Musician combines stand-up and songs

Dan Bern

Diesel Club… Dan Bern

Diesel Club Lounge

Thursday

Doors open at 7 p.m., Show starts at 8 p.m.

21 +

$15 in advance, $18 at the door

Tickets: www.jokerprod.com or www.showclix.com

He’s the Messiah. Or so he claims in a song. His fans think he’s witty, entertaining and outspoken to the point of being revolutionary. Dan Bern is his own genre.

The musician is expected to arrive in Pittsburgh on Thursday for a live show at Diesel Club Lounge in the Southside as part of his national tour. Currently living in Los Angeles, Bern has recently written songs for movies — such as “Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story” and “Get Him to the Greek.”

When writing for films, Bern said he tries to bring a character to life by “merging with or becoming the character.” He tries to think the same way the character would.

Bern is a singer-songwriter, guitarist, novelist and painter, and his live shows can often be best described as stand-up comedy.

Wil Masisak, a Pitt graduate who works with Bern, said in an e-mail that on a typically energetic day, Bern’s live shows are “a cross between stand-up and a Southern Pentecostal gospel show … lots of truth, some laughs, some education … you leave feeling better than when you came in.”

Masisak produced two of Bern’s albums and co-founded the band the International Jewish Banking Conspiracy, of which both Bern and Masisak were once members.

“The purpose of music is to transport us somewhere — to take us somewhere we’ve never been,” Bern said.

A fan of the Beatles, Bern said he doesn’t always find it difficult to discover sources of inspiration for his lyrics. The ideas sometimes seem to just “fall into … my lap,” he said. Growing up, Bern loved writing stories — something that is reflected even today in his songs, which are essentially stories set to music.

For instance, Bern wrote a song — “Grandma and the FBI” — inspired by a  friend who got a DWI.

Elements of politics, social commentary, philosophy and personal details are fused into Bern’s songs, often written in a stream-of-consciousness style.

“Bob Dylan in the early 1960s brought original songwriting in a folk style to a mass popular audience of youth, along with Odetta, Phil Ochs and many others. Dan Bern often references many of these singers in his lyrics and his performance style,” Deane Root, a Pitt music professor, said in an e-mail.

Both interviewers and reviewers have compared Bern to Bob Dylan, but Bern says that he doesn’t want to be labeled.

Masisak said that Bern’s music cannot be categorized under the label of American folk music.

“You say folk singer, I think Bob Dylan (which is sort of close … at least at one time he was a folk singer) and ‘Puff The Magic Dragon,’” Masisak said. “You say Dan Bern, and I think he encompasses a lot more than that. He’s politically aware and draws on some traditional song influences, but you listen to a song like ‘Alaska Highway’… that has more in common with Eminem than Bob Dylan.”

Root said he appreciates Bern’s creativity “and his ability to write and perform engagingly in a variety of styles and formal structures.” He added that, “Many songwriters seem limited to the verse-chorus song structure, but not Dan Bern, who draws on nearly all the styles I mentioned.” He referenced genres ranging from Native American flute playing to cowboy ballads and traditional ballads of the British Isles, as well as  African-American and Latino elements.

The influences, adaptations and evolution of these styles come full circle, Bern said.  The most interesting comment he has ever received from a fan was that his music “comes from the same place as the American Indians.”

Bern seeks to convey many ideas in his music, but if you ask him to summarize in one line the message that he would like to send with his music and his life, he contemplates for several seconds before replying serenely, “Stay open. Delay judgment.”