John Evans is a Texas Rock’n’Roll hero. Six-foot-five with fire in his eyes, bigger than life in a long, lanky sort of way.

He hears things differently than most people. A friend’s slow, mournful lament might come out of John as a scorching power-chord anthem. Then he makes it his own.

John was the star quarterback at J. Frank Dobie High School, then at Lamar University in Beaumont. The NFL dream didn’t pan out. Watching guys like Mark Chesnutt and Tracy Byrd in college, he noticed the attention musicians got. His grandfather built guitars. John decided to put that blood to use.

He worked gigs across Southeast Texas, covers mixed with originals, until the originals took over. He teamed up with songwriter Ronnie Walker in 1996 and released Ride Shotgun as Evans-Walker. Then came the John Evans Band, and country music that was a little less George Strait, a little more Sid Vicious. His albums jump styles. Fans love it even if it doesn’t fit a genre box.

A John Evans show might give you a punkish country love song, then a jitterbug number, then something that makes you laugh. And you’ll meet one of the most likable guys to ever set foot on a stage.

These days he’s also a music producer, camp counselor, and mentor to young artists. His songs have landed in Country Strong and on the Friday Night Lights finale. He performed “KMAG YOYO,” a song he cowrote, with Hayes Carll on the Tonight Show. HGTV’s Junk Gypsies redecorated his living room. He even took a shot at acting, playing himself in the Houston B-movie Honky Tonk Blood.