Peter Himmelman Mixes Laughs, Life

Get Peter Himmelman in front of an audience and he can be the consummate cutup, a wit who excels at off-the-cuff humor, composes comic songs on the spot, and typically goes the extra mile to get close to his listeners.

Well, maybe just the extra half-mile. That, Himmelman said, is how far he had to walk on a recent night in Kansas City, Mo., before he found a spot where he felt comfortable performing. Some 250 fans followed him out of a club and down several city blocks to an empty parking lot after some obnoxious regulars and a bad PA system convinced Himmelman that only an impromptu exodus could save the show.

“It’s beautiful when you do that,” Himmelman, who plays with his band tonight at the Roxy and Saturday at the Coach House in San Juan Capistrano, said last week in a phone conversation from backstage before an Ames, Iowa concert. “(It creates) a certain sense of unity. I only do it when I get angry. I want to sing these songs they want to hear, and when people are talking, I don’t just want to throw it away. I take what I do seriously.”

That much is clear from the six albums Himmelman, 34, has issued since 1986. As funny as he can be in his comical moments on stage, the songs this Minnesota-raised, Santa Monica-based rocker records are marked by an unrelenting fervency and a serious, spiritually informed cast that parallels early U2.

Himmelman’s new album, “Skin,” is different only in that it is his first “concept” album. In it, he traces the progress of a reincarnated soul that failed miserably in its previous existence but struggles to live a moral, loving and meaningful life in its next go-round.

Himmelman’s songs explore dualities: good versus evil, the joy of comprehending the divine versus the anguish of feeling fallen, isolated and without purpose. He can’t explain that other duality that informs his career: the songwriter consumed with trying to fathom ultimate questions, versus the on-stage jester. But he sees the humor in his performances as a way to set the audience at ease, so it will be more receptive to his fervent stuff.

“When you’re going to do anything sort of confessional, you want to make sure you’re friends first,” he said. “You don’t want to say something and be rebuffed.”

*

Himmelman, who has a small but loyal cult following, puts limits on what he will do in search of a wider fan base. An observant Jew, he won’t play on Friday nights, the start of the Sabbath. And he safeguards his family’s privacy--not surprising, given that he is the son-in-law of the always-private Bob Dylan.

“People magazine wanted to do a big spread on the last album,” Himmelman recalled. He says the magazine lost interest when he refused to pose for one of People’s trademark celebrities-at-home photo spreads with his wife and children (the couple now has three kids, ages 9 months to 4 1/2 years).

“I think it’s a necessary safeguard against obscuring the line between your real self and a cartoon persona,” Himmelman said of his insistence on keeping his family life private. “You need to have these walls of separation. Everyone’s trying to tear down walls, but walls are also good. They help to preserve what you think is sacred.

“I’m not very mercantile about (my career),” he said. “But I feel successful in my own way. In every city we draw people, they have all my records, they call out songs.”

And, as his recent Kansas City gig shows, they prize him enough to follow him that extra half-mile.

* Himmelman is scheduled for Southern California shows including a free show today at Music Center Plaza, 135 N. Grand Ave., (213) 972-7272, noon ; tonight at the Roxy, 9009 Sunset Blvd., (213) 276-2222, 8 p.m., $17.50 , and Saturday at the Coach House, 33157 Camino Capistrano, San Juan Capistrano, (714) 496-8927, 8:30 p.m., $10. Kevin Montgomery is the opening act at the club shows.