A rockin' job

9/25/2003

Warren Zanes was 17 when he joined his older brother Dan Zanes's Boston band, the Del Fuegos. After three decent if unspectacular LPs, Warren dropped out of music and into academia, earning two master's degrees and a doctorate. He resurfaced last spring with a fine CD, "Memory Girls," and has just landed a cool job at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame that combines his music and scholarship. (He got references from producer Mitchell Froom, singer Jakob Dylan, Rolling Stone writer David Fricke, and Dan.) We reached Zanes this week in Brooklyn, where he lives with his wife, singer April March, and their 1-year-old son.

Q. You're vice president of education at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland. What are you going to do?

A. Teach. It's no secret that the emergence of rock 'n' roll is one of the fundamental American stories. Why did it take hold in the way it did? How does it relate to the birth of the teen? What I'm going to teach is infinite.

Q. Pink Floyd famously sang, ``We don't need no education.'' Is rock 'n' roll education an oxymoron?

A. I don't think so. When you're playing it, you can approach it with pure instinct. But studying it - that takes both sides of the brain.

Q. Why did you stop playing music for 12 years?

A. Not to get too highfalutin about it, but there's more self-discovery in a university than in a club, and after five years in the Del Fuegos, I needed self-discovery.

Q. The Del Fuegos were once featured in a Miller beer ad. Do you regret doing that?

A. I wasn't in it, because someone at Miller said, ``What's that 12-year-old doing drinking beer?'' Would we do it again? No. ... But Elvis Costello came out [at the time] and said there's a big difference between Phil Collins doing a beer commercial and [the Del Fuegos] doing one. He was right. Now, of course, you can do anything as long as you do it ironically.

Q. Do you still have all that ridiculous hair?

A. That was a nasty head of hair. I had very thick hair, and I made the most of it.

Q. And the fur coat?

A. My mother asked me recently if she could sell the rabbit-fur jacket. Only she'd think someone would want it.

Zanes opens for Beth Gibbons Oct. 13 at the Roxy.