Shooter Jennings brings his eclectic electric dreams - and his dad's backing band -to Ardmore

Just because his father is Waylon Jennings and his mother is Jessi Colter doesn't mean you should call Shooter Jennings an outlaw.

The genre-jumping musician, loping vocalist, and provocative lyricist is barely even country, what with his leaps into dystopian hard rock (Black Ribbons), sleek arena blues (Electric Rodeo), and smoked-hammy Euro disco (the recently released Countach (For Giorgio), a tribute to Giorgio Moroder). Still, he knows that you're out there, digging on his EP of George Jones covers, Don't Wait Up (For George) and chomping at the bit to hear him with his dad's legendary backing band, Waymore's Outlaws, which you will Friday at Ardmore Music Hall.

See? Shooter feels your pain and gets that he has flummoxed audiences with songs about the Illuminati and such.

"I guess it is challenging," he says, thinking about being raised with the first MTV generation, rather than, say, "hunting in the woods," as some people might have expected. "I grew up with knowledge at my fingertips. And I never wanted a label or had one that stuck for very long."

Jennings talks about having a devoted fan base that seems cool with each oddball step. "But I had to win that, work at that. Black Ribbons" - that 2010 dystopian disc, featuring narration by Stephen King, which he'll rerelease Election Day - "was the first big stretch. It exhausted me as much as anybody. And I did [the country-style] Family Man not to win back traditionalists but to give me a breather."

Jennings' restless, inventive career may seem less unexpected given his musical hero, David Bowie. "When I first heard 'Lady Stardust,' it blew my mind. Same with 'The Hearts Filthy Lesson,' " he says.

Jennings had a strange fellow fan when it came to Bowie: his dad. Bowie and Waylon Jennings, who died in 2002, were both on the RCA label in the '70s and early '80s, and Shooter Jennings recalls that his pop met Bowie in an elevator. "He liked what Bowie did, but like my mom, they were so wrapped up in recording and touring, they rarely kept up on their contemporaries."

When father and son recorded parts of an album together, Fenixon, it wasn't a country record by half, but rather an avant-pop piece. "He wanted to do something avant-garde, try a new way in," says Shooter Jennings. "He was pretty cool."

Jennings' new Moroder-covers album features Bowie's "Cat People" collaboration with the Euro-disco producer. The most delicious aspect of Countach isn't its novelty, but the handsome way Jennings' hickory-smoked flow works with Moroder's archly melodic arpeggios.

"My mom used to think my stuff sounded like bowling balls hitting trash cans, but now she likes it - the crazier, the better even," says Jennings of country legend Colter. "It's like when Hunter S. Thompson was learning to write, he retyped Ernest Hemingway stories. That's what it was like dealing with Giorgio. Getting intimate with his nuances was addictive. It was so fun to play stuff live with a band - get certain ya-yas out and entertain me even if it didn't sell one copy."

That band, Waylon Jennings' Waymore's Outlaws, lived through Bowie and Moroder, and they, too, wanted in on Shooter Jennings' adventure, Jennings says. "These cats did and can play anything, from Muscle Shoals soul to heavy metal, and these gigs are a testament to their versatility. I love it."

Shooter Jennings and Waymore's Outlaws, 7:30 p.m. Friday at Ardmore Music Hall, 23 East Lancaster Ave., Ardmore, $25/$30, 610-649-8389, ardmoremusichall.com.