He works hard all day. When he's finished, he goes home and picks up his guitar, writing songs specifically for the joy of doing so. He might throw back a pint or two, pursue a decent idea to its logical conclusion, then knock off for the night. After all, work starts in the wee small hours.

The guy could be 1,000 different journeyman musicians who have had to face the fact that music might not ever pay the bills. But he isn't. In fact, he's a founding member of one of the most - if not the most - influential American rock bands to emerge from the '80s.

"I loved it, to be honest with you," laughs Tommy Stinson, former bassist and resident rock god with the Replacements, the group that, for many, defined the independent streak of sloppy, emotion-drenched rock 'n' roll during the '80s. "I was actually pretty good at it. And having a day gig like that let me concentrate on music for its own sake."

Stinson, speaking by phone from the West Coast in between legs of a tour in support of his recent, critically lauded solo effort, "Village Gorilla Head" - a tour that brings him Thursday to Mohawk Place, 47 E. Mohawk St., for a rare area club performance - makes no bones about it. In the battle between art and commerce, only the conscientious objector can claim to be king.

"You're completely screwed the minute you think any differently," he say emphatically. "As soon as you start thinking about the money, the record company, the whole stupid machine, you've become a whore to it. That's why having the day job was a cool thing for me, you know. I took myself right out of the game, which is the only way to win it."

Of course, Stinson is luckier than most thirtysomething rockers who have copped to the need for green. He left the toner salesman gig to take up with the reformed Guns 'n Roses, alongside Axl Rose. An album, "Chinese Democracy," was largely recorded and in the can, and an ambitious, full-scale tour was booked.

Maybe "lucky" isn't the right word.

Nearly seven years after he joined G 'n R, "Chinese Democracy" remains unreleased, and the tour was aborted only a few dates in. Cynics wonder if the record will ever see the light of day, but Stinson is "sick of hearing from these people about something they don't know anything about." "The record is coming out, and when Guns 'n Roses tours, I'll be there," he says. "That band is great, and I have absolutely nothing bad to say about Axl."

The upside to the relaxed pace of the Rose-led G 'n R project is manifested by "Village Gorilla Head," which Stinson wrote and recorded during down time from the project.

Though Stinson will forever be known as Paul Westerberg's foil in the Replacements and as leader of post-Replacements groups Bash 'n' Pop and Perfect, "Gorilla" is the most ambitious and eminently musical thing he has done yet. It's a wonderful, stylistically varied record, running the gamut from dreamy, orchestrated modern rock to Faces-like revelry to pure, magnificent power-pop. And though such stylistic variety in a record they'd like to promote to strict markets might be a record company's worst nightmare, Stinson seems less than concerned.

"Those are the kinds of records I like, man," he says. "I just wanted to make a record I like, you know? Not the sort of modern-day garbage where a big record label pushes a band to create 10 songs that sound exactly the (expletive) same. That's just not for me, man."

Happily, "Gorilla" saw release on the successful independent label Sanctuary, home to such recent artistic and commercial successes as Morissey's "You Are the Quarry" and efforts from Todd Rundgren and Jonathan Richman. Stinson's ambitious but instantly lovable album seems a perfect fit for the label.

Stinson recently completed a successful tour of Europe with Alien Crime Syndicate acting as his backing band. For this just-launched leg of the "Gorilla" tour, he's performing as part of a duo with Frank Black and the Catholics guitarist Dave Phillips, who, one supposes, is pleased to have landed such a cool gig while Black is busy with the reunited Pixies.

"It's been so much fun so far," says Stinson of his work with Phillips. "The material for the album was written with the idea of being able to play it in different formats - whether really rollicking, like when I toured with (Albany power-pop legends) the Figgs, or really fleshed-out with Alien Crime Syndicate, or stripped-down with just me and Dave - so it sounds really natural to be playing it this way.

"It still rocks plenty, though. We still crank it up!"

When Stinson plays Thursday in Mohawk Place, Buffalo rock fans have double the incentive to be in attendance. Mark Norris will open the show in his first solo appearance following the dissolution of the sorely missed Girlpope, the band he fronted for a decade.•