.”