It's a long way from the rolling hills of central Pennsylvania to Radiohead's VIP list - a really long way - but musician Greg Rogove has navigated that circuitous path.

The product of a Lancaster County upbringing in a family with distant Mennonite strains, Rogove has roamed Singapore and Mali, played drums in a West African ensemble and cut his teeth in the New York experimental-music scene. He's studied the tabla in India, performed with iconic artists such as Beck , delved into Chinese opera and chatted with Paul McCartney at Radiohead's after-Grammys party.

"I like to have my hands in a lot of musical pies," Rogove said in a recent telephone interview. "I try to be open to what comes my way."

An array of musical styles - freak folk, mock rock, psychedelia, classical, metal, prog rock, punk, ambient, jazz and world music - converge in Rogove, who has converted intriguing life experiences into a rich repertoire.

The talented multi-instrumentalist will be a drivable distance from Lancaster on Tuesday, Nov. 24, when he appears with unconventional singer-songwriter and critical darling Devendra Banhart at the Electric Factory in Philadelphia.

Born in Pittsburgh, Rogove moved to Lancaster with his family when he was 2 years old and attended Lancaster Country Day School. He formed his first, short-lived band with his older brother, Jordan, when he was a teen.

"I was going to sing and play the guitar, but my brother got a guitar behind my back, so I was relegated to drums," said a lighthearted Rogove, recalling a portentous moment in his music career. "At first, I thought I was the worst musician in the world."

Still, Rogove formed his own rock band, Blue Box Agency, performed at local venues, took music lessons and picked up tips from local bands such as Burning Bus. His interests took an international slant when he went on a school trip to Holland at age 17. The following year, he went to India as a Rotary scholar and received a year of instruction on the tabla.

A five-week trip to China further broadened his musical horizons. He was entranced by the music at the Peking Opera and is still trying to learn a traditional Chinese stringed instrument. "They play these gongs that seem likely to split your brain in two."

Rogove studied music composition in college before hitting the New York music scene. There he founded the jazz/punk/metal/world music-influenced prog-rock band Tarantula A.D. ("Book of Sand," Kemado Records, 2005), which morphed into the trippy Priestbird ("In Your Time," Kemado, 2007).

A versatile musician, Rogove plays piano, organ, flute and various percussive instruments in his band. But his great love is writing music, with or without lyrics. He recently returned from a recording session in Mexico, where a pianist friend completed a demo of some of Rogove's original works for piano that pay tribute to French composers Erik Satie and impressionist Claude Debussy.

"I fell in love with that sentiment, that world they create. It's a bittersweet place, a world of subtle melancholy, with an overtone of hopefulness that really moves me," Rogove said. "It's the music I feel most natural doing."

But he plays well with others, too. Rogove appears on Banhart's major-label debut, "What Will We Be," released last month by Warner Bros.

Last year while touring, Rogove, Banhart and the Strokes' Fabrizio Moretti created a mock-rock album under the moniker Megapuss , featuring joke songs Rogove and Banhart sketched out, with much hilarity, while waiting backstage before a show.

Megapuss stirred up a brouhaha with its daring full-frontal promotional photo of Banhart and Rogove au naturel. (Regarding this, Rogove is alternately unabashed - "It was just something natural" - and a tad contrite: "I just want to tell my mother, 'I'm sorry.'!\p")

When asked to pinpoint his most memorable career moment, he cites an invitation to perform as Jesus in a Mexican village festival. This is perhaps the most entertaining of his many anecdotes.

"I was walking down the street in Mexico and this woman asked me, 'Are you Catholic?' and I said, 'No, I'm Jewish,' and she said, 'That's good enough. Will you be Jesus in our parade?' " said Rogove, who went with the flow. "That was my crowning moment. How many people get to play Jesus?"

Few rockers would feel at ease in such a role, but Rogove voices a profound sense of spiritual connectedness that touches on mysticism. It's a philosophy he traces back to his Dutch-Country youth.

Though he never lived on an Amish or Mennonite farm, he said the Plain sects have informed his worldview. "The Amish are connected to a divine way of life. They focus on the essential elements of living, and this really colors the community in a positive way," said Rogove, who has been mistaken for an Amish person by his California neighbors. "Partially because of this, and because of my family, I try to live as simple a life as possible. I don't have a whole lot of material possessions, I don't own a TV and I want to stay connected to my surroundings."

And so, having had his fill of city living, he has settled in the mountains outside Los Angeles and dreams of a bucolic future in farming.

"I had a reverie one day where I thought it would be nice to have a vineyard and work with grapes and soil in the mornings and play music at night. I hope it happens," he said. "Life has a way of leading you down the right path, even if there are bumps along the way."

Greg Rogove will perform with Devendra Banhart at 8 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 24, at the Electric Factory, 421 N. 7th St., Philadelphia. For ticket information, visit ticketmaster.com.