Kris Kristofferson: pop and country's semi-tough veteran

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Family first

Kristofferson still does movies and TV more frequently than he makes records.

"I've never been a disciplined writer. . . . I just wait till something hits me -- and as I get older, it doesn't hit as often," he says with a laugh. "But I'll keep writing until they throw dirt on me. I just write more slowly.

Hence the decade-long gap between "Moment of Forever," another collaboration with Was that came and went in 1995 without much notice. Released by the small indie label Justice Records, it sold only 22,000 copies, according to Nielsen SoundScan. The comeback aspect of "This Old Road," released by the more aggressive roots-attuned New West Records label, helped it sell better. That collection has sold 69,000 copies, and label officials are hoping to build on that momentum with "Starlight and Stone."

"Some people have suggested that the acting negatively influenced my songwriting. I think that was probably more a case that the acting drew the attention of the spotlight. Hell, I was up there on the screen in a bathtub with Barbra Streisand. But I always felt like I was writing to the best of my ability, writing about what I was going through at the time. I never felt acting took away from my creative talent."

The truth for Kristofferson these days is that acting and music both play second fiddle to his primary role as husband, father and grandfather. The son of an Air Force major general, he was disowned by his parents after he rejected an offer to teach English at West Point in order to go to Nashville to make it as a country songwriter. Eventually they came around, not so much approving of his choices but accepting his right to make them.

He's been married for 26 years to attorney Lisa Meyers, who has five kids of her own as well as three foster children, making for a big brood in addition to his three kids from his previous marriages to singer Rita Coolidge and his first wife, Fran Beir.

In the early '90s they moved to Hawaii, to raise those kids far from Hollywood. They've temporarily moved back to Malibu, where the couple met, so he could work on the new album and manage a tour more easily, but they still consider Hawaii home.

Family, he says "is the best part of my life right now, because they all get along."

That's worth a lot, given his intimate familiarity with dysfunctional relationships. When Sharma punches up "Love Don't Live Here Anymore" so Bruton and Was can come up with ideas on what musical accents might fit, Kristofferson's voice rolls out, encapsulating the anguish of divorce in a few artful strokes of the pen:

Faded photographs, dusty dreams

Lying scattered on the floor

Nothing's here to bind us

To the years behind us

Love don't live here anymore

"That's the great thing about being a songwriter," he says. "You get to take [crappy] experiences and make something nice out of 'em."

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randy.lewis@latimes.com