It’s common for rock artists to test the waters of the country genre, but the experiment doesn’t always work as well as it does on Ben Kweller’s Changing Horses. The 28-year-old singer sounds right at home on the set of loose, Willie-worthy tunes that he describes as “Hill-Country-style.”

For those unfamiliar with Kweller, he’s the indie-rock phenom who started playing music as a teenager in the ’90s, at gigs in his hometown of Greenville and in the bustling Deep Ellum scene with the band Radish. His solo albums that followed the band’s split have won him worldwide recognition from fans and critics. And he showed unprecedented dedication to his craft by playing with a killer two-nostril nosebleed during his 2006 Austin City Limits Music Festival set.

We chatted with Kweller on the phone about the old days and his new musical directions. He’ll play the Granada on Friday. Here’s more.

Q: First of all, where are you?

Kweller: Just hopped off my bus. We're heading over to the venue here in Tucson, Arizona. We've been swimming at the pool all morning at the Best Western. The Dallas show will be, like, the second to last of the tour. So we're in the home stretch of touring for this album.

Q: You did the Craig Ferguson show the other night. Any weird, behind-the-scenes stuff to report?

Kweller: It was awesome. The other guest was Larry David. We got to meet him, and he was really cool. But that's a weird show to do because everything is filmed out of sequence. You go and you play your performance and they bring in an audience for it, but we didn't get to meet Craig. When he cut to us in the show, it was the performance we'd taped when he wasn't there.

Q: You've had a great career so far, but you started out competing for attention in a hometown music scene. What piece of advice would you offer to a band forming in Dallas right now?

Kweller: What I did was in a totally different time, because we didn't really have the Internet. I literally just looked in the Yellow Pages of Greenville and started calling places at 13 years old. I called the bowling alley; they said, "No, we don't have bands." I called the putt-putt place and they said no. I finally found a pool hall that had a stage. But I had to play my music over the phone for the guy to get a gig. It was old-school, kind of like hustling, I guess. Later, we started looking for gigs in Dallas. My first gig there was, I think, at this place called Across the Street Bar.

Q: Oh, it's still around.

Kweller: It is? Wow. I remember just playing on a concrete floor. And then we broke into Deep Ellum and got a gig at Club Dada. Once I turned 16, I started driving to Deep Ellum every weekend. That was the heyday for us and that area. Tripping Daisy; the Toadies were huge. Edie Brickell had already gotten big. Centro-matic was a new band then. Doosu was big. It was definitely a real community. We did a lot of shows with this great punk band. ... Dude, what was their name? I was just thinking about them the other day ... Mess! That was it! M-E-S-S! Mess was the best! And also, the Visitors were a big favorite of mine.

Q: What are a few places that you'll have to visit in Dallas on the day of your show?

Kweller: In the Lower Greenville area, I always like going into those antique stores. From what I've heard from my friends, Deep Ellum has sort of recycled itself back to the way it was before I was there all the time. I felt really connected to that in the mid-'90s. When I moved to New York in 1999 after Radish broke up, one thing I was worried about was, having come from this supportive Deep Ellum scene, I thought New York would be this rat race and people would be a-holes. But I was surprised that the scene was just as small in a lot of ways. It was the early 2000s, and I made a lot of friends like Moldy Peaches and the Strokes and Mooney Suzuki and Nada Surf. That was just another cool time that I stumbled upon.

Q: Only a couple more years left in your 20s, right? Any fears about the 30s?

Kweller: Yep, just turned 28 on June 16. Not really scared. But I have always been known as the young guy in my group of friends, and now I'm approaching my 30s. Writers will even still call me a young wunderkind. [Laughs.]

Q: You have a 3-year-old son now. How's his musical education coming along?

Kweller: He's out on tour with us, and he loves music. He loves sound-check. He watches the show, and he likes to play drums. He can keep the beat; it's pretty funny.

Q: You sound very different on Changing Horses than you did on other records, and the song "Homeward Bound" might just be your finest vocal performance. Did the singing style on this and others come easily?

Kweller: It came natural to me. When I heard "Homeward Bound" the first time, I knew I had to record it. I thought it sounded like some classic hymn that nobody had heard. A lot of people have been commenting on my voice after shows, saying I'm singing better than ever. That's definitely cool to hear. This music definitely feels right for me. Some of these songs, I've had for a long time and have been singing them in my bedroom for years.

Q: Were you scared about how the change in genre would come off with critics?

Kweller: Nah, man. I stopped worrying about critics five years into my career. If I get a great review, awesome. If it's bad, it doesn't matter and doesn't change what I'm gonna do. But I've been pretty lucky with reviews. You just have to follow your own path and be true to yourself.

Q: Say you're making a mix CD of country artists you love. Which ones would you include?

Kweller: It'd start with "Dang Me" by Roger Miller. Those who aren't familiar with him should check out his greatest hits. He's amazing. I'd have some Hank Williams Jr. Talk about underrated. I probably would disagree with every political view Hank has, but musically, he's a bad mother [expletive]. I would also have to put stuff from my childhood – "Rodeo" by Garth Brooks, "Country Club" by Travis Tritt. And of course I'd have "Luckenbach, Texas" on there, and also some bootleg George Jones stuff I have. Oh, and I'd throw in some Bob Dylan from Nashville Skyline. And Jackson Browne, for sure.

Q: How do you approach set lists on this tour? Do you try to have a certain flow to the evening, considering the different sounds of your records?

Kweller: Yeah, it's got a flow. The set lists have been fun to put together, because we're playing stuff from all the albums. Bringing out some songs that don't usually play. Bringing out some of the rootsier songs that fit with the Changing Horses material. And some of the rockers, we'll give them the Horses treatment with the pedal steel and all. We're taking a lot of requests, too.

Q: Any idea what direction you'll be moving in for the next album?

Kweller: I've been writing a bunch of songs. It'll be very different from Horses. There are songs in there that could have fit on it, but the majority is going for the rock 'n' roll feel. Dusting off the electric guitar again. But it'll be a mixture. I think this next one will have something for everybody.

Q: Speaking of live shows, I was at the ACL nosebleed party. Was that, indeed, your most rock 'n' roll moment ever, or is there something better?

Kweller: Some of my most rock 'n' roll moments, I might not want to talk about in this interview, because my parents are going to read it. [Laughs.] But I'll say that the nosebleed was my best documented rock 'n' roll moment.

DETAILS: With Jones Street Station, Friday at 8 p.m. at the Granada Theater, 3524 Greenville Ave. $18. granadatheater.com. Hear some music at myspace.com/benkweller.