Two sides to her story

Listening to the ethereally innocent vocals of Rosie Thomas, you’d never know the Seattle-based singer-songwriter is a prankster at heart. The 26-year-old radiates purity and optimism in her sedate and spiritually reflective music, but she also has a mischievous side that’s equally strong in her guise as the neck-brace-wearing nerd Sheila Saputo.

At the Troubadour this Sunday, where Thomas is opening for her friend and Sub Pop label mate, urban folkie Damien Jurado, it’s possible both of her personas will make an appearance -- and that some audience members will have no clue they’re the same person.

“Some people know, but others still don’t because I’ve heard people argue in the audience,” said Thomas, who, as Saputo, enhances the effect of her cervical collar with Coke-bottle glasses and a goofy shtick that frequently ends with a performance of the abysmal ‘80s anthem “Eye of the Tiger.”

It’s an admittedly odd combination -- one that’s sometimes too much for audiences to get their collective head around -- but Thomas doesn’t have any trouble reconciling the two.

“My music comes from a very sincere place,” said Thomas, whose plain-stated lyrics tend to focus on faith and family. “Because I can look at myself that way and be that vulnerable, I can then enjoy myself. I can laugh.”

Thomas hadn’t planned to bring both acts on the same stage. She was perfectly content doing her stand-up shtick where it started -- at a comedy club. But when she signed to Sub Pop three years ago and started touring, she no longer had an outlet for her humor, other than witty, between-song banter.

“I thought, ‘Why can’t I use a stage like the Troubadour for comedy as well?’ ”

The stage is where Thomas got her start. As a child, growing up in Detroit, she sang folk music covers at clubs with her mother, father and siblings.

As a teen, she struck out on her own, singing at local coffee shops.

A few years later, wanting to go to college like other kids her age, she moved to Seattle to study theater at the Performing Arts College. It was there that her seemingly bipolar twin careers of comedienne and songstress began to develop.

During her first year of school, a teacher encouraged her to try stand-up comedy. Performing with notes she’d written on napkins, she participated in a local club’s open-mike night and so impressed the owner that he asked her to start opening for comedy headliners. It wasn’t long before the prosthetics-enhanced Saputo started flooring local audiences.

Around the same time, Thomas befriended Jurado, who invited her to sing on his record, “Ghost of David.” When Sub Pop founder Jonathan Poneman heard her voice, he went to one of her shows, then signed her.

Thomas dropped out of school after a year, making her recording debut in early 2002 with “When We Were Small.” A sweet yet emotionally evolved album about youth, the record drew comparisons to Tori Amos and Joni Mitchell, winning warm praise in Entertainment Weekly, Time Out New York and a handful of other publications.

Her follow-up, “Only With Laughter Can You Win,” continues in the same direction, with Thomas’ vocals floating atop a simple arrangement of piano, strings and guitar and sometimes folding into harmonies with her mother, father and brothers, all of whom sing on the record.

Thomas chalks up her twin successes to an adventurous spirit. “If I don’t try something new, how will I know?” she said. “I want to take risks and be brave.”

*

Rosie Thomas

Where: Troubadour, 9081 Santa Monica Blvd., West Hollywood.

When: Sunday, 7:30 p.m.

Cost: $10 advance; $12 day of show.

Info: (310) 276-6168 or www.troubadour.com

Susan Carpenter can be contacted at susan.carpenter@latimes.com.