If Pete Droge has one consistent character trait, it's his dependable knack for going against the grain. In the thick of grunge, he emerged from Seattle's distortion-drenched music scene like a pale ghost peddling rootsy pop more indebted to Tom Petty than Mudhoney. Fair and razor-thin with long, fine hair and a cowboy hat, Droge and his then-band Ramadillo, a country rock aggregation that independently produced one record in 1991, never fit the angst-from-the-basement mold. His first two solo albums, Necktie Second and Find a Door, were also remarkably free of heavy guitar sludge -- even with grunge Svengali Brenden O'Brien (Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Neil Young) taking the producer's reins.

Now, with his third album, Spacey and Shakin, he's taken a hard left turn into the dense, psychedelic pop of chemically altered Beatles and (on "Motorkid") '70s arena rock-worthy power chords. Hardly the surest way to capitalize on the burgeoning alt country bandwagon which he seemed primed to jump on.

"I think my personal taste has changed since I wrote the first records," Droge says. "I enjoy things that are less obvious ... There's beauty in the obvious too, but I wanted more of a challenge. And it led me to newer rhythmic feels, the foundations of the songs became less traditional folk rock or straight-ahead general pop. It's harder to write songs like that than I thought, to keep them natural. I have tried to force things before and it always sucked. Period. Not that there are any hard and fast rules but if there is one, that's it: Forced ... bad."

To further illustrate his point, Droge draws on a metaphor -- and principle -- that no doubt inspired the title of his second album, Find a Door. "I look for that key and when I find it, I open the door and that's when I'm rewarded, that's when I feel satisfied," he says. "If you try to knock the door down you have nothing but, uh ... splintered wood and a sore shoulder."

For Droge, the door in question turned out to be his front one. After a stint in Portland and a couple years on the road supporting his first two records, he moved back to the outskirts of Seattle and settled into a life of homebound tranquillity.

"I love it here," says Droge of his hometown. "I felt a wonderful sense of relief. I could hang out at my house, dig in the yard, cut down trees, be domestic, chill out and write songs. I was able to be conscious of the music, I didn't get lazy developing the material; the songs could be honest and as genuine as I could make them. You can have material that's done and make a record, or have material that's really done. A couple times I put out songs that could have been better. I could have improved them ...."

When he felt his songs were ready, he once again called in Brendan O'Brien, who had been instrumental in Droge getting signed to American back in 1994 after Pearl Jam guitarist Mike McCready gave the producer one of Droge's demos. Spacey and Shakin marks their third album together, and Droge's first release on O'Brien's own label 57 Records.

"Brendan brought in some cool twists, key transpositions, some chord changes that gave it an extra little lift here and there. I probably shouldn't tell you that. It's those things that make me sound like a better writer than I am."

With O'Brien at the helm, Droge says actual recording of the album was a pleasure, taking just over a month to lay down. "It was very comfortable," he says. "It had a more laid back approach for sure. Everything is less important after the first couple of records, it doesn't feel so do-or-die, like, this is my legacy. You only get one chance to make your first record, so it's a big deal. You get the idea that if you don't make a good one you'll get dropped and never get to make one again. I'm certain the pressure is ninety-nine percent self-inflicted."

Spacey and Shakin is not a complete departure for Droge. While "Evan's Radio" and the title track embrace Hendrix-style psychedelia head-on, "Eyes on the Ceiling," "Walking By My Side" and "Mile of Fence" all find his cunning knack for melody and the revealing turn of phrase soundly intact. It all comes to a quiet close with "Blindly." In that song, which Droge calls a "three in the morning-er," he reflects on themes of career, ambition and desire. "Is it a sin to want to win," he sings in an appropriately weary tenor, worlds away from the mischievous obsessive portrayed in his breakthrough hit single, "If You Don't Love Me (I'll Kill Myself") (from the first album and the Jim Carrey vehicle Dumb and Dumber). Asked if he's come to any conclusion on the issue, Droge pauses.

"I guess the question is 'Why do you want to win?'" he says. "If it's to acquire all the worldly trappings, maybe it is. If you have righteous reasons or simple reasons, maybe not. But this has always been my goal, to just make records, tour around and have that be my gig. And I got it.

"But getting the gig is the easy part," he adds. "The tough part is hanging on to it." He pauses again, and then punctuates the silence with a laugh. "That's wherein lies the challenge: keeping the gig."

TOM PHALEN