Leader of Movement Returns to His Roots : Pop: Darius went from raging rocker to introspective singer-songwriter at forefront of acoustic-rock sound.

In the early 1980s, Darius Degher made a lot of noise, both figuratively and literally, on the San Diego nightclub circuit. He fronted two of this town’s most compelling, and raucous, original-music bands--first the punkish Attachments and then psychedelic revivalists the Magnets.

Today, Darius (he no longer uses his surname) is considered one of the founding fathers of the burgeoning Los Angeles acoustic-rock movement--and next in line for the success already enjoyed by such fellow latter-day folkies as Suzanne Vega, Tracy Chapman, and the Indigo Girls. His solo Los Angeles club dates have gotten him rave write-ups in local publications like Music Connection and BAM, which recently called him “a master travelogue storyteller in the tradition of Woody Guthrie.” Last November, Gold Castle Records released his debut album, “Cardboard Confessional,” which is already getting airplay on alternative radio stations throughout the country.

And tonight, Darius kicks off his first national tour right here in his former hometown, opening for David Bromberg at the Bacchanal in Kearny Mesa.

Darius’ turnaround, from raging rocker to introspective singer-songwriter, came in 1985, two years and he and the Magnets moved to Los Angeles. “For years, I had been writing lyrics, and getting people to listen to them had always been my primary concern,” Darius recalled. “But if you put a lot of arrangements, a lot of amplification, on top, no one can really hear the lyrics.

“So finally I decided to strip things down so that only the lyrics remained. I broke up the Magnets and started playing solo, just me and my guitar, so that people would almost be forced to listen to the words.

“I wanted to get the content of my songs across, and no longer allow people to get confused by the form.”

“Cardboard Confessional” is, indeed, a triumph of content over form. On each of the album’s 11 songs, Darius’ lyrics stand out; the instrumentation is sparse and primarily acoustic--an upright bass, a lap-steel guitar, an accordion, sometimes just the singer-songwriter’s own unamplified six-string.

“I was concerned exclusively with this sort of--at the risk of sounding pompous--this sort of vision of being able to get my lyrics across to an audience with the most sparse musical background possible,” Darius said. “There was a time when I even thought about putting music down for a while and writing a book.

“But then I decided that with a little more thought, I could integrate the two--the words and the music. That’s why you hear songs on the album with 10 verses.”

Unlike so many of his peers, Darius isn’t attempting to use the singer-songwriter medium to deliver a message. Rather, as 1960s pop philosopher Marshall McLuhan once said, he believes the medium is the message.

“It’s nothing more than self-expression,” Darius said of his songwriting. “I don’t feel it’s my job, or any artist’s job, to make a point, to get a message across. I don’t think Bob Dylan was trying to make a point, either. A lot of people misinterpreted Dylan as making a message, when in reality, all he was doing was writing about his surroundings.

“The same is true with me. I’m not out to change the world, just write about it.”

On “Cardboard Confessional,” Darius consistently comes across not as a preacher, but as an observer. “There Is No Cure” takes a look at his Hollywood surroundings: “We talked of the homeless on our street/All the new panhandlers at our feet/Toni’s dreams of being a film star/And now she’s dancing in a topless bar.”

And on “Dorothy J. and Benjamin B. Smith Park,” he reflects, “A Santa Ana blew past the tumbleweed wall/And heat waves wiggled like a warm waterfall.”

Darius grew up in a musical environment. His older brother Denis is a singer-songwriter and his father plays guitar. By the time he was 12, Darius said, he, too, was writing songs and playing guitar; two years later, he formed the first of many bands.

After moving with his family to Encinitas from his native Riverside in 1980, Darius quickly became immersed in the San Diego music scene. His first band, the Attachments, regularly played such punk-rock haunts as the Skeleton Club, the Spirit, and the Zebra Club; his second band, the Magnets, was something of a throwback to the psychedelic acid-rock of the late 1960s. Darius doubled on guitar and sitar, an instrument he had mastered while enrolled in the UCLA ethnomusicology program in the late 1970s.

Since striking out on his own in 1985, Darius has made many friends on the Los Angeles music scene. He played sitar on Warren Zevon’s “Sentimental Hygiene” album, and on his own “Cardboard Confessional,” the supporting cast includes Chet McKracken of the Doobie Brothers and Danny Gayol of the Bodeans on drums and Jerry Giddens of Walking Wounded on backing vocals.

The fact that acoustic-rock is currently in vogue doesn’t bother Darius.

“I realize it’s now become the flavor of the month,” he said, “but I got into it long before. I think the reason so many people are getting into it now is the same reason I originally got into it in 1985--things have gotten built up into excessive pompousness, and just singing and playing guitar is a pretty effective way of stripping things down to the very foundation.”