Old-Time Rocker Goes the Distance : Peter Wolf, who fronted the J. Geils Band for 17 years, is an old-fashioned rocker who gives fans their money’s worth. His new band will play in Ventura.

Don’t you just hate those rock stars who take two years to make an overpriced 35-minute CD, then start an hour late during each gig on a two-week tour, play 45 minutes, give you a “Howzit goin’ Ventura?” before leaving the stage laughing--at us.

Peter Wolf, who prowled the stage fronting the J. Geils Band for 17 years, is not one of those aforementioned rock stars. He’s an old-fashioned rocker who gives fans their money’s worth. Wolf, with a new band, will be making people sweat all over the venerable Ventura Theatre on Friday night.

Known for his two-hour-plus sets and boundless energy, Wolf won’t be putting on one of those Geezers of Rock Tours, the frantic front man himself said during a recent phone conversation.

“We’ve played a lot longer than two hours before,” he said. “We’ll play as long as the audience wants to rock ‘n’ roll. This isn’t classic rock or some sort of J. Geils reunion show. I’m just doing what I do with a bunch of my songs, and obviously there’ll be some Geils songs, because I wrote a lot of them. I’m a rocker that still likes to rock and meet new people.”

In a very eventful life, there can’t be too many people left who Wolf hasn’t met. A son of bohemian parents, Wolf grew up in the Bronx in the ‘50s. He studied at the Museum of Modern Art, became a painter, then a disc jockey on one of those gillion-watt stations loud enough to be heard all the way to Tierra del Fuego. Later, he became a rock star, was married to Faye Dunaway for a few years and, at one time, even lived with weird filmmaker David Lynch.

“David was a very nice guy,” Wolf said. “We lived together for a while and had a lot of craziness together. In the middle of the night, we’d decide we wanted a beer, so we’d drive to New York to a place I knew that had 15-cent beers, stuff like that, just crazy stuff.”

In the mid-’60s, Wolf had a place near a small Boston club called Club 47, one of the stops on that endless blues tour. Since the club had such a tiny dressing room, Wolf persuaded many of the traveling musicians to hang out at his place. So while the musicians were cooking dinner, resting, dressing and getting ready to play, Wolf would sit on his couch and discuss the nature of the universe with people such as Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker and Howlin’ Wolf. Not surprisingly, Peter Wolf’s own group, the J. Geils Band, which started around 1967, had a strong blues base.

“We were a rock, blues, R & B, rootsy band until we developed our own sound,” Wolf said. “But even now, I listen to everything. There’s always something interesting going on. And it’s always cool to rediscover the masters like Muddy Waters, Van Morrison, Bob Dylan, Robert Johnson. I still feel like a student-pilgrim.”

The Geils band lasted an incredible (for rock ‘n’ roll) 17 years with all the same members. Most bands last about as long as the “Mom, I quit school and joined a band” speech. The Beatles lasted only six years.

The J. Geils Band recorded 14 albums and toured constantly in support of such hits as “Love Stinks,” “Centerfold,” “Freeze-Frame” and “I Don’t Need You No More.” Bands like the Eagles and U2 have opened for the Boston rockers, one of the truly memorable ‘70s bands that still lives long and prospers on FM radio.

It was a good musical marriage until the bad divorce in 1983. Seth Justman, the other main songwriter, and Wolf gradually had less and less in common as the dreaded creative differences took root. Wolf took the breakup hard.

“I think we were very much like a team that had a unified goal,” he said. “The music just kind of held it all together. When it fell apart, it was one of the dumbest things that ever happened. I tried to patch things up, but they went their own way and left me to continue on my own. I didn’t choose to become a soloist; I didn’t have a choice.

“Even now, some people still think I’m J. Geils because I was the singer of the band. Sometimes in the mall, even in Boston, people still get confused and say, ‘Hey, J. Geils; hey man.’ ”

Since Wolf left the Geils band in 1983, he has recorded a number of solo albums but hasn’t hit the road. But just within the last year, Wolf formed a top-notch band, the Incomparable Houseparty Five. Brian Maes and Doug Dube are on keyboards, Tim Archibald is the bassist, Johnny A is the guitar player and Dave Stefanelli hits the drums.

“They are some of the really choice musicians from New England,” Wolf said. “They understand the energy and the intensity that I require so I can do what I do. We got together to do a festival, but the festival got canceled. So we slipped into this bar and the place went nuts. Then a radio station in New York got involved, then another in Cleveland, so we’ve been playing quite a bit in the last six months. Since I don’t have a new record right now, this will be sort of a word-of-mouth tour. I hear this Ventura venue is really cool. I hope they let the people come right up to the stage.”

Wolf will be the tall skinny guy with the hat--the one that looks as if it came from Chico Marx, not Fenway Park. Wolf may know painting and rock ‘n’ roll, but he’s not much into baseball, not even Boston’s beloved Red Sox. He probably wouldn’t know Ted Williams from Ralph Williams or the Yaz from the Fonz. Good thing Wolf has that steady night job sewn up.

“Oh boy, I guess I’m dyslexic about baseball,” he said. “The only sport I know is running on and off the stage. Well, one time with the Geils band, we were playing Cobo Hall in Detroit, and we ran backstage during one of the encores and I told the security guys to wait outside. One of the guys in the band said, ‘Do you know who those guys were? That was the Boston Red Sox.’ I thought they were the security guards.”

Well, baseball is baseball, but does love stink?

“Sure it does,” he said, “but we all crave the smell.”