Zevon Puts Excitable Days in Perspective

Warren Zevon has earned a reputation as a bad boy of rock, a position he hasn’t disputed. Words such as “surly, “demented” and “curmudgeon” are frequently used to describe the L.A.-based singer-songwriter best known for such songs as “Werewolves of London,” “Excitable Boy,” “Lawyers, Guns & Money” and “Poor Poor Pitiful Me”--the latter a hit for Linda Ronstadt in 1978--who appears solo Thursday at the Coach House in San Juan Capistrano.

His profanity-laced interviews, rowdy behavior and outlaw-viewpoint in songs such as “Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner,” “I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead” and “Things to Do in Denver When You’re Dead,” among others, haven’t offered much to combat that reputation. Zevon, who is a recovering alcoholic, even playfully titled his 1991 album “Mr. Bad Example.”

Still, a reassuring quality permeates his strongest work, a dimension where survival, humor and hope lurk somewhere within desperate characters in search of redemption.

Asked recently whether he felt misunderstood, Zevon suggested--half-seriously--that he’s basically leading, like the title of his 1986 career retrospective album suggests, “A Quiet, Normal Life.”

“ ‘Curmudgeon’ is fine . . . labels are convenient for everybody, and they do lend some accessibility,” he said by cell phone from a truck stop in Gilroy. “But to me, obviously, it seems like I have a relatively healthy perspective on life.

“What I’ve always said is that my work is not particularly violent or dark--and never pessimistic--especially compared to the movies and books I grew up with,” he said. “It’s just not Rodgers and Hart. If there aren’t the contradictions, heartaches and jokes, there’s not much need for art. There’s all kinds of other pleasant things you can do, though, like gardening.”

The Chicago-born musician kept a very low profile through most of the ‘90s but recently released his first album of new material in five years, “Life’ll Kill Ya.” It’s a sparse album recorded at his home studio, primarily featuring Zevon’s voice, piano, guitar and harmonica, with occasional support from bassist Jorge Calderon and percussionist Winston Watson.

Thematically, the 12-song collection focuses on issues of aging and mortality. While some cuts (“Porcelain Monkey,” “Dirty Little Religion”) skewer targets in typically fine Zevonesque fashion, others offer a tinge of optimism.

In “Ourselves to Know,” for instance, Zevon sings: “Now if you make a pilgrimage, I hope you find your grail/Be loyal to the ones you leave with, even if you fail.”

While not exactly primed for Top 40 radio or MTV, such subjects resonate with the 53-year-old Zevon.

“What am I gonna sing about--missing my baby?” he said. “Maybe it takes a certain sensibility to deal with the grotesquery of growing old in an amusing way. As we know, there are aspects of aging that are gruesome, particularly in this youth-obsessed town.

“But I’m old, and death is inevitable,” he said. “It makes people uncomfortable, but isn’t it as appropriate a subject for me as today’s kids singing about being young and angry?”

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While some figured Zevon was in a semiretirement mode during his extended break between album releases, he suggests otherwise.

“I felt like the record-making machine was kind of shut down, and I just stopped thinking about making records,” said Zevon, a one-time composition prodigy who studied under Igor Stravinsky.

“What I discovered is that when you get out of the job of being a recording artist, you don’t have to pump out a dozen songs a year,” he said. “Inevitably, what you write becomes more compelling because you didn’t have any reason to write it.”

After Zevon recorded about 10 of the new tunes, he gave a demo copy to his longtime friend and former record producer Jackson Browne. He passed it along to Danny Goldberg, an industry veteran who last year founded the independent, New York-based Artemis Records, and Zevon was a recording artist again.

Just don’t expect another any time very soon.

“I’ve said before that my career is as promising as a Civil War leg wound,” deadpanned Zevon, who’s released only nine albums in 30 years. “I guess I’m really just a hippie at heart--or maybe a slacker. I’m lacking some essential component of ambition. I’ve got real good dental work and nice shoes, but I don’t know how to think beyond that . . . that big picture thing.”

* Warren Zevon, Jill Sobule and Brooke Ramel & Her Band play Thursday at the Coach House, 33157 Camino Capistrano, San Juan Capistrano. 8 p.m. $22.50-$24.50 (949) 496-8930.