CHECKING IN WITH . . . BECK : Loser Gets Amnesia and Thicker Skin

Quentin Tarantino isn’t the only Southland auteur to rise from a video-store clerk position to notoriety. There’s also Beck, the offbeat L.A. folkie whose out-of-nowhere 1994 hit “Loser,” a piece of mutant hip-hop marked by Dylanesque wordplay, launched him into alternative-rock celebrity.

And controversy.

Were his erratic live shows put-ons or performance art? Was the aggressive sonic experimentation on his major-label debut album, “Mellow Gold,” compatible with the rough, rootsy folk he considers his “main thing”? Is he a true innocent? An unspoiled genius? A cagey media manipulator?

Before a recent all-night recording session for his next Geffen Records album (expected in August or September), the Lollapalloza-bound Beck, 24, sat in a Chinese restaurant near his Echo Park home and talked about the sudden fame and his work in progress.

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Question: Are you feeling any pressure and expectations?

Answer: I think I’ve developed a certain amnesia. You just go back into your life and the rest of it is all some other, one-dimensional thing. It’s like watching TV or something. Your life is the three-dimensional thing. The main concern is just getting into the music and letting go.

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Q: How would you compare the new record with “Mellow Gold”?

A: Albums are strange. I just keep a constant brew of materials, recorded and unrecorded, and sort of let them coalesce on their own into their separate album entities. It’s hard to have a preconceived idea and go in and follow it through. That’s maybe something other people can do. I can’t. I have to be in the moment and what’s feeling right at the time. . . .

“Mellow Gold” was completely done in a void. There was no inhibitions, there was no rules. You’re just trying to get at something that you’re genuinely feeling. Not what’s the hip thing to feel or say at the moment. It’s important to shut out all the other voices. It’s easy to get clouded by that. I think it’s almost impossible these days, but that’s the only way to get at what you really have to give.

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Q: Audiences seemed to have trouble figuring you out.

A: I was just havin’ fun. People hated us or thought we were saying (expletive) you. I think they probably got the wrong idea. It’s just that the whole thing gets so serious. Seriousness is fine, it’s necessary. It just needs a balance. I would never want to be the jokester. That gets old very fast.

I came into it thinking the whole thing was a joke on me, so I was completely mistrustful of the whole thing. I did it all on a whim. I’d been working in a video store and nobody ever took me seriously. I’d been playing at these clubs, Jabberjaw, Al’s Bar. Sometimes the bands would let me get up in between and play a couple of songs. I couldn’t even get my own show. So I thought the whole thing was a joke. I thought it was all gonna end any day.

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Q: How does it feel to finally be taken more seriously?

A: I haven’t noticed too much of that, actually. Sometimes I’ll be reading something and my name will be mentioned, usually in a negative way. I’ve gotten pretty used to that. It used to be really hard to deal with that, but I’m getting a little thicker skin.

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Q: Don’t you have the sense that people respect your music?

A: Sure, I guess. I never see that written or anything. There’s a lot of musicians and bands who make songs that I respect and that I like to listen to. I’m a big music lover. I listen to most everything I can get my hands on. I’ve always been a big fan, and any respect sent back my way, that’s probably the best thing you can get.*