"Welcome to my guitar shop," deadpans Warren Zevon as he navigates his way through his Manhattan hotel suite, which is presently cluttered by boxed guitars headed for the hands of a half dozen or so lucky contest winners. Asked how folks will end up winning the Epiphones, Zevon admits he has no earthly idea. All he knows is, he's already thrown his back out moving the cumbersome bastards around to make walking space. To loosely quote one of the songs on his characteristically sardonic new album, Life'll Kill Ya, his shit's a little fucked up.

The new album, Zevon's first since 1995's Mutineer and his debut for Danny Goldberg's Artemis Records, is all about things falling apart. It opens with the been-through-hell-and-lived-to-tell-the-tale testimony "I Was in the House When the House Burned Down," and ends with the somber, meditative "Don't Let Us Get Sick." In between, Zevon tackles degenerating health, degenerating (and degenerate) relationships, and the degeneration of Elvis, with only a liberal dose of dark humor and a straight-up cover of Steve Winwood's wistful "Back in the High Life Again" to take the edge off the pain.

What have you been up to for the last five years?

The older you get, the more you realize that there's a shit-load of stuff to do. There are certainly a lot of things to do besides single-mindedly pursue a show-business career. I decided I wanted to play flute like Hubert Laws. I decided I should be able to read "Pater Noster" in Russian. Both of those are pretty difficult goals, but even a laughable attempt at either one can keep you busy as a motherfucker for years and years.

How did the flute playing go?

Unfortunately, because I used to smoke, I find that I play the piccolo better than the flute. It requires considerable less wind. But I play it OK; I don't play it like Hubert Laws, but I play it well enough to play on the record.

And the Russian reading?

Didn't go as well.

Do you feel like you've gotten significantly better as a songwriter as time goes on, or do you sometimes feel like you're playing catch-up with yourself?

I've always had the same goals. I think that I've evolved a little bit craft-wise, but not very much. I don't think it really grows or evolves very much. That's good and bad. It's bad because you don't really get much better, and it's good because you really are doing what you thought you were doing and what you set out to do.

How receptive are your fans usually to your new material? Do you inevitably find half the audience shouting for "Werewolves of London" the whole time?

With this record, I knew I was probably going to be playing the songs alone. That's the financial reality. And since I've been doing that for a number of years now, I guess one writes songs that will be compelling to get up and play alone. You know you're not going to be able to turn to the lead guitarist or prance around while the sax player takes over. And these songs do seem to go over pretty well, to get people's attention. It seems to me the last couple of tours they've been listening to these songs. Maybe it's because I made them sensational -- that's not a virtue. Or maybe its because they're intense or they're moving, but they seem to be listening. They don't always -- and they certainly don't like to listen to my bizarre choices in cover songs; then they get riotous.

Like what?

"From a Distance." I did it on the last tour, no matter what they did, and you wouldn't have believed it. They were fucking tearing the seats out. People are trained to have these illusions about show business. They don't even hear the song; they just associate it with Bette Midler, who's not Ani DiFranco. Although, they're not necessarily quite hip enough for Ani DiFranco, but you know what I mean? It was like the Christian and the lions with some of these people and "From a Distance."

You cover "Back in the High Life" on the new album. How has that been going over?

It's OK. People don't have some kind of knee-jerk reaction to Steve Winwood. They know they love him. They get confused -- they don't know if they remember the beer commercial or they just love him -- everybody on the planet loves Steve Winwood. So it doesn't strike some Vegas guilt chord in people that makes them savage.

You've written some extremely wrenching, sad songs, like "Hasten Down the Wind" and "Reconsider Me." Have you ever written a song too close and personal to release on an album?

Those are about as close as it gets. Those are close like, "Maybe she'll hear this..." They're that kind of close. The women don't come back, though. They're impressed, but they don't come back. They'll tell their friends.

On the flip-side, you seem at ease writing really disturbing songs. Are there any subjects you're hesitant to tackle? What scares you?

Sickness. Doctors. That scares me. Not violence -- helplessness. That's why I turn to violent stories, I think. Nobody's every asked me that, and I've never said that before, but I think that's true.

The theme of sickness is all over Life'll Kill Ya, though.

Yeah. [Laughs]

Does that spring from any particular recent scare?

No, no, no! [Laughs] It's kind of the fun of it. Now it's time to really pretend to deal with something that you don't wanna, and try to laugh about it. I mean, I've had guns in my face. I've been robbed. But that doctor stuff -- it's too much for me!

You've dabbled a bit in TV soundtrack work lately -- including William Shatner's short-lived Tek Wars. Is that a paying-the-bills type of thing, or do you enjoy it?

No, it's a lot of fun. Sometimes you're more creative when there are limitations imposed on you -- then you really blossom: when Captain Kirk says to you, "When the double helix logo explodes, I want to hear those guitars come forward!" So that's pretty much all been fun. But it's a strange thing for me. My father was a gambler, so maybe that's prepared me for this in a way; I don't get what I go after, except when I try to write a song. I don't mean I'm in control of that, but it's a complete process. Everything else has been like a weird fluke. I'll write a song and say, "I wrote this song for George Jones. Please give this song to George Jones with my respect and admiration." Nothing! What's the guy sell, he can't even listen to it? Nothing! And then a month later, I find out I have a No. 1 country song - "Poor Poor Pitiful Me" by Terri Clark.

There's a great picture of you target shooting with Hunter S. Thompson in your I'll Sleep When I'm Dead retrospective. Does he make you nervous?

No. On the contrary. I find his presence immanently calming. I try to tell people that aside from the fact that we got the idea for the song from a suggestion by Phil Everly, "Werewolves of London," from my point of view as a co-writer, is a rip-off of Hunter S. Thompson. I can't imagine why people don't see that. And I must tell you that Hunter doesn't see it, because Hunter's too modest. He's a real gentleman. He's a genius who doesn't have that capacity to worry about what people have taken from him, which of course, my whole generation has derived a great deal from him. But he can be a real good friend -- he can be a more reliable friend than a lot of people who aren't on the same...wavelength.

Where do you think you'd be if not for music?

Adult film.

RICHARD SKANSE
(January 28, 2000)