Q&A; WITH TERENCE TRENT D’ARBY : ‘I’m Way Too Vain to Destroy Myself ‘

Terence Trent D’Arby is suddenly the toast of pop--again.

Rarely has a performer arrived on the scene with as much flamboyance as D’Arby did in 1987 when the New York native’s dazzling talent and bold persona made him a sensation, first in England, where he launched his career, and then in the United States. Among his colorful assertions: his claim in a British interview that his debut album was better than the Beatles’ legendary “Sgt. Pepper’s.”

That debut album, titled “The Hard-line According to Terence Trent D’Arby,” sold more than 8 million copies worldwide, and critics compared him to everyone from Sam Cooke to Prince.

Yet few performers have also fallen as quickly. D’Arby second album, 1989’s “Neither Fish Nor Fowl” flopped--partly, many observers feel, because of an industry backlash against his brashness. Even some employees at his own record company, Columbia, were reportedly alienated by D’Arby’s fierce independence in refusing to do normal promotion chores or even allow the release of a single from the second album.

Dropping from sight, D’Arby, 32, moved to Los Angeles and began working on the new album, “Symphony or Damn,” which has critics cheering again.

D’Arby, a soft-spoken and articulate man, now takes his case to the stage. He’ll be at the Coach House on Wednesday and the Ventura Theatre on Friday as part of a short tour before a series of shows this summer with Duran Duran. Sitting on the patio of his Nichols Canyon home, D’Arby spoke about his dramatic rise and fall and his continuing pop idealism.

Question: Why do you think your second album was rejected so dramatically?

Answer: I think one of the things that happened was the album was completely different from what people expected from me. I think we have gotten to a point as consumers where we have become so lulled into a certain complacency by the type of artists that record companies tend to sign nowadays that we just don’t really expect anyone who has a lot of success to turn around and do something completely different. A lot of people wanted “The Hardline, Part II,” and there was no way I was going to do that.

Q: What was another factor?

A: The second factor was the persona that I had projected, to some degree very much naively, on the first album. I think the knives were lying in wait. Even though the second album got a better critical reception than the first one, there was a kind of gleeful attitude on the part of some people when the album didn’t do as well as the first. They never saw the humor in what I was doing (in promoting the first album).

Q: Did you realize how big a risk you were taking by coming up with a much more challenging concept album after the straightforward accessibility of “Hardline”?

A: I didn’t think of it in those terms. What I did think was that I had earned the right as an artist, after the success of the first album, to basically be the artist that I always wanted to be--that a large part of the audience would follow me wherever I wanted to take them. But I was wrong.

Q: How do you feel about that second album now?

A: I am very proud of it. People have said to me, “You were really brave . . . you could have just done ‘The Hardline, Part II.’ ” When I hear that, I thank them for their heroic projection, but I don’t really feel I had a choice. I couldn’t have done “The Hardline, Part II.” That’s not in my nature. I didn’t do anything with the intention of standing up and pounding on my chest and say, “Look at me, look how brave.” I just did what was there in the mailbox for me to do at the time.

Q: Did you feel humiliated by the relative failure of the album commercially? You seemed to withdraw.

A: In the first place, I was never a very outgoing, public person. That was a facade. By nature, I’m reclusive. Give me instruments, books, CDs and some films and I am content, so it wasn’t like I suddenly went into seclusion. But sure it hurt and sure I was disappointed.

Q: What gave you the strength to fight back? A lot of people might have self-destructed after such a dramatic turnaround.

A: I’m way too vain to destroy myself like that. I believe every major strength we have can be used against us as a weakness. At the same time, things that people see as weakness can be part of our strength. Like a person might say that vanity is a weakness, but it is also a strength because I know other people who are too vain to allow other people to be destroyed by anything.

Q: Why did you move to Los Angeles?

A: I think for me it had become obvious that I had outstayed my welcome in London. There seemed to be so much negative energy around me that I had to find another place where I could plug into another socket.

Q: What are your feelings about the record industry in general? You’ve tended to be very outspoken about it--the lack of support you feel artists get.

A: I think it is safe to say as a huge fan of music that between 1967 and 1972 was the renaissance of rock music. That’s when all the forces combined together--the talent that was available and the freedom for the artists. The industry hadn’t become so gigantic.

It used to be that people who ran record companies were there because they loved music and they loved being around musicians. Now, if a company signed the next Jimi Hendrix and wanted to give him the financial support proper to develop him, the guy who owns stock doesn’t give a damn about the music. He’s just wondering why his stock isn’t performing as well as his GE stock. Business people are choking the artistic blood out of it.

Q: So how do you maintain your pop idealism?

A: In some very real way, rock ‘n’ roll is like a religion to me. I said something in the English press that was again taken in the wrong way. I said that any decent rock star has a Messiah complex. That’s not saying that you are the Christ. But whether it is Dylan, or Townshend or Springsteen or Morrison or Bono, there is part of you that believes music can change things, can inspire people--and that is what ultimately drives you. It’s nice to have a hit record, and the money enables you to have a very comfortable lifestyle. But it’s the music that really feeds you. That’s why you have to fight for your beliefs. The important thing when you get through with an album is to know it’s true to yourself.