E-Mail This Article to a Friend Boston bound Kenny Wayne Shepherd and Dropbox team up on tour BY SEAN RICHARDSON

Kenny Wayne Shepherd is on the comeback trail. The blues-rock guitar hero just put out his fourth CD, The Place You’re In (Warner Bros.), which heralds his return to the marketplace after a five-year hiatus. But don’t go calling him a grizzled veteran. Just a teenager when he burst onto the scene in 1995, he spent the next five years working non-stop, both in the studio and on the road. Now 27 and recovered from a slight burnout, he’s looking forward to the second phase of his career.

"At first, it was going to be a vacation, but then I realized I had some things I needed to get straightened out," Shepherd says of his lengthy time off, during which he moved from his native Louisiana to Los Angeles. "Drinking and substance abuse were starting to take control of my life. Once I got my act together, I went into the studio and made this record. I’ve got a new lease on life." He also used the time off to focus on extracurricular activities like designing his new "Xtreme" Lee hot rod, a 1969 Dodge Charger modeled after the General Lee on The Dukes of Hazzard. It’s slated to be featured on an upcoming episode of the TLC show Rides. "It allowed me to figure out what I like to do, other than play music. I started riding motorcycles and going to car shows; I started collecting muscle cars. Music is my favorite thing in the world, but you’ve got to have other things, too."

All that means there have been plenty of changes in the Shepherd camp. The most significant is that after using outside vocalists throughout his career, he handles the majority of the singing on The Place You’re In. Like lots of other guitarists-turned-vocalists, including Joe Satriani, Shepherd is modest about his singing talents. "I’m not, like, this amazing vocalist. A few years from now, I would anticipate, I’ll be a lot better. But this is the first year I’m doing this, so I had to write songs that are within the realm of what I’m capable of doing. And the live show is a whole different approach. I had to bring a rhythm guitar player into the band. On some of the songs, I just can’t play guitar and sing 100 percent of the time. It’s a continuous learning process."

Shepherd’s latest video, "Alive," gives fans a taste of what to expect from his new live show, which comes to the Roxy this Friday. The blond star has exchanged his trademark Johnny Winter–style mane for short, tousled hair that almost makes him look like a hard-rocking Backstreet Boy. He and his band set up their Marshall stacks under the desert sun, with Shepherd taking center stage both on the microphone and for a searing guitar solo. He sings confidently, with a bluesy grit that echoes his guitar tone. With its piledriving grunge riff, the track might be the heaviest thing he has ever recorded. And the chorus shares its uplifting feel with the P.O.D. hit of the same name: "And I feel, feel so alive/When I’m with you/Everything’s fine."

Although it has received plenty of airplay, "Alive" peaked just short of the rock Top 10. That’s somewhere Shepherd has landed seven times in his first decade on the charts, and a place he no doubt hopes to visit again. The star may be identified with the blues-rock scene, but he has always moved within a broader framework. He wrote all of his early hits with Mark Selby, the man behind the Dixie Chicks’ Grammy-winning "There’s Your Trouble." On his platinum 1997 release, Trouble Is . . . , Shepherd brought in proven producer (and former Talking Head) Jerry Harrison. That album, which is credited to the Kenny Wayne Shepherd Band, was also where he teamed up with lead singer Noah Hunt. The result was "Blue on Black," his greatest hit to date and a swampy standout from the Creed era.

Selby and Harrison are gone on The Place You’re In, and Hunt appears on just two tracks. In their place is producer Marti Frederiksen, who’s best known for his work on the Aerosmith smash "Jaded." Between the two of them, Shepherd and Frederiksen are responsible for the majority of what you hear on the disc. "Marti is talented in all areas," Shepherd raves. "We wrote almost all of these songs together. He produced it, he played bass, he sang background vocals. It made it a lot more personal. He was just as into how a song should sound as I was, because he helped write it."

