West Cumbrian rocker Francis Dunnery is appearing in Philadelphia on Boxing Day and Saturday – and has been the subject of some interesting and revealing interviews over there.

Nalia Francis on phillyBurbs.com has produced the best one in which Dunnery reveals he is pursuing a master’s degree in psychology.

Here’s the Francis account of Dunnery’s innermost thoughts on a plethora of different subject matter.

She writes: “Francis Dunnery isn't in it to be popular. And if that's a precarious stance to take in the music business, the singer-songwriter isn't too keen on what others may think, either.

“I'm not an easy artist to like because I don't play the rock star role,” admits Dunnery, a critical favorite with a loyal following whose steady and mostly satisfying solo career has been built outside the ingratiating pursuit of fame.

“People love their idols and I don't play that role, so it's a bit confusing for people to love my music and then find out I'm a horse trainer or whatever.”

Yes, a horse trainer — and an astrologer and philosopher and psychology student. ... The hats the wry and unfailingly candid Dunnery wears are myriad.

But while he acknowledges that some fans may be surprised by his diversity of interests, those who have appreciated the personal excavation that has underscored his lyrics over the years may expect nothing less from the man who once turned his back on music to devote more time to the studies of Jungian psychology and the aforementioned horse training — with none other than horse whisperer John Lyons (a “a brilliant man,” he notes).

“It's a big mistake to limit yourself to one thing in life. I don't feel fulfilled by just doing music; I have other sides of my nature that I need to express,” says Dunnery, whose roles also include producer, father and boyfriend. “It's very damaging not to express yourself, so I like to keep my life full and diverse.”

Music is on his mind these days, however, as he prepares for an annual tradition of playing the Tin Angel in Philadelphia around the holidays, performing one show on Friday and two on Saturday.

All three will feature music from his 2001 CD “Man,” following in the vein of previous tours, which celebrated the release of his solo debut, “Welcome To The Wild Country,” and 1995's “Tall Blonde Helicopter” — the latter of which he will continue to tour behind in additional performances through the year's end.

The focus on a single album per show is just one more avenue the restless troubadour has created to keep boredom at bay.

But with a catalogue in which each album speaks, sometimes with excruciating emotion, to a particular point in his life, the backward glance also affords new insights and a keener emotional awareness. “Man” was released on Dunnery's own Aquarian Nation label after his self-imposed exile from the music industry in 1998.

“I was very depressed when I wrote the "Man' CD. It was a difficult birth,” says Dunnery, who turns 46 on Christmas Day and makes his home in the Pocono Mountains.

“I was going through such turmoil in my life. My mother was dying, my relationship was ending, and in complete contrast, my daughter Ava was being born. I think I'm at peace with that side of my life now.”

Yet Dunnery is no stranger to such stark confessionals. He began playing music at 11 in his hometown of Egremont, performing initially as part of a duo and then with various bands before finding success with the progressive rock outfit It Bites.

Signed to Virgin Records, the band scored a hit with the single “Calling All The Heroes” and released three albums before splitting up in 1990. And it was then, having retreated to the U.S. — at first Los Angeles and then New York with a spell in Vermont before moving to Pennsylvania — that Dunnery began to shake off the glossy rock mantle, and the attendant fast lifestyle that he'd been seduced by upon landing in the states.

He turned to more acoustic fare, though he continued to experiment with various sounds and styles, while his lyrics began to reflect a soulful introspection and growing interest in spiritual and metaphysical matters.

“I have always been interested in what I cannot see, what is beyond the brow of the hill,” says Dunnery, who offers astrological interpretations — via his Web site and in person — as part of a busy schedule that also includes pursuing a master's degree in psychology, launching a film and video segment of his label, producing music for others and performing house concerts around the world.

“I'm a searcher and I love to expand my boundaries. I will have plenty of time to lay down and rest when I'm dead, but until then, I'll keep looking.”

Though his last release was in 2005 — the simultaneously searing and affirming autobiographical sketch “The Gulley Flats Boys,” an album that by his own admission chronicles a mid-life crisis — Dunnery feels no pressure to keep up with a consistent release schedule.

“I cannot write songs on a nine-to-five basis,” he says. “At the risk of sounding pretentious, my songs come from somewhere else and I have to wait for them, so it's not up to me when I receive them.

“When the songs start to come, they all come at the same time. I may get 20 songs in three to four days and then it all stops again. I have been busy with other things while I wait for the next batch to come. I can feel something beginning to happen, but so far, nothing has come.”

Those stirrings, however, have led him back to his prog-rock roots, and a still-in-the works project called the New Progressives, for which he has already lined up musical collaborators John Wetton, an English musician and singer-songwriter known for his work with artists like Asia and King Crimson, and Dave Meros, bass player for Spock's Beard.

Plans, which will include a CD and film, are expected to get under way in February, with a pay-per-view prog-rock event slated for the Web in May.

“I've always been a fan of progressive rock and it just feels like time to revisit it,” says Dunnery, who was inspired by a prog-rock band he met in Hartford while producing the solo debut from Hootie and the Blowfish's James Sonefeld.

Though there was talk for a while of an It Bites reunion following their brief appearance during the finale of one of Dunnery's concerts in London in 2003, he confirms that he has no interest in returning to the band. But whatever Dunnery chooses to commit to in the future, one can be sure that his path will remain one of idiosyncratic seeking.

“I think my role is to continue to search for that pure essence of who I am,” says Dunnery. “All artists are trying to find themselves in the work they do. That's why we are all here — to discover ourselves and our connection to the oneness of life.

“But,” he adds, with the same self-effacing humour with which he notes that songs about the death of one's mother will never be a club hit, “this is not the type of thing people want to read about — so I will shut up.”

Listen top a promo on the previously mentioned Tall Blonde Helicopter on http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=5QfKfbF6UhQ&feature=related

www.francisdunnery.com

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