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CHICAGO — "Try this," Elvis Costello says, handing a glass of fresh-squeezed orange juice across the table to his wife. "It's great. It's really acidic."
He is what he drinks; few words better describe Costello than acidic. During 12 years of recording, Britain's Declan MacManus has established himself as pop's Baron of Bile, possessor of a biting wit and deliverer of cutting commentaries about his life and the world in general. "I see myself sort of increasingly veering towards a kind of rock 'n' roll Three Stooges," Costello, 33, says. "Me, Leonard Cohen and Lou Reed."
You can add Bob Dylan, Randy Newman and any of the other few fearless pop songwriters capable of writing with passion and relevance — a rare breed to be sure. Costello certainly fits that description. "I want to bite the hand that feeds me," he sang in 1978's "Radio, Radio," taking a chunk out of the hand that most helps any artist's career.
Pandering just isn't his style. "I do believe that a song or an album is successful when you make it in the studio," says Costello, whose only hit single was 1983's "Everyday I Write the Book," though he has high hopes for his current release, "Veronica." "It's not a failure if it goes into the cut-out racks next week. That's just a coincidence of fashion and timing."
Nevertheless, Costello clearly wants Spike, his latest and most ambitious album, to fare well in the marketplace. That's why he consented to a promotional tour, a non-performing meet 'n' greet outing that today has him sitting in the lobby of the Park Hyatt Hotel here, sipping coffee, juice and Evian and munching handfuls of mixed nuts as curious hotel employees and fans gaze from a respectful distance.
Across the table sits his wife, actress-musician Cait O'Riordan — a former member of the Irish group the Pogues — reading a book about American Indians and occasionally looking up to exchange goo-goo-eyed looks with her husband, whose all-black outfit is relieved by a rhinestone-speckled bolo tie.
Despite a reticent and often downright nasty relationship with the music press, Costello is
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