Most of what we know about Chris Perez comes from two questionable sources. There's the devotedly sweet movie ''Selena,'' in which Jennifer Lopez played his wife and some muscular beefcake who couldn't act played him. Then there's the VH1 ''Behind the Music'' special, with Chris saying pretty much everything you'd expect a guy who lost the love of his life to say and, thanks to the drama-mavens in the editing booth, nothing else.

Hanging out with the 29-year-old guitar player at the Hard Rock Cafe in San Antonio last week, several hours before his new rock quintet the Chris Perez Band would play to music-biz VIPs and then meet fans at a midnight CD release party, it didn't take long to figure out the two sources aren't entirely accurate. For starters, he's not the professional-wrestler lookalike.

''God bless my Mom for pushing me to join the band in school,'' Perez said. ''She was smart. She knew if I had tried out for football, I'd have been mauled.''

And he doesn't just talk about Selena.

She comes up, of course. Not an interview goes by that he doesn't get asked, ''What would Selena think of you becoming the leader of a rock band?'' or, though it will be worded a little fancier because it's such a stupid question, ''Do you still miss her?''

There's a lot more to ask Perez these days, like how fatherhood is going. His girlfriend Venessa Villanueva gave birth to daughter Cassie five months ago, and he'll beam every time you bring her up.

You can also ask him anything about his band. It's this year's great Tex-Mex music experiment. Hollywood Records, the label that pitched Fastball and recruited former Arista Austin president Cameron Randle to head its new Latin music division, has sent Tejano and Latin stations a CD that's 100 percent rock 'n' roll, like Eddie Van Halen or Maxell tape commercials. Meanwhile, mainstream rock stations and MTV are being asked to play singles by a band whose album is three-fifths Spanish-language. The hope is rock outlets will pick up on Latin acts the way Top 40 did with Ricky Martin, Jennifer Lopez and, before them, Gloria Estefan and . . .

She'll always come up. He knows that, and either because he's too polite or because he too likes to talk about her, he'll oblige.

Take, for instance, the memories he shared about the Hard Rock Cafe on the Riverwalk. That's where he and Selena met the members of Cheap Trick, who play on one track on Chris' new album. They congratulated her on her English-language record deal, and she told them how big of a fan her shy husband was. A year or two later, Chris was at the Hard Rock without her, staring at a dress that had been put on display.

''I stood there and I was like, 'Yeah, I remember when she wore this dress,' '' he said. ''Sure enough, I looked down and saw the crushed sequins on the...