It would have been easy for Davy Knowles to accept the blues mantle thrown over his shoulders and learn to live under its weight.

Knowles, a gifted guitarist who will perform Friday evening at the Chameleon Club, came roaring out of the gates in 2007 when his band, Back Door Slam, released its debut album, "Roll Away."

The album by the trio from the Isle of Man, a tiny island between Great Britain and Ireland, had a decided blues influence and included a cover of Blind Joe Reynolds' "Outside Woman Blues," famously covered by Cream.

The easiest thing would have been for Knowles to simply accept his role as bluesman and concentrate on building a blues repertoire as Back Door Slam began touring in the United States.

Though he acknowledges his music is and always will be rooted in the blues, Knowles grew somewhat uncomfortable with the tag. He didn't want his musical vision to be narrowed by artificial limitations imposed by other people's expectations.

"I was always miffed that "Roll Away," the first album, was kind of billed as being so bluesy," says Knowles, 22, during an interview from Seattle, where his girlfriend lives. "There were songs on there I didn't think had anything to do with the blues."

His expansive view of the music he wanted to make was one reason why Knowles decided to shed bassist Adam Jones and drummer Ross Doyle, the other two-thirds of Back Door Slam.

"It was getting stale." he says. "We were 21 years old and I was thinking, 'Oh my gosh, this isn't moving anywhere musically.' And I just kind of got scared a little there. I didn't want to be 21 years old and not be moving anywhere creatively. This is a time in my life when I want to be exposed to new things, and I want to be exposed to as many new things as I can. I really didn't feel we could carry on."

When Knowles decided to go back into the studio to make a follow-up to "Roll Away," he went in as a solo artist. Though the album, "Coming Up for Air," is billed as Davy Knowles and Back Door Slam, make no mistake; it is a solo album.

Not that Knowles — who wrote or co-wrote all but one of the songs on the album, which was released in May, didn't have some help.

He had plenty. He was introduced to Peter Frampton through a mutual friend who lives in Nashville, and Frampton wound up producing the album as well as co-writing two of the cuts and playing numerous instruments on it.

"We got in a room together and it was just an instant thing," Knowles says of Frampton. "We got on so well personally and creatively. He's just such a creative guy. It just pours out of him."

Frampton also recruited Jackson Browne's rhythm section and Benmont Tench, keyboardist with the Heartbreakers, to play on the album.

"Coming Up for Air" is a giant leap forward for Knowles as it showcases him as a more mature songwriter, a more comfortable singer and a guitarist with an even bigger bag of tricks.

Though a blues influence informs the album, it does not overwhelm it.

"This was the sound I wanted for 'Roll Away,' " he says. "This was really the kind of direction I wanted to go in straight-away.I don't think I was really good enough when I recorded the first album."

Knowles throws a real curveball by ending the album with a duet with singer-songwriter Jonatha Brooke, who wrote the song, "Taste of Danger." Designated a "bonus track," it is his first try at harmony singing and the song, which also features his tasteful guitar lines, works beautifully.

"Probably some of the diehard blues fans will kind of question what I'm doing here," Knowles says. "I just don't want to stay blues. I want to branch out and try other things."

Back Door Slam

Fri. 7 p.m. $12.50/$15

Chameleon Club

223 N. Water St., 393-7133
www.chameleonclub.net