Bonham Manages to Make Best Out of Worst of Life

Tracy Bonham has tapped into every mom’s worst nightmare: Sunny on the surface, rock-bottom desperate underneath, her song “Mother Mother” dramatizes a young woman’s confessional phone call home in harrowing detail.

The story behind the funny, brooding and occasionally hysterical song is just one example of how this newcomer from Boston pulls strength out of adversity and humor from dead-serious despair.

That ability is something that Bonham, who headlines the Roxy tonight, admires in her heroes. “Beethoven wrote amazing pieces while losing his hearing and while being, I’m sure, so . . . upset and hurt,” Bonham, 29, says. “That right there is the true essence of art and inspiration, that you can take something terrible and change it into something beautiful.”

Or at least bone-chilling, the way Bonham has transformed her experience into “Mother Mother.” In the song, Bonham sings a sweet assurance to her family back home: “Life is perfect, never better.” Before long, her composure has crumbled into a punkish freak-out as she shrieks, “I’m hungry, I’m dirty, I’m losing my mind, everything’s fine!”

The song was written in the aftermath of a relationship that left her feeling “helpless, pitiful and pathetic,” she says. “I had gone through this horrible time in life, really a dark period. . . . I stayed in bed all day because things were so bad. I didn’t want anyone to know what was going on, let alone my mom--especially my mom.”

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Today her big secret is public knowledge. The song, from her debut album “The Burdens of Being Upright,” topped Billboard’s modern rock charts, and her mom even stars in the video.

Now Bonham has followed up that success with another alternative rock hit, “The One,” confirming her status as one of the year’s notable arrivals. Wearing thrift-store corduroy jeans and vintage platform loafers, her long hair tied back in a floppy scarf, Bonham is grabbing a quick opportunity in her hectic schedule to sunbathe at her Beverly Hills hotel. While her accommodations are upscale--all cool granite and serene Japanese design--Bonham’s style smacks of Boston’s tiny clubs, where punk-rock bands play alongside sharp-witted singer-songwriters.

Her songs lean on soothing orchestral arrangements but get gritty jolts from her pointed, mysterious and cryptic words. Her album reflects both her club roots and her musical range. Bonham started playing violin when she was 9, and by the time she hit her rebel stage in junior high in Eugene, Ore., she was totally immersed in music.

“There was one time that I was kicked out of music school for smoking a cigarette and I was so [angry] that I practiced four hours a day,” she says. “When I’m challenged or hurt, I try to turn it around into something powerful or positive. Spite is a good motivator.”

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Bonham majored in violin at USC before focusing on singing and transferring to Boston’s prestigious Berklee College of Music. Disappointed in the school, she dropped out and floated around for a few years before picking up her roommate’s guitar and starting to play the club circuit.

She released an EP, “The Liverpool Sessions” in 1995 on CherryDisc, a Boston indie, and played violin on the Robert Plant/Jimmy Page reunion tour before recording “The Burdens of Being Upright” for Island Records.

Bonham calls it “an album full of observations about people--we’re some funny creatures, and we do some funny things. Those are the little burdens, the little quirks.”

* Tracy Bonham plays tonight at the Whisky, 8901 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood, 8 p.m. $11. (310) 535-0579. Also Sunday at the Casbah, 2501 Kettner Blvd., San Diego, 8:30 p.m. $8. (619) 232-4355.