Mixed emotions

Matt Nathanson is a successful singer-songwriter based in San Francisco who laughs infectiously over the phone from Atlanta as he recounts tales of himself as a young music nerd who felt more comfortable going to see Robert Cray and U2 with his boarding school teachers than hanging out with other kids.

Nathanson's humor veils the story's poignance, as it did when he told an uproarious anecdote at a Boston show this winter about calling his mom from school and begging her to let him come home. The tension between these personality traits -- the wisecracking clown who tells self-deprecating, profanity-laced jokes, and the lonely outsider who found comfort in music and sings emotionally raw guitar ballads -- make Nathanson a dynamic performer.

It's clear to Nathanson, a Lexington native, that his music is fed by both sides of his personality, and he is frustrated by those who dismiss him as an Adam Sandler with a guitar, or a self-indulgent singer-songwriter.

"It feels to me like that's naturally who I am," says Nathanson, who performs at Avalon tonight. "I can be really too deadly serious, or whatever. It's all the facets of being a human being."

The songs on 2003's "Beneath These Fireworks," Nathanson's fifth full-length album and major label debut, do tend to be somber. When he finds beauty and happiness in the delicate, folksy album opener, "Angel," they're quickly swallowed by his doubts. And even when the tone shifts to the celebratory swing of the gently crooning rocker "Suspended," the love heralded in the lyrics is contrasted against a bleak life.

The album has its big pop-rock moments, as it features an accomplished studio band that includes bass, drums, and piano. Nathanson is a simple songwriter, and his songs lose some of their intensity and range on the sleek, glossy album. But they come alive when buoyed by everything that goes into Nathanson's live performance. He will front a band at Avalon tonight, rather than deliver a stripped-down show such as those he did with cellist Matt Fish.

Nathanson's lively, comedic personality is a major part of his appeal, says Michelle Williams, program director at WBOS-FM (92.9), which just launched "On the Road with Matt Nathanson." The show airs on Thursday or Friday mornings, when Nathanson calls in to dish on the trials and transcendent moments of touring. While Williams called Nathanson's new record fun pop, she said it was seeing him live that convinced her of his talent.

"He puts on a great show," Williams says. "You go to one of his shows and you feel like you're really part of an interactive hang with the artist."

When Nathanson asked local singer-songwriter Erin McKeown to open three dates for him, she was impressed by his sincerity. "I immediately thought he was a really smart, passionate, fun person. In this business, you meet so many people who are really uptight and really competitive and not fun to be around."

Although Nathanson honed his act in the coffeehouse scene of San Francisco, where he moved in the mid-1990s after attending college in Southern California, he never really felt as if he fit in with the edgy indie sensibility that was in vogue then. He confesses that his heartfelt songs were jeered when he toured with Mary Lou Lord and John Doe, artists he loves but does not resemble musically.

Nathanson admits that the recent craze for male singer-songwriters, from John Mayer to Dashboard Confessional's Chris Carrabba, has had as much to do with his success as all his years of touring and recording. But he isn't really sure he should be lumped in with the male singer-songwriters, either. His own musical influences range from hair bands like Poison to female singer-songwriters like Tracy Chapman.

"I was never a big fan of the male singer-songwriter, which is sort of unfortunate, since it's my genre," he said.

But because he's felt like an outsider since he was a kid back in boarding school, it's no surprise that Nathanson feels isolated from his musical peers. It doesn't bother him that his music and live show are hard to categorize, as he's an experienced performer who's quite comfortable with his sound and subject matter.

"One of the only benefits of having done this for as long as I have is that I really don't listen to anybody," he says.

It also means he knows what he wants to achieve when he takes the stage, whether he's crooning a deeply personal ballad or lightening the mood by tearing through a raucous cover of Prince's "Starfish & Coffee" or Bon Jovi's "Livin' on a Prayer." As it has always been, music is supposed to be an escape. "I write songs because I dig them," he says, "and I play shows to entertain people and because it feels really natural."