John Brodeur teaches Pittsburgh the power of pop

John Brodeur

Howler’s Coyote Café

Wednesday, April 21, 8 p.m.

Howler’s Coyote Café

Wednesday, April 21, 8 p.m.

Tickets $3

(412) 682-0320

While many musicians are infamous for their tour escapades — Ozzy Osbourne chomping a bat’s head off onstage, Jim Morrison pulling his pants down during a performance — New York-based singer-songwriter John Brodeur has held to a policy of relative calm during his shows — with a few exceptions.

“I play this one song called ‘Dying For Me,’” Brodeur said. “And when I was singing it the other night it came out as ‘diet for me.’ I felt like I was performing the Weird Al version of my own song.”

“Oh, and I broke a string once, too,” he added.

Brodeur’s current tour, sandwiched between the release of last spring’s album Get Through and this summer’s upcoming Little Hopes, brings his unique brand of punchy power pop to venues all along the East Coast.

Brodeur said the tour experience has allowed him to do a lot of “networking with people who attend the shows.”

“It’s sort of like Twitter, but in real life,” he said, laughing.

However, it’s not always a sunny relationship between Brodeur and his fans. The singer-songwriter said retaining an audience is often the most difficult aspect of the profession.

“Coming out of a city like New York, it was really challenging to get some momentum going,” he said. “I’d love to be able to keep playing there every week, but it’s just tough to get people to keep coming back because there’s so much going on.”

Brodeur said that when it comes to building a career, long-term planning goes a long way.

“There are some bands and artists out there where it seems like they started out with this formula for success in mind,” he said, citing the Philadelphia quintet Dr. Dog as a band that seemed to be “thinking five albums ahead.”

Thankfully, the struggle for his own success has not stifled Brodeur’s passion for his work.

“This is something that I’ve known that I wanted to do from a very young age. Just listening to my parents’ records, it was something that I naturally gravitated to and felt a really strong emotional connection with,” he said.

Of course, Brodeur’s styles have evolved a great deal from the time he first picked up an instrument.

“There are some obvious [improvements], like I’ve gotten much better at writing melodies, and I’m not just banging out guitar chords anymore,” he said. “But I’ve also noticed that I’m much less apt to write humor into my songs than I used to be.”

Perhaps the biggest change for Brodeur has been the shift from ensemble music to solo work.

“I did the band thing for a while. I think the longest thing that I was a part of lasted for 18 months, and we were always downsizing. It would start off as a quartet, then become a trio and so on. Eventually I just got to the point where I just said I’d do it myself,” he said.

“That’s the problem with bands,” Brodeur said, laughing. “They’re too democratic, and I can’t deal with democracy.”