Byline: ALISA VALDES-RODRIGUEZ LOS ANGELES TIMES

LOS ANGELES -- Chris Perez is staring at his 4-month-old daughter, Cassie, who at this moment rests in the arms of her smiling mother, Venessa Villanueva.

Perez's bright and beaming face is nothing like it appears in the mournful publicity shots for ''Resurrection,'' the debut rock album by his new group, the Chris Perez Band, that recently came out from Hollywood Records. No. A grinning, affable new daddy just isn't what one would expect of the most famous 29-year-old widower in pop music.

He was Selena's husband and guitarist. Yes. But as the new band, album, girlfriend and baby attest, Perez has fought hard to heal in the four years since the famous ''tejano'' singer's murder by her fan club president, Yolanda Saldivar (now serving a life prison term). With the help of counselors, family and friends, Perez has moved on. And he's tired of the misconceptions about him.

Misconception Numero Uno: ''That I'm sad all the time.''

But because he is shy, because his mustache and eyes droop down and perhaps because he carries himself in the vaguely tortured manner of irresistible bad boys such as James Dean, it might be easy to misconstrue the natural Perez presence as a permanent state of grieving. It's simply not so.

''I'm not sad,'' Perez says, taking a break from practicing with his new group at a Los Angeles rehearsal studio to change a diaper and talk to a reporter. ''I'm not a basket case.''

Which leads us to Misconception Numero Dos: That Perez's career died with his wife.

Perez, who lives in Corpus Christi, Texas, is on the road to promote ''Resurrection,'' an eclectic pop-rock collection featuring nine Spanish- and...