Exene Cervenka talks with rapid-fire rigor of sexism, greed, murder in El Salvador and racism in her new northern Idaho home.
But she seems stymied when asked how she feels about being a mom."It's OK," she said in a telephone interview. "It has its ups and downs, too. My husband watches Henry when I'm working. So, right now I'm just thinking about my work primarily."
Exene Cervenka. As vocalist for the hard-driving, hard-nosed rock 'n' roll band known only as X, she was Queen Mother of the Los Angeles punk scene in the mid-1970s. Brash, blunt, profane, Cervenka seemed to typify the musical excesses and general hedonism of that strange yet pivotal period in the history of American pop - a history chronicled so vividly in such films as "The Decline of Western Civilization" and X's own "Unheard Music."
And now she's a mom taking to the road with her new folk/country album called "Old Wives' Tales." Imagine that.
But one shouldn't be too quick to cast Cervenka among the clique of geriatric rock stars roaming the country in a haze of nostalgia and a shower of greenbacks. She's evolved, surely, in both her music and in her lifestyle. But the original fieriness of her punk days is still close to the surface.
"Sure I've changed. And the world has changed, too. You're talking about 10 years ago. You're talking about a film ("Decline") that was shot in the middle of the night with the film crew in every room of the house - including the bathroom - after an X gig. And I don't how old I was then . . . 22? 23? And we were really wild."
She says she's happy to abandon the X dreadnought in favor of making the kind of music she likes to listen to: country, folk, bluegrass.
"You just can't do that X stuff forever. We always had a hard time live, and even in the studio, because they play so loud. And singing harmonies at the top of your lungs with these really insane chord changes behind it, with (vocalist/bassist) John (Doe) doing like his vocal gymnastics. That was just, like, so hard! And it got to where it wasn't as much fun as when I didn't care how I sang. It's more fun to sing like this."
Cervenka is at mid-point in a two-month tour that will bring her to the Speedway Cafe, 505 W. 500 South, on Sunday. The hourlong show features all new material without a single scrap of old X standards.
But Cervenka says the lack of X material wasn't entirely by design.
"We were going to do some X songs, but we never really had a chance to rehearse. We only rehearsed for about a week because I had to take care of my boy and couldn't get away to L.A. to do it. We haven't had time to work out anything but the arrangements on some of my new songs. And a couple of cover songs."
With X guitarist Tony Gilkyson sharing the spotlight and some of the song-writing honors, "Old Wives' Tales" features airy acoustic ballads with pointed lyrics concerning topics ranging from Star Wars defense systems to domestic strife.
She believes her solo career has given her a chance to develop as a songwriter and pen more socially conscious lyrics.
"To me, if you don't accept life as it is and try to change the things that are wrong - like the greed system and inequality and social injustice - if you can't try to help people, then you're avoiding a major portion of life. You're being a white American. All you're thinking about is your sex, your drugs, your alcohol, your body, your clothes, your car. And that's like gross escapism."
She bristles at the suggestion that she, like many popular musicians, is just capitalizing on social causes to make money.
"When we play benefits, I make $1,500 a show, right? And if I give that away to a cause, I give away $1,500. That's it. That's the end of it. In other words, it's not like the Amnesty International tour or the We Are The World tour, or something, where it's going to give me a high profile and lots of money. When I play a benefit, it's actually coming out of my pocket."
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