Jesse Sprinkle has got his fingers in all kinds of pies. He's a producer, a session drummer, singer, songwriter, and a dad times four. He just had his first son last month.

"I finally got a dude," Sprinkle says.

The little guy has three older sisters, who will no doubt make his life a living hell.

"And they're all straight-up females," he says. "None of them are tomboys. They're all girly girls. So I'll teach him drums right away."

Music can offer a young man sanctuary, or an outlet. It also presents opportunities not all moms and dads are down with. But at the Sprinkle family homestead back in Vashon, Washington, things were a little different. When the then 16-year-old Sprinkle's band, Poor Old Lu, got signed to Tooth and Nail Records in 1993, he and his brother (the guitarist in the band) were presented with the opportunity to tour. They went to dad.

"My dad is a great guitar player," he says. "But he never really did anything with it. So when he saw us getting really interested, he was very encouraging. When I proposed the idea ‘Hey, should I quit school to do music?' they were like, ‘Yeah.'"

Vashon is an island outside Seattle. And though Poor Old Lu felt the influential tremors of the grunge epicenter nearby, it transcended.

"It was more British rock influence mixed with alternative rock," Sprinkle says of the band's sound. "We came from Seattle, but we definitely weren't in the grunge scene."

The band lasted for 10 years, slowly falling apart as its members married off. Sprinkle was the last man standing until he met his wife in Seattle in 1996. She dragged him back to Rochester, where she was attending Roberts Wesleyan College. Sprinkle figured she'd finish college and he'd drag her back to Seattle. But Rochester grew on him. He's still here.

"I actually enjoyed being in a new element," he says. "There's something nice about not having a huge scene. Like in Seattle, you just get swallowed up whether you're busy or not. Out here you can make a dent pretty easily."

His first dent was opening up The Illuminata, a recording studio in Dansville.

"It was sort of a fun challenge for me, because people were like, ‘There's no way you're going to have a studio that operates in Dansville,'" he says. But Sprinkle's drive and street cred kept him busy with local and national artists.

All the while he was still drumming and touring with bands like Demon Hunter and Dead Poetic. On top of all that he was still writing songs that didn't necessarily fit into any project.

It's all intertwined for Sprinkle, and he's reluctant to pick a favorite.

"Honestly, I think they all complete each other," he says. "I've been in seasons where my work has been non-stop touring. It's exhausting, but I love seeing the world. If I had to do anything full time, it would be producing. I like the engineering aspect. I enjoy touring, but recording is my passion."

Sprinkle has just released "Surrounded By Lights," a solo project of his own material.

"I know I do it because I love it, because I have to get something out of me" he says. "But I don't expect people to like it."

People are going like it. Sprinkle's music is sparse and spacious, moody but not gloomy. It's essentially the man and his guitar, and most of the instruments that he colors the tunes with. Sprinkle rifles around the thesaurus in his head, searching for an appropriate label before settling on "darker pop."

"This is probably the first project that I feel is a strong record from start to finish," he says. "It's a little more accessible than my older stuff."

Sprinkle is currently in his new Bluebrick Recordings studio in Avon producing Hounds Of Hell's next project, playing drums for alt-country darlings Burning Daylight, and chasing four kids around the house where he and his son are outnumbered. It's all a rock 'n' roll balancing act, physically and financially.

"Unfortunately with my job, most of my clients are broke," he says. "So I have to find a balance between hooking them up without me getting evicted."