And some comparisons are so off the mark that Winterman jokes about A-ha and Bryan Adams having a stronger influence on his sound.

But it's all OK, he says.

"Getting feedback from strangers, that's cool," he said.

Wearing blue, paint-flecked pants, his hair slicked back, Winterman zipped up his hooded sweatshirt, popped open his second can of beer and headed outside his South Rogers home for a cigarette — his third in an hour.

"Nobody likes a quitter," he said, straight-faced.

The 28-year-old husband and father of two is best known as the front man for Brian Winterman and the Delusion Train.

His reputation as an up-and-coming voice on the local music scene has been spreading since 2001, when he and his family moved to Bloomington after spending three years in Mount Vernon. It was there that Winterman found his musical legs.

A full-time librarian at the University of Southern Indiana and a new father —"It was a nice time for internalizing as a family, for introspection," he said — he decided he needed a hobby.

His stepfather had given him a four-track mixer, and he started writing songs.

In Bloomington, Winterman met local guitarist and producer Mark Robinson, with whom he recorded a CD, and he put together a band of professional players to back him up.

In December 2002, he played his tunes at the Mary Janes Christmas Pageant.

Since then, Winterman has been seen at local clubs, including the Crazy Horse, Fiddler's Green and Vertigo — where he opened for national acts The Gourds and Jon Dee Graham.

On Jan. 18, Winterman and the Delusion Train tackle the Crazy Horse again, and on Feb. 13 (Winterman's birthday), he will play again at Fiddler's Green.

The singer-songwriter makes it known that he doesn't want to be pigeonholed; he talks of individual "musical universes" people have that influence their sounds, rather than of genres like country, pop or rock.

"Brian writes really good hooks, his songs are very catchy, easy to sing along with. But not all of his songs are happy pop songs, he writes some things that are a little dark too. Some of his song topics are really off the wall, not all songs about love and cars — there are some surprises hidden away in his lyrics sometimes," explained Robinson.

Winterman sings gruffly, in a voice that betrays his age: High school, I don't know nothing from high school, I wasn't nothin' but a damn fool, now I'm a genius on a bar stool, so cool.

He says "a real phobia of putting people to sleep" at his shows prompted him to write several upbeat songs specifically for live gigs.

"(H)e wrote about nine new songs, all rockin' and irresistible, just to play at the bars," said his wife, Una Winterman.

Tim Moore, drummer for Delusion Train and a longtime acquaintance of Winterman, describes him as a band mate who is easy to work with and true to the style he presents while on stage.

"He kind of comes from this rural background, rural culture, of Southern Indiana, but he's also educated. He's kind of like an educated hillbilly or something, and his songs reflect that," Moore said.

THIS TRAIN BOUND FOR GLORY

Raised in Yankeetown, a one-stop-sign kind of town 16 miles from Evansville, Winterman first took an interest in his family's Hammond organ when he was about 7.

He recalls going through his father's collection of pop — some 30 years' worth of records — and listening to what his older brother and sister were into.

Hanging on the reddish-orange wall in his Bloomington living room is the front panel of a piano, one his grandfather was working on when he died.

Winterman's grandfather and great uncle were piano tuners with knacks for playing music by ear, minus any formal training.

"My great uncle Tom wrote an entire manual on how to tune (the piano) his own way," Winterman said, looking at the decorative wooden piece with candleholders protruding from it.

Winterman carried on the tradition of playing by ear. After the Hammond organ was donated to a church when Winterman was 12, he picked up a guitar his dad had and began teaching himself some chords.

Winterman's dad, a 30-year aluminum factory worker, bought a new guitar for his son the following year.

The musician held up an Alvarez that looked almost new.

"It saw a lot of time in its case," he explained, thanks to an interest in punk rock that prompted him to get a $50 pawn-shop guitar in high school.

After earning degrees in classical studies and anthropology, Winterman received a master's degree in library science.

"This is a guy who is not a workaholic, by any stretch of the imagination, and yet in the last three years, incredibly, he accomplished a master's degree, made an incredible CD, with some of the best musicians in town, and created a great sound and following of loyal listeners," said his wife.

The lack of formal musical training hasn't hurt him — although he did have to find a way to communicate with his professional band mates with phrases other than "diddly dees" and "guana-guanas," which he used to describe certain musical bits.

"I don't think it's held me back because I've never had the drive to become a superb musician. That's never been my interest," he said.

And he's the first to admit he only knows enough chords to play whatever songs he writes.

"At first it was a little bit rough, trial by fire or something. He started to figure out how things work and trust us," Moore said.

Winterman says his biggest asset is his band, which includes Robinson (Kookamongas, Carrie Newcomer, Crooked County) and David England (Mary Janes, England Brothers) on guitars; percussionist Moore (Salaam, Toothpick Wilson, Piney Woods); Mike Lindenmuth (Swamp Devils, Swing Rays) on bass; and Joe Donnelly (Salaam, Toothpick Wilson) on saxophone and keys.

"Their contributions are so important to how a live sound comes out; it's a treat to let them be themselves," he said.

Winterman says he never expected to play his tunes in public, so any positive reaction he gets for doing so is just icing on the cake.

Even if Delusion Train goes nowhere but in circles on the local club scene, that's fine with him. He still will have his job as coordinator of the life sciences library at Indiana University.

"It's not that I don't have expectations or aspirations. I try to keep my focus on the fact that I have a really fulfilling hobby and if that's all it ever is, well, that's great. It's a great hobby."