Please don’t take your seats

DAN ZANES’ idea of a good time is hanging out with family and friends old and new, making music, swapping stories or just grooving to the rhythm of the day.

That casual approach and an all-inclusive spirit have fueled Zanes’ plunge into the growing family music pool. And it’s paid off for the former frontman of the alt-rock band Del Fuegos.

This year, Zanes’ signature “handmade” music earned the singer his first Grammy Award, a best children’s music trophy for “Catch That Train,” a mix of old-time spirituals and folk songs and warm-hearted, quirky originals. The album was recorded in Zanes’ living room with the Kronos Quartet, Natalie Merchant, the Blind Boys of Alabama and such Zanes regulars as singer Barbara Brousal and banjo-master Donald Saaf.

Zanes’ concert schedule, including a sellout at Carnegie Hall last November, continues to expand to major venues across the country and beyond -- with gigs in Melbourne, Australia, and London. This weekend, Zanes returns to UCLA’s Royce Hall, where he will play two Saturday concerts.

As always, the wild-haired, raspy-voiced singer wants his audiences young and old to come prepared to “sing at the top of their lungs and do as much dancing as they want. I really want it to be as much like a little Grateful Dead concert as possible.

“No one’s expected to sit quietly in their seat -- it would make me anxious if they did,” Zanes said. “It’s really just, whatever venue we go to, how can we make it feel like one big living room?”

Zanes doesn’t have to try for that homey feel when he records his albums. He uses the acoustics supplied by his Brooklyn home’s high-ceilinged living room and his 8-track, half-inch reel-to-reel “steam-powered technology.”

An affinity for folk music isn’t a new passion, either. When Zanes’ daughter (now 12) was born, he went looking for “updated versions” of the Folkways classics he grew up with: Leadbelly, Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Ella Jenkins.

“Why I wanted them for my daughter and I to listen to, was because it seemed like the balance was perfect -- old songs with deep roots and new songs. And it always sounded like people in a house having a great time together,” Zanes said.

“Also, what I appreciate now is their spirit of inclusion, which is typically a huge part of folk music: ‘Let’s celebrate all the cultures that we can through music and let’s make it feel that everybody’s welcome at this party.’ ”

Zanes’ concerts embody that spirit. He often includes in his diverse band young singers and musicians recruited from local schools and community centers to join his “party on wheels.” Daughter Anna sometimes plays her ukulele with the band too.

“In every town there are able, creative, talented young people,” Zanes said. “Something we’ve been doing as we’ve been playing shows is just reaching out.”

HE is taking Spanish classes for his next CD, a celebration of Latin American music with New York-based Puerto Rican, Dominican, Argentine and Mexican artists. He hopes to include Los Lobos, friends from his days with Slash Records.

“There are so many different Latin American communities. I felt like I was missing out on all the fun,” Zanes said. “The more I travel around, I can’t help but be excited to see these fantastic changes that are taking place all around us. And every bit of fun that’s available, as all the cultures are coming together, I’m going to try and grab hold of it.”

Zanes’ own songs are inspired by simple pleasures: taking a train ride, walking with his daughter, Halloween in his neighborhood -- “just taking the little pieces of a day and trying to blow them up into a song, he said.

His old inspirations -- girlfriends and drinking -- are far behind him now. “It feels like another lifetime ago that I was in a rock ‘n’ roll band thinking about those themes,” he said. “Seems like that was a steppingstone to get to this amazing world that I’m in now.”

lynne.heffley@latimes.com