Tom Heinl's slightly warped world.

Byline: Lewis Taylor The Register-Guard

I met Tom Heinl at the International House of Pancakes, which seemed as good a place as any to interview Eugene's king of kitschy country-pop songs.

Sort of a cross between Johnny Cash, Tom Jones and Weird Al Yankovic, Heinl immortalized the restaurant where the syrup comes in different flavors in his Tom Waits-ian waltz "IHOP," which is included on his new Leisure King album, "With or Without Me." He'll celebrate with a CD-release party on Saturday at Sam Bond's Garage.

I arrive to find Heinl halfway through a "bottomless" cup of IHOP coffee. Beside him, sitting like a shiny silver pet, is his trusty karaoke machine, which I've asked him to bring.

Briefly, I wonder whether it would have been more appropriate to meet him at a karaoke bar. But soon we get to talking about the new album, wrestlers on the beach, Neil Diamond, doughnuts and the dangers of working barehanded with buckets of bleach, and I've forgotten about the other stuff.

I'm in Tom's world now, and I kinda like it.

A musical comedian?

I stick with the bottomless cup of coffee, while Heinl indulges in a bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich. Framed by blue gingham curtains and a window splashed with greasepaint letters, he sits with his back toward East Broadway while I quiz him about the new album.

I get the feeling he'd rather be singing the songs than talking about them, but he does his best to humor me.

So, I ask, do you feel closer to music or comedy?

`I just think if you set it up as saying, `This is going to be music,' and then it's funny, that's much more powerful than saying, `This is going to be funny,' ' Heinl says.

`People are trying to get me to do the comedy circuit, and I keep trying to tell them, `Like, you mean with the brick wall in the background?' I'm not interested in that.'

A copy of an alternative weekly newspaper's "best of Eugene" issue prompts me to ask Heinl about some of his favorite places in town, specifically his favorite karaoke bars - or "cuh-roakie," as he calls it. He lists the Duck Inn as the best place for hanging with old-timers and singing classic country, the Red Lion Inn as the perfect spot for that "I'm not going to see anyone I know" sort of ambience and Tom's Tapper tavern as the sing-along locale for classic rock.

"Cuh-roakie" aside, Tom's Tapper is one of Heinl's favorite haunts, period; his description of the Glenwood bar makes it sound like the kind of place where Tom Heinl songs are born.

"They got pool tables, they got Asteroids, they got hard liquor, you can smoke in there if you're into smoking, they got free popcorn, and it's really not that far away," Heinl says.

Of the songs on Heinl's new album, the one that seems to best exemplify his warped window on the world, is his version of Tom T. Hall's "I Love." In it, "baby ducks," "Sunday school in May" and "coffee in a cup" are replaced by "three-legged dogs," "bathrooms on a bus" and "coffee in a can."

Heinl's childlike fascination with the junk all around him morphs into a redneck binge on another song, the Hawaiian-flavored white trash whirl "Half Day Vacation," as he reaches for every chemical he can get his hands on.

"I'm smoking those cigarette butts from my neighbor's truck/ And I'm drinking some cooking sherry/ One last beer, I put some ketchup in there/ That's a poor man's Bloody Mary."

Heinl's songwriting style can best be described as a bolt of lightning followed by an all-nighter. He waits for an idea to strike and then works furiously on it until it's done, no matter how long it takes.

Along with his latest CD and his previous album, he has five basement tapes of songs, mostly recorded on a four-track machine in his home.

Ever since he formed his first classic rock band, the Imposters, Heinl has been a fixture on the local entertainment scene. Even before that, he was the resident cutup in his own family of five.

Born in Eugene, he grew up here, went to high school here and then, after some shuffling between Lane Community College and the University of Oregon, completed his undergraduate education here. He has an English degree from the university.

After serving in the Imposters, Heinl played with the band Blind Lemon Pledge. He wrote all the songs for the band and learned to embrace his inner comedian.

In 1999, he released the solo album "I Know You Are But What Am I." That record was most notable for Heinl's fifth-grade journal entries and the original song "Ingrown Nail on the Oregon Trail," which ended up on the `Dr. Demento' radio show.

