Spector Blames Victim

She was "loud." She was "drunk." She "kissed the gun."

Lana Clarkson, the B-movie actress found shot in the head at onetime A-list music producer Phil Spector's mansion, killed herself.

Says Phil Spector.

In an interview in the July issue of Esquire, the reclusive record mogul, arrested in the wake of the Clarkson shooting on suspicion of her murder, declares his innocence. And blames the victim.

He also nightclub crawls in Manhattan with his interviewer, gripes about attorney fees and jokes about blowing out the brains of David Letterman bandleader Paul Schaffer.

"There is no case," Spector says of the Clarkson death in the magazine, due out next week. "I didn't do anything wrong--I didn't do anything. I called the police myself. I called the police. This is not Bobby Blake.

"She killed herself."

Spector, 62, who helped score the 1960s with "Be My Baby," "He's a Rebel," "Then He Kissed Me" and dozens more pop standards all adhering to his signature "Wall of Sound" production style, was arrested in the early morning hours of February 3, after police responded to a call of shots fired at his castle-style estate in Alhambra, California.

Found dead in Spector's foyer, lying in a pool of blood, was the 40-year-old Clarkson, a cult favorite for her sword-wielding expertise in the Roger Corman-produced Barbarian Queen flicks.

Spector is free on $1 million bail. No charges have been filed.

Investigators have been mum about details of the case, other than to discount Spector's suicide theory, previously floated by the producer in an email sent to friends in March.

"If we had come to a conclusion as monumental as suicide, we would have a duty to say so publicly. We believe a crime occurred," Captain Frank Merriman of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department previously told the Los Angeles Times.

Spector also believes a crime occurred. Except in his mind, he's the wronged party.

"It's Anatomy of a Frame-Up," he says in Esquire.

It's not clear whom Spector thinks is framing him. To Spector, it's not clear why Clarkson, as he puts it, "kissed the gun."

"I have no idea why [she killed herself]--never knew her, never even saw her before that night...I have no idea who she was or what her agenda was...[D]on't know where or how she got the gun."

Spector, however, is no stranger to weaponry. He's been known to be a gun collector. (He tells Esquire police confiscated his arms, as well as his computers.) And he has been accused of being a gun waver. The late Ramones bassist Dee Dee Ramone said the music legend pulled one on the band during the 1980 sessions for their End of the Century album, produced by Spector.

According to Spector, he was on his best behavior the night of the Clarkson shooting.

He met the actress at the House of Blues, the West Hollywood nightclub where Clarkson had recently taken a full-time job as a hostess.

"I was not drunk," Spector tells Esquire. "I wasn't drunk at all."

It was Clarkson who was out of control, the producer says.

"She asked me for [a] ride home," he says in the magazine. "Then she wanted to see the castle. She was loud--she was loud and drunk even before we left the House of Blues. She grabbed a bottle of tequila from the bar to take with her."

Clarkson's House of Blues coworkers earlier told the L.A. Times it was Spector who was imbibing at the club.

In the Esquire interview, conducted in April, in part, on a chartered Gulfstream jet, Spector takes aim at his own attorney--Robert Shapiro, a member of O.J. Simpson's so-called "Dream Team" defense.

Spector complains of Shapiro billing him for a case in which he is obviously innocent.

"When Robert came in, as a courtesy, as a favor, he shoulda gotten me outta jail," Spector tells the mag. "As a courtesy--not for seven figures."

It was not known if Shapiro is continuing to serve as Spector's attorney. A call to his office Wednesday was not returned. A call seeking comment from the attorney representing Lana Clarkson's family also was not returned.

In the interview, Spector also rails at Nancy Sinatra, whom Esquire says he has referred to as his fiancée.

"You know what she told me?" Spector tells the mag. "She says, 'My mother told me, 'Omigod--Nancy, it could've been you.' "

The Esquire profile takes a morbid turn when writer Scott Raab recounts an evening out with Spector and Paul Schaffer at a Big Apple blues club. When Schaffer is invited to play onstage with the band, Spector jokes that his friend doesn't know the song. When Schaffer catches up with the other musicians, Spector strikes an indignant pose.

"He rehearsed it!" Spector shouts, per Raab. "The bastard rehearsed! I'll blow his brains out!"

Spector is quickly reprimanded by his assistant, Michelle Blaine, Raab writes.

"Phillip!" Blaine yells. "You can't say those things anymore."