KELSEYVILLE, Calif. -- Ted Nugent has some things on his mind.

Not his current tour, or the next solo album he'll be recording this winter, or the Damn

Yankees album he plans to start work on next spring. Not his radio show or his newly

licensed dried-meat product, Ted Nugent Gonzo Meat Biltong.

Right now, as he's seated on a couch in the dressing room of the Konocti Harbor Resort

in Kelseyville, Calif., he's thinking about hunting.

Fresh off a two-week African safari, the thought of the kill is still close. He can almost

smell it.

"I was running with the natives. I was hunting with a sharp stick in the bowels of our

origins," says singer/guitarist Nugent, 49, his bare chest covered only by a camouflage

snakeskin vest, his arms making chopping motions. "The soul of man was on the tip of

my spirit every day. I hunt all the wildlife -- lion, leopard, baboons, gemsbok, nyala,

wildebeest, warthog, bush pig -- all indigenous species."

As he begins an annual North American tour that will take him to 15 cities and last

through Aug. 29, Nugent is in the unusual position of being as well-known for his

extracurricular activities -- such as hunting and right-wing political punditry -- as he is for

his rock career. And the rock work has been as high-profile as you can get. His solo

albums have yielded such hits as

"Cat Scratch Fever" (RealAudio excerpt)

and "Wang Dang Sweet Poontang" and his

stint with '80s supergroup Damn Yankees produced "High Enough," the highest-charting

track of Nugent's rock guitar-god run.

With 23 albums and numerous projects under his belt, the 6-foot-3-inch rocker has again

taken to the road to play some of his classic and lesser-known material. Whether it's out

in the jungle or onstage, these days Nugent seems most comfortable in a live setting. His

most recent release was a live album, last year's Live At Hammersmith 1979.

Drinking a cup of tea with lemon and honey to soothe his voice, Nugent, his flowing

brown hair gathered in a ponytail, speaks animatedly as he discusses his summer tour.

As he talks about the outing, which includes frequent pit stops at the House Of Blues

nightclub chain across the country, he displays the defiant attitude that's defined his

character since his '60s tenure with the heavy blues-rock outfit the Amboy Dukes.

"I invented and perfected sonic bombast for the masses," Nugent says. "My music is

basically a bulbous middle finger -- dirty fingernails, extra hair on the knuckles --

swinging in the wind on your behalf."

With that in mind, it's little surprise that Nugent would sit down and pen a new tune such

as "Garlic and Butter." "As I watch the mystical flight of the arrow traverse 60 yards of

African scrub and penetrate the chest cavity of a wildebeest," Nugent says as he taps out

the rhythm of the tune on the top of the tape recorder, "and I watch him kick and fart and

snort and run off, before tipping over deader than a toenail, and knowing I'll feed 100

people for a couple days, at that point I wrote a song called 'Garlic and Butter.' "

The same take-no-prisoners attitude applies to his morning radio show for Detroit's

WWBR (102.7 FM), which he hosts from the comfort of his own barn, according to the

program's producer, Linda Peterson.

"It's intense, sitting across a microphone from Ted at six in the morning -- you tell me

[what it's like]," Peterson said. "There's never a dull moment, and never a blunt

instrument."

For his part, Nugent said his show -- which runs from 6-10 a.m., Monday through Friday,

and most recently featured bluesman Buddy Guy, Michigan governor John Engler and

schoolkids reciting the Pledge of Allegiance -- is just an extension of his unique vision.

"The great thing about Ted Nugent is that if you offer me a format, I will offer you a

grenade to fix it, because formats are for saps," Nugent said. "Formulas are for saps and

trails are for sheep.

"We not only walk them and explore the roads less traveled, we hammer out the ones

where people told you we couldn't get through that mountain. We get out our

jackhammers -- which we've renamed Tedhammers -- and we just carve out our own

trails."