Mike Watt is still being plagued with "Who is this guy and why is he ...?"

This time, he's cool with it.

He wasn't when we did an interview a decade ago during the heady, spaghetti days of grunge rock glory.

I'd been on the job a few months and didn't have a clue who Mike Watt was - the elder statesman of grunge, I assumed, since the occasion was Watt's new album, Ball-Hog or Tugboat?, its guest list packed with grunge superstars from Eddie Vedder to Sonic Youth. My thought was, "Who is this guy and how did he get Eddie Vedder and Sonic Youth to play on his record?"

I expressed this to Watt, who took umbrage and almost hung up the phone.

That was then. This is now. Things have changed, yet things have remained the same.

Daily newspapers are still obsessed with "celebrity." And Mike Watt is still the ultimate do-it-yourself punk, now on his 51st tour in his beloved "boat" (his Econoline van).

He rejects trends, defies labels, manages himself, does whatever he wants and in fact does so many different things that none of his fans are ever likely to get bored.

For example, from true-blue punk roots in the Minutemen, the 45-year-old bassist has a new band called the Secondmen - "60 more times in the moment than before" - a band whose members look like they could be on the bill at A Mighty Wind and consisting of organ, drums and bass - no guitar! Take that, White Stripes.

Watt and the Secondmen open for his old pals in the Red Hot Chili Peppers at Skyreach Centre Sunday night. Flea will probably sit on trumpet.

This is not all. Watt plays in a bass duo with his ex-wife Kira (from Black Flag) called Dos. Two basses, nothing else. He also plays upright bass in a jazz band. He is a radio jazz DJ in his home of San Pedro, California. He recently ended up playing bass for Iggy Pop and the Stooges.

If you were to make a chart of punk and grunge rock genealogies, all paths would lead to Mike Watt sooner or later.

And still the question persists, "Who is Mike Watt?" Just when you think you might know, he changes his tune. Perhaps that's why the question persists. And that's exactly the idea.

"I think when people categorize you, they know you for a certain thing, they kind of stop listening to you," Watt says.

"So in a way, me putting myself in weird situations, they have to listen to me again. I'm kind of doing this on purpose, but personally, I'm trying to challenge myself. Hey, no I Love Lucy reruns here! I have to deal with the now, Watt."

He remembers our old interview, too; when I e-mailed him directly on Tuesday to request this one - he has no "people," you see - he apologized for "acting like an idiot." He says the media hype around Ball-Hog or Tugboat? was more than he bargained for.

"I felt uncomfortable," he says. "I've never seen myself fitting into the mainstream. That's why that was such a weird period trying to talk about all the hype. To me, music was something to be with people and try to prove to myself I'm alive. I never saw myself as being commercial.

"So I'm not too concerned with making too much commercial sense. But I don't think I'm too good for the average guy. I'd like him to check it out. Punk to me blew my mind and I'm trying to hand down that tradition and blow other people's minds."

Watt doesn't just make punk rock records. He makes punk "operas."

Ball-Hog or Tugboat? dealt with the deaths of his father and of his friend and mentor from the Minutemen, D. Boon. His upcoming album, The Secondman's Middle Stand, is about a near-fatal illness Watt suffered three years ago. The songs will mirror Dante's Divine Comedy.

Does this sound like "punk" to you?

Watt prefers to think of punk as a state of mind rather than a genre of music. It lasts longer that way.

Says he: "All of us are individuals and somehow feel confined by some herd mentality, so how can that ever go away? Yeah, you can't dress up in that Johnny Rotten uniform and make that sound. That would be kind of bogus, like Sha-Na-Na.

"You can get too complacent even if your whole tradition is trying to buck systems. And young people can help you out there. Maybe there's another word for it. I remember when I first heard the word 'punk.' In my town it meant a guy who got f---ed in jail for cigarettes. But when I went to the gigs, I went, whoa, they're just trying to make their own little world. They don't fit in with the rest. Will that ever disappear? No. It's just a word."

So to answer our original question: Look in the dictionary under the word "punk" and you will find a picture of Mike Watt.