David Thomas on the continuing process that keeps art-punk Pere Ubu alive

David Thomas, the longtime keeper of Pere Ubu's flame, has a reputation for being difficult.

While musically and lyrically that complexity may be true - Ubu has, since 1975, been the soul of the American rock avant-garde, an art-punk ensemble inspired by early masters of the form such as Captain Beefheart, Albert Ayler, and the Red Krayola - in conversation, Thomas is as cozy as a kitten, if an occasionally craggy one.

"I don't think I'm difficult," the composer, singer, archivist, and sole remaining original band member from Ubu's beginnings in Cleveland says with a chuckle. "I'm just not a man to suffer fools."

Thomas is touring, with a stop Saturday at Johnny Brenda's, behind the recently archived, gorgeous box sets of early Pere Ubu works, Architecture of Language 1979-1982 and Elitism for the People 1975-1978, on Fire Records. There's also a new book, Pere Ubu: The Scrapbook 1975-1982. (All are available at ubuprojex.com.)

Before he was a crafter of dissonant melodies and expressionist lyrics, Thomas, who named his band in honor of Alfred Jarry's 1896 surrealist play Ubu Roi, was a music journalist for the Scene, a Cleveland entertainment newspaper, under the name Crocus Behemoth.

"I made the switch because, one day, I had this very clear picture of who I was becoming. It was this epiphany: 'If I'm so smart about music, why don't I do it myself?' " Thomas recalls. He was interviewing singer Jim Dandy of Southern rockers Black Oak Arkansas, and suddenly, he just didn't care anymore. "Not just the questions, but his answers - I knew what he was going to say. By the way, this has nothing to do with Jim Dandy. I love Southern boogie. He just happened to be the pop star sitting in front of me when I had my revelation."

Thomas started proto-punk combo Rocket from the Tombs in 1974, moved on to Pere Ubu in 1975, recorded the legendarily skronky The Modern Dance, and the rest is history.

Ask Thomas whether he has ever based his lyrics on journalistic pursuits, and he stops.

"What we do is tell stories," he says, "not as part of the singer-songwriter herd. This stuff is not about me or even anybody we know."

Instead, the words for Ubu albums such as 1979's New Picnic Time, 1988's The Tenement Year, and 1995's Ray Gun Suitcase are based on Thomas' journeys across the U.S. He would rent a car, drive for a month at a time, and voilà, "by the time the trip was done, I had written the next album. Is that journalism as you're asking? I suppose it is, in the most classic sense."

Thomas doesn't gather his lyrical notions via long drives now. The last several Pere Ubu albums form a conceptual unit of sorts: 2006's Why I Hate Women is based upon the noir writings of pulp novelist Jim Thompson; 2009's Long Live Pere Ubu borrows surrealist ideals from its namesake play; 2013's Lady from Shanghai uses Orson Welles' idea, if not his script, from the 1947 film of the same name; and 2014's Carnival of Souls sounds like what the 1962 low-budget horror flick looks like.

"The new one is another phase, another journey," Thomas says about the coming Twenty Years in a Montana Missile Silo. "Not a literal journey as before, because I don't have time to do that now.

"You can ask where it's going, but I'm not telling you. I just don't see the point. If I told you where we were going, what would be the point of going? Besides, like any journey, I might be on my way to California, but might take Nevada rather than Utah to get there."

Ask Thomas how he and his longtime members of Ubu ("you have to want to be, and stay, in this band, because it is not for glory, fame, or money") will deconstruct the older, noisily nuanced art-punk material, and he says that is overthinking the process.

"We wanted to do something that was entertaining to us, and those early songs are every bit as important and entertaining to us as what we do now. . . . We do exactly what we want to do, always, but remember, we're just a pop band. Period."

It's hard imaging Pere Ubu as pop, despite Thomas' gorgeous melodies and picturesque images - harder still considering what he sees around him as passing for pop these days. "Now, all the men want to sound like women, all the women want to sound like little girls, and all the hip-hoppers talk in baby talk - damned baby talk," he says.

Nonetheless, "Pere Ubu is right there with them - we're riding the bus until the end."

Pere Ubu, 9 p.m. Saturday, Johnny Brenda's, 1201 N. Frankford Ave., $20-$25, 215-739-9684, johnnybrendas.com.