Looking at the zany album cover of Jay Gonzalez’s Mess of Happiness, one might get the impression that the Athens-based singer/keyboardist is a galactic disco cowboy clad in oversized shades and an open-collar polyester, getting groovy within his own constellation by the flicker of a glowing neon sign. In the illustration, drawn by Jeff T. Owens, Gonzalez looks like one of David Bowie’s trippiest characters suspended in an Electric Light Orchestra acid trip.

Musically, however, things are more down-to-earth. Gonzalez’s melancholic love songs and finger-snapping power-pop anthems are grounded in heartbreak and human folly more than anything in outer space. Thanks to the intentionally dry and muffled production quality, the collection rocks with a cozy (if not mushy) tenderness, the kind your hip uncle or older cousins might have enjoyed via an 8-track tape or a scratchy piece of vinyl, circa 1976.

Gonzalez has been a sideman for Georgia-based acts like The Possibilities, Nutria and the Drive-By Truckers for so long, it seems a bit strange to see a full-length album with his name on it.

“It’s kind of a weird thing, but I decided to record it exactly how I write, without trying to fit it to a band, and that’s why I put it out under my own name,” he says. “The guys in The Possibilities were such great songwriters, and I’ve worked with other great songwriters in projects.”

Gonzalez’s touring and recording road duties with the Truckers over the last few years demanded most of his time, so he had to sneak into his own studio and track things bit by bit. It was tedious, but it worked.

“The title really refers to the chaos involved with the making of the album,” Gonzalez says. “I have a six-year-old kid, so it was tricky trying to focus on the record. I’d be home for a few days, trying to record a little bit late at night or whatever, and Billy would be crawling across the floor during takes. It was that kind of situation.”

On and off over the last two years, Gonzalez and his longtime buddy and bandmate Chris Grehan tracked the 12 songs of Mess of Happiness in home studios. They recently hired studio engineer Tom Lewis to master the final mixes. Despite the hodgepodge approach to recording, there is a sturdy continuity to the album as a whole.

“There was a super-dry, muffled quality to a lot of the ’70s music—the pop music just before the digital, reverby stuff of the early ’80s,” Gonzalez says. “Chris and I are both into that early ’70s style, with the low-tuned, beefy snare sounds and the John Lennon-style slap-back.”

Born in 1973, Gonzalez says his earliest pop radio memories include hearing the likes of Paul McCartney and Wings, Cat Stevens, James Taylor and Badfinger. Those early influences pop up throughout Mess of Happiness.

“Chris I both loved the cheesy Top-40 stuff of that late-’70s era,” Gonzalez says. “We also got really into underground rock style like The Joe Jackson Band, too. I think there’s a little bit of that new wave/punk think in the album.”

A lengthy “piano lounge residency” at the old Kingpins allowed Gonzalez the chance to try out new material that eventually made its way to the album. At the club, he mixed song sketches and arrangements with various mellow gold and A.M. radio one-hit-wonder fare.

“I did America, Climax Blues [Band], Little River Band, The Carpenters and all of that stuff,” Gonzalez says. “Jake Mosely would join in and sing on the really smooth stuff. I was the Captain and he was the Tennille. I think my heart is more in the poppy stuff that’s maybe just to the side of that ilk—things like Pilot, 10CC, and weird, poppy, one-off things.”

During the sessions, Gonzalez invited an all-star cast of Athens colleagues to help Grehan and him track the new album. Drummers Peter Alvanos, Jeff Griggs and Brandon McDearis laid down the beats.

“We went with a really roomy sound,” Gonzalez remembers. “Chris did all of the mixing and made things sound better, but all he could do was beef things up. Luckily, we had some good-sounding drums. I think it emulates some of that Todd Rundgren stuff I loved. It wasn’t crappy overall, but it had a great ‘crappy’ drum sound.”

Sax player George Davidson and steel guitarist John Neff stepped in as well. Gonzalez and Grehan handled the rest of the instruments and vocals. Gonzalez’s seriously fuzzed-up keyboard tones, mostly conjured on his Nord Electro 2, played a major role in the warmth of the overall sound.

“This album started off as a piano-based, singer-songwriter type of thing,” Gonzalez says. “I’d been doing some power-pop stuff with The Possibilities and Nutria before all of this. After I started recording the new songs, making the demos and tracking the instruments, the power-pop style creeped in. Being able to layer things and take my time allowed me to shape it the way I liked.”

The punchy production of Mess of Happiness is appropriately implied in the title of the opening track, “Punch of Love,” a smartly arranged rocker with several mini solos, three-part harmony bridges and driving drum beats. The sunshiny vibes run through the first half of the disc, from the hand-clappy “Luisa,” the waltzy “Thanks for Turning Me On” and the breezy, sappy “Baby Tusk” to the spare, Beatles-esque burn of “The Will.” The figurative side B of the collection gets a little moody and experimental, though. The reverb-drenched, surf-rock style ballad “Phil’s ‘Fro” could work as the theme to a teenage prom flick. Acoustic guitars, shakers and organs dominate the slow-rolling “Short Leash.” The dramatic, minor-key “I Urge You” is one of the most painful heartbreakers of the set.

“I was able to pick and choose the extra songs I had around, and I wasn’t too scared to try something a little cheesy or too rockin’,” Gonzalez says.

Gonzalez and his recently assembled backing band, The Guilty Pleasures, celebrate the official release of Mess of Happiness this weekend at the 40 Watt Club. Most of the studio drummers will be on hand, alongside timekeeper Dave Gerow. Other guests include Grehan and Gerow's bandmates in The Arcs: Kevin Lane, Brandon Reynolds and Ben Spraker. Davidson and Neff will join in on sax and steel as well.

“I’m happy that most of the musicians who helped me make the album will be onstage,” Gonzalez says. No word yet on whether they’ll be clad in space suits or polyester uniforms.