Ask John Doe why he's able to still be making music almost 30 years after he started, and he rattles off a list of reasons:

"Tenacity, drive, a certain amount of creativity and a lot of luck."

Plus, he said, it helps to have a part-time acting career to help pay the bills.

A punk rock icon, Doe co-founded X with Exene Cervenka in the late 1970s. A sensation on the burgeoning Los Angeles punk scene, X was creating lines around the block at the Whiskey A-Go-Go in 1979. The next year, it released "Los Angeles" and followed that album in 1981 with "Wild Gift."

Powerful mixtures of poetry and hard, driving rock with a roots flavor provided by guitarist Billy Zoom, the first two X albums are classics that helped define L.A. punk.

X went on to make six more records, including one with Dave Alvin on guitar, and the original lineup continues to perform together. A recording of a recent concert, "X-Live in Los Angeles" has just been released on CD and DVD. But, Doe said, X won't be making any more studio records.

Doe still keeps up with punk rock, and divides it into two categories: the commercial/mainstream variety, which can be good, like last year's "American Idiot" from Green Day, but can also be awful; and the underground, do-it-yourself scene exemplified by Fugazi, which he calls "a rite of passage everyone should be a part of."

But he doesn't do a lot of thinking about his influence on punk rock. "Just do your part and get on with it" is his philosophy.

Doe, who appeared in Oliver Stone's "Salvador" in 1986, really got into acting the following year when director Alison Anders gave him a larger part in "Border Radio," a movie that featured a number of '80s L.A. musicians. Then he started auditioning and taking acting classes, landing parts in films such as "The Good Girl," "Brokedown Palace" and "Boogie Nights" and on TV shows, with a recurring role on the WB/UPN series "Roswell" and one-time appearances on "CSI: Miami" and "Law & Order."

So, Mr. Doe, why can musicians like yourself, Dwight Yoakam and even Jon Bon Jovi become decent actors while actors like Keanu Reeves, Russell Crowe and Bruce Willis who try to break into music invariably stink?

"I think actors are a little too tightly wound to be musicians," he said. "Musicians can relax into acting more easily. If anything, acting's just fronting. It's putting up a believable facade. You can do that and look cool, even if inside you're shitting your pants. And actors probably didn't spend enough time practicing (music) in their bedrooms. Now that I've said that, Mare Winningham has a great voice and Meryl Streep has a good voice in certain circumstances."

Acting has helped Doe pay the bills and support his wife and three daughters, and it's given him the freedom to make a series of solo records, including his recently released sixth solo album, "Forever Hasn't Happened Yet." Filled with stripped-down music that ranges from rock to country and blues, "Forever Hasn't Happened Yet" pairs Doe with guests such as Alvin, who provides the blues guitar, and Neko Case, who sings Exene's high harmony part on "Hwy. 5," a song co-written by Doe and Cervenka that he'd hoped to record for an X record.

Now Doe is on the road with Luca, a band out of the Tucson, Ariz., scene that produced Giant Sand and Calexico. They're opening for Lucinda Williams and playing their own shows on off nights of her tour.

"Touring is pretty simple as long as you don't get too wrapped up in the party," Doe said. "All you have to do is keep track of your receipts, get from one place to another, look pretty and sing. That's what I do —look pretty and sing. It does get old. But it's what you've got to do — an occupational hazard."

Doe is enjoying his time on the road with Williams.

"It's a regular lovefest," Doe said. "A lovefest in a very sort of lost love way. It's a bittersweet lovefest. She's a terrific singer. I'm hoping we can maybe do a little work together on a record one of these days."

When Doe called in on his cell phone as he and Luca were driving through the mountains of Utah, I told him that the first interview I did with musicians while working at Lincoln newspapers was with X back in about 1982.

"I think we're pretty fortunate to still be doing something we dreamed about doing," he said. "That's pretty cool. There are plenty of people who don't have that option — because they're dead or they're stuck in some soul-sucking job that they hate. I think about that all the time."

Reach L. Kent Wolgamott at 473-7244 or kwolgamott@journalstar.com.

If you go

What: Lucinda Williams with John Doe

Where: Rococo Theatre. 140 N. 13th St.

When: 8 p.m. Friday

Tickets: $31