by Chuck Yarborough
Plain Dealer Reporter

Gary Allan’s tattoos are the palette of his life, but he doesn’t really need one that shows his heart; that’s on his sleeve for all to see – and hear – every time the emotional singer-songwriter opens his mouth. It’ll be clearly visible – and audible – on the Cleveland Browns Stadium stage Saturday, even from the (relatively) cheap seats.

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Allan, a California-bred country rocker, is part of Kenny Chesney’s stadium-sized Poets & Pirates Tour, which makes its second stop in as many years at the home of the Browns. God willing and the toilets don’t rise – so to speak – this year won’t be plagued with the overflowing sewage that had fans last year wading through sometimes calf-deep water.

Chesney, the reigning Country Music Association entertainer of the year who picked up the same prize at Sunday’s Academy of Country Music awards show, headlines what has become an annual event for Cleveland country fans. Also on the bill will be Allan, Aussie heartthrob Keith Urban, LeAnn Rimes and rocker Sammy Hagar.

That’s a big list of stars for a big show in a big venue, a fact not lost on Allan.

“The bigger the stage, the more people, the more transparent you are,” he said in a call from Nashville, where he was shooting a video for “Learning to Bend,” a new single off his 2007 release, “Living Hard.”

So Allan said he’s tailored his show to the size of the stage. In a smaller room, “it’s only five feet” to the guitar player lashing out a solo. But on a stadium show stage, it may be 100 feet, so you have to be conscious of that and move accordingly. Everything you do has to be larger than life, exaggerated so the couple in the nosebleeds can see it.

It’s really a tough task for a guy whose music is so raw and whose voice is geared to delivering a message, not decibels. But to quote one of his own songs, being able to handle the job is one of those necessary things when “tough little boys grow up to be men” who happen to make their living on a stage.

It’s not like he hasn’t had any experience at it, either. As a kid at 12, he hit the bars in his native Southern California to play with his dad’s band, rocking the regulars with honky-tonk classics from fellow Golden Stater Merle Haggard and crooning Possum tunes from George Jones.

But if there was an epiphany, Allan said, it was a Highwaymen concert when he was 15. The legendary band, which pooled the talents of Johnny Cash, Kris Kristofferson, Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson, was “a life-changing” event for the surfer whose musical tastes range from punk to stone country.

The songs from that country supergroup are laden with life – and the hurt and joy that comprise it. It’s clear from Allan’s discography in the songs he wrote himself and songs from others he opted to record that he was listening.

Early on, Allan said he realized the therapeutic value of his chosen profession. Singing and songwriting can help you deal with the good and bad times in your life.

Sadly, he’s had too much experience in the latter. In October 2004, his 36-year-old wife, Angela Herzberg, shot herself. Allan, whose real name is Gary Allan Herzberg, said he used his music as a release after his chronically depressed wife’s suicide.

“It’s almost like therapy,” said Allan, who describes himself as a “lyric-driven” artist.

That much is evident in “Tough All Over,” the disc that followed her death. One cut is called “Puttin’ Memories Away” was written by Allan himself.

I threw our rings into a box

Filled with broken memories and fool’s gold

And I woke up again last night in this lonely bed without you to hold

And I walked around this house pullin’ pictures off the walls

Just like I’ve done a hundred times before

Makin’ sure I’ve got ‘em all.

Thought-provoking, gutty lyrics are a trademark in any Allan CD, no matter whose name on the “written by” line.

Singing a song you’ve written yourself is the easy part. But all of Allan’s songs, no matter who the author is, have an autobiographical ring. That’s by design. He will cut tunes penned by others only if they touch him, and “say things I want to say.”

And the phrasing has to be right for his California surf-country, Bakersfield-style croon. Like the Eagles’ Don Henley, he doesn’t so much sing as he does cry in key and on time.

But don’t get the idea his real name should be Gary Gloomy. This guy knows how to have fun. Take for instance a few weeks ago during an gig in Virginia. It was an outdoor show and got rained out. So he and his band did what anyone would do in such an event: They went to a high-quality karaoke bar. It had to be high quality, because rather than just recorded songs, the bar had a live band playing for would-be stars.

It was ’80s night, perfect for the 39-year-old country singer. He and his buds belted out the standards.

“We just ended up taking over that bar,” said Allan, laughing. He admitted that his contribution was the Rick Springfield classic, “Jessie’s Girl.”

Somehow, after hearing that, it doesn’t seem that hard to understand his preshow routine: He and his band spend an hour before the curtain goes up socked away on the bus, listening to stone country like George Jones and Merle Haggard. And then?

“We have a shot of Jaegermeister and go out there.”

Maybe he should chronicle the event with a visit to celebrity inkster Mark Mahoney, a friend who now runs the Shamrock Social Club in West Hollywood. Mahoney put Allan’s name and a cowboy hat on his shoulder for his first tattoo.

“I got the first one when I was 15,” Allan said. “Mark used to have tattoo parties and we’d go and get blasted and get tattoos.”

Talk about your picture-perfect childhood segueing into a picture perfect adulthood.