Chance to Get Personal With Kenny Loggins : Pop music: The singer will punctuate his shows in Cerritos tonight and Saturday with audience Q & A sessions.

Imagine attending a U2 concert where 20 minutes into the band’s set, the house lights suddenly go on and lead singer Bono Hewson begins to field questions from the audience. It’s hard to imagine a scenario like that at a U2 show--or at any other pop concert for that matter.

But tonight and Saturday, Kenny Loggins’ fans will have the opportunity to query the Alhambra-bred artist during his two sold-out shows at the Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts.

Loggins will take a break from singing early on and invite concert-goers to ask him about anything and everything, from his favorite songs to the joys and travails of raising four kids.

Loggins began incorporating Q & A segments into some shows after the 1991 release of his “Leap of Faith” album. Not coincidentally, the work was his most self-revealing and cathartic of his solo career, which began in 1977 after the breakup of Loggins & Messina. “Leap of Faith” chronicles the deterioration of his troubled first marriage and the spiritual renewal that occurred after he met and married his second wife, Julia.

“ ‘Leap of Faith’ was not a difficult album to make in that it was like writing a diary,” Loggins said in a recent phone interview from his new home in Santa Barbara.

“It was really like a steamroller in my life. But it took three years to complete the record, from the beginning where everything started to blow up and then when everything came back together with Julia,” he said. “So you cover this whole passage where everything in your life is falling apart to where you fall in love again. That’s a powerful time to chronicle in music.”

Following “Leap of Faith,” Loggins said he enjoyed his more personal press interviews so much that he decided to take part in a number of lectures in which he discussed life and music. One of his talks took place at the Guitar Institute of Technology in Hollywood and encompassed the topic of writing as a spiritual path. These lectures subsequently led to the addition of the Q & A segment to some concerts.

“Leap of Faith” represented a turning point in Loggins’ personal and artistic maturation. The album followed a lengthy period in the ‘80s where the veteran singer was known primarily for writing and/or performing less personal songs for Hollywood films. During this period Loggins scored four Top 10 pop singles, all tied to commercial movies, including the No. 1 hit “Footloose” from the 1984 film of the same name.

Loggins said that for his own spiritual and artistic welfare, he needed to recapture the personal honesty in his songwriting. In the ‘70s, he recorded a number of more intimate, middle-of-the-road rock ballads, including “Celebrate Me Home” and “Whenever You Call Me Friend” (a Top 5 hit that was a duet with Stevie Nicks).

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Loggins is grateful that his soundtrack singles helped buoy his career during the ‘80s, but says he no longer consciously strives to make commercial records. Indeed, when his last album was released in 1994, some felt that he was committing career suicide. Titled “Return To Pooh Corner,” the album found Loggins performing a collection of family-oriented songs, from his own “Cody’s Song” to the traditional Irish lullaby, “Too-Ra-Loo-Ra-Loo-Ral.” It peaked at No. 65 in Billboard.

Making “Return to Pooh Corner” made perfect sense to Loggins. When he embarked on the project, his wife was pregnant and he found himself gravitating toward children’s music. But he didn’t want to record a typical album for kids.

Instead he attempted to craft a more sophisticated work that would appeal to both children and their parents. For example, the album includes a cover of John Lennon’s “Love” and the title track is actually a revised version of the Loggins & Messina song “House on Pooh Corner.” The disc also includes guest appearances by such artists as Patti Austin, David Crosby and Graham Nash.

Asked why some record-industry mavens felt that making “Return to Pooh Corner” was a foolhardy move, Loggins said: “One of the big taboos in rock ‘n’ roll is to grow up.

“Record labels don’t want a viable artist who is getting airplay to suddenly be compared to Raffi,” he said. “They’re afraid that their acts are going to grow up because the so-called adult audience doesn’t traditionally buy records. So a scary thing is that it forces acts to pretend to stay young. I mean, I’m 47 years old. To be writing about the first time I got laid in the back seat of a Chevy, it’s like ‘Shoot me now.’ ”

Since deciding to write songs strictly from the heart, Loggins’ career hasn’t exactly suffered. “Leap of Faith” and “Return to Pooh Corner” are both approaching platinum sales status. He’s currently recording a new album.

In recent years, Loggins also has become an increasingly outspoken environmentalist. He hosted a TV special called “This Island Earth” for the Disney Channel in 1992. And his 1991 song “Conviction of the Heart” has since become an environmental anthem.

“People are being sold that environmentalists only care about animals and not people,” observes Loggins. “That’s a fallacy. Every environmentalist is in it because of their children or their own connection to life itself. . . . Some scientists have said we’re out of time [to save the Earth]; others have said we’re not. I figure as long I’ve got my life to live and I’ve got my children, then we’re not out of time.”

* Kenny Loggins performs tonight and Saturday at the Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts, 12700 Center Court Drive, Cerritos. 8 p.m. Sold out, but there is a waiting list for cancellations. (310) 916-8500.