Master of ceremonies

If you don't know Heinl's music, you might know him from his other gigs as the host of local variety shows, most of them at Sam Bond's Garage. He's lent his pasty face and unctuous announcer voice to such only-in-Eugene events as the Poetry Gong Show and Whitaker neighborhood versions of `Hollywood Squares,' `Family Feud' and other game shows.

Heinl's regular music shows have featured the accompaniment of either his home stereo or, more recently, his portable karaoke box, the "Singing Machine." His new album represents sort of a departure for him in that all of the songs feature live musicians.

Not one to forget his karaoke heritage, though, Heinl also includes a "Side 2' with instrumental versions of all the songs - just in case anyone out there feels inspired to sing his or her own version of, say, "Three-Way" or "Peein' in an Empty."

I try to persuade Heinl that working on his new CD must have been a lot of work, but he insists that it really was just a whole lot of fun. He describes the process as "mostly just sitting around and eating doughnuts and drinking coffee and watching other people do stuff."

Heinl had no trouble rounding up his musically inclined friends for the album. Recorded at Eugene's Gung-Ho studios and co-produced by Heinl, Scott McLean and Bill Barnett, the CD features enough players to require a "scorecard" in the liner notes of the album.

A total of 19 musicians and 36 instruments are listed, including such local luminaries as Dustin Lanker, Ed Cole, Tony Figoli, Tyrone Barnett, Jason Moss, Jivan Valpey and Alexis Stevens. The guests play everything from Casio keyboards to baritone sax to a toy piano.

Heinl plans to take his musical comedy show on the road next summer. He's shipped a copy of "Pinto Squire," an ode to one very beat-up car, to the National Public Radio show "Car Talk" in the hopes that it will air between segments, and he plans to send the CD off to `Dr. Demento,' too.

"Christmas Tree on Fire," a song that would fit perfectly on a holiday compilation with Elmo & Patsy's "Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer," seems a likely candidate for the Demento show. But then, come to think of it, so would just about any of the songs on the album.

Heinl's live shows sometimes look like informal reunions where everybody knows one another. I wonder aloud how he can continue to attract so many of the same people to his shows again and again.

He admits that he, too, was puzzled for the longest time by the high rate of recidivism among his audience. During a recent trip to a songwriter's conference in Kerrville, Texas, he got to try his songs out in front of a new crowd, and he discovered his own secret ingredient.

`They (the people in the audience) were like, `The songs are great, but it's the perfor- mance,' ' Heinl says, `and that's when I kind of understood there's a whole other element to it that people like. Usually, when I'm singing, I'm having a lot of fun.

`Sometimes, I'll try to find one person in the audience that I know I've never seen at a show before and I'll be like, `This show's for you.'

`Sometimes, I imagine that I'm going to get hit by a bus tomorrow and this is going to be my last show ever, and it puts me in the mood to do a good show."

Always ready to play

Having devoured most of his greasy IHOP sandwich, Heinl joins me in the parking lot. A photographer is waiting to take his portrait, and I'm reminded of what a Tom Heinl performance looks like.

Hanging from a lamppost, he gathers up his karaoke microphone cord and presses "play" on his machine. Cars stream past the restaurant, some of them honking their horns, while Heinl twists his face into a sarcastic sneer that looks more demented than dramatic.

Pointing at passing cars, he burps out his song like some tipsy lounge singer, seemingly oblivious to the fact that he's long since left the piano bar.

"I turned a corner today," he sings. "I'm having her over to stay, and we're going to have some fun/ Because now, I'm doing things like they're supposed to get done.

`Yeah, now I'm acting my age/ I turned a corner today."

Lewis Taylor can be reached at 338-2512 or [e-mail].

CONCERT PREVIEW

Tom Heinl

What: Warped Americana

When: 6:30 p.m. (all ages) and 9:30 p.m. (21 and over) Saturday

Where: Sam Bond's Garage, 407 Blair Blvd.

How much: $3 for the early show (free for kids ages 12 and younger); $4 for the late show

GuardLine: To hear music by Tom Heinl, call the GuardLine at 485-2000 from a touch-tone phone and request category 3475

CAPTION(S):

Tom Heinl's many late-night visits to the International House of Pancakes in Eugene inspired a song on his new CD. "Sometimes, I imagine that I'm going to get hit by a bus tomorrow and this is going to be my last show ever, and it puts me in the mood to do a good show." - TOM HIENL