Shepherd has more in common with Lenny Kravitz than he does with Stevie Ray Vaughan on The Place You’re In, which puts a contemporary spin on a wide array of classic-rock ideas. The title track finds him seducing a hard-luck woman over the smoldering groove from Ted Nugent’s "Stranglehold." "Get It Together" combats social apathy ("I wish I could help her but I’m singing my song") with a snarling guitar hook. On "Let Go," he tackles heartbreak with a tender chorus full of smooth harmonies. And "Ain’t Selling Out" is a barn burner with an insistent cowbell and a defiant attitude reflected in its somewhat generic lyrics: "If you don’t like it, I don’t care/’Cause I’m right here, I ain’t going nowhere."

"Ain’t Selling Out" has become something of a themesong for Shepherd. As he puts it, "Whether it’s fans or industry people, everyone has an opinion of what they want you to be. That song is my message to whomever: ‘If the shoe fits, wear it.’ All I can be, and all I’m going to be, is who I am — whether that means playing the crap out of the blues on guitar, making an aggressive rock record, or stepping on stage with Willie Nelson. I’m fortunate to have some really hardcore fans. They will support me no matter what I do. Those are the kind of people you hope to have in your fan base. Because they’ll allow you to grow, and they’ll grow along with you."

Shepherd’s other primary collaborator on The Place You’re In is veteran drummer Brian Tichy, who also played on a forthcoming album from Billy Idol. He and Frederiksen aren’t in the touring band, but Shepherd is bringing Hunt on the road to sing and play guitar. And Hunt shows up on the disc to handle lead vocals on two songs, both of which do a good job of living up to the "Blue on Black" standard. "I need an angel to protect me from myself/And take these burdens off my mind," he sings on "Burdens," the album’s cathartic high point. The emotional wounds are fresh on that track, which is where Shepherd addresses his battle with alcoholism in the most direct terms.

"Spank" is a playful duet between Shepherd and another rock star with a reputation for hard living: Kid Rock. "When you’re so sure you got it right/All alone in the spotlight/You’ll never see it coming," Kid croons, promising retribution for holier-than-thou types. It’s one of several tracks on this well-rounded disc that’s aimed at returning Shepherd to the radio glory he enjoyed in the late 1990s.

OPENING FOR SHEPHERD at the Roxy are Dropbox, whose minor hit "Wishbone" is one of the year’s best rock debuts — or at least one of the most sex-crazed. "Ride out her open road/Fell to the wayside/Dined on her dirty soul/Ain’t willing to pass it by," frontman John Kosco howls on the first verse. The riffs from guitarist Lee Richards are full of menace, and the song builds to a double-edged climax. "I wanna break you apart/I wanna overflow you," is the psychedelic bridge that completes the sexual metaphor, and the final chorus keeps accelerating until it runs out of gas. No surprise that the video for the song features three strippers putting on a peep show for the group.

"Wishbone" is the first track on the band’s debut, Dropbox (Universal), a hard-rock album that’s more diverse than the alt-metal of the single might suggest. Although the band are based in New Jersey, they’ve been making lots of noise in Massachusetts because of their close ties to Godsmack. Richards, who was in the original line-up of that band but quit before their first album, was introduced to Kosco by Godsmack frontman Sully Erna. The fledgling group then signed to Godsmack’s label and management, and Erna ended up playing drums on "Wishbone" and seven other songs from the disc while the band looked for a full-time drummer. Kosco also got to duet with his benefactor on Godsmack’s most recent hit, "Touché."

Despite their name, Godsmack have always sounded more like 1990s Metallica than Alice in Chains to me. But there’s no mistaking who Dropbox sound like, especially with producer Dave Jerden — the man behind the Alice in Chains landmark Dirt (Columbia) — aboard. Kosco’s hazy vocals are beyond derivative, and Erna even throws in a bunch of Dirt-style drum accents. But the Alice in Chains template remains a good one to follow as long as you have the songs to back it up. And with grinding existential anthems like "Take Away the Sun" and "Nobody Cares," Dropbox are able to hold their own.

Kenny Wayne Shepherd and Dropbox perform this Friday, December 17, at the Roxy, 279 Tremont Street in Boston's Theater District; call (617) 338-7699.