GeorgeThorogood is first and foremost an entertainer

George Thorogood is a funny man. In fact, his first goal in life was to make people laugh.

“I originally wanted to be a comic,” said Thorogood, who will perform Sunday with The Destroyers at the Pechanga Showroom.

“When I was in 6th grade I had 100 jokes in my repertoire,” he said. “I wasn’t half bad.”

He had another goal as well.

“I just didn’t want to go to a job, I didn’t want to work,” he laughed.

Kidding aside, Thorogood and The Destroyers (Billy Blough, Jeff Simon, Jim Suhler and Buddy Leach) have lasted for decades because of his hard work and dedication to the music that has been entertaining people since the ‘70s.

In the early ‘70s he formed a band and moved to Boston, where the band became a regular on the blues club circuit. In 1977, the band released its self-titled first album and a year later, “Move It On Over.”

At that time Thorogood was starting to get radio airplay, but superstardom had not arrived.

“You know, people play circuits all around the country and wonder why I am performing in bigger arenas like the Royal Albert Hall,” he said. “I tell them ‘Bad to the Bone,’ ‘Move It On Over,’ ‘One Scotch, One Bourbon, One Beer.’”

Thorogood believes the entire key to his career is a few good songs.

“I saw the Stones do ‘Honky Tonk Women,’ J Geils do ‘Love Stinks’ and said ‘George, you got to come up with something,’” he said. “I knew if I was going to last I had to do it. B.B. King was adequate at best in terms of popularity before he recorded ‘The Thrill Is Gone.’ He was 45 years old playing questionable venues and then he puts out ‘Thrill’ and he’s on the Ed Sullivan show! I needed a hit, man.”

Enter “Bad to the Bone,” which became a major hit on MTV and became the song that people think of when they think of George Thorogood.

“Without that one hit, you are only halfway there,” he said. “We played Letterman and he said we had to play ‘Bad to the Bone’ or we weren’t going to be on the show.”

The video of the song received enormous play on MTV and showcased not only his musical talent and unique sound, but reinforced his humorous side.

“We played at Las Vegas and ran into the comic Sinbad who came to see the show,” Thorogood said. “He said ‘I like your work. Your lyrics are funny.’ You know, if you are funny you don’t have to be a real good singer. Mick Jagger sang funny lyrics, so did Jerry Reed. Ray Stevens made a whole career out of singing funny songs.”

And sometimes the songs he didn’t write fall perfectly into Thorogood’s lap, such as “Get a Haircut.”

“We heard ‘Get a Haircut’ in Australia,” he said. “We’d gone fishing all day and were exhausted but we wanted to go to the bar that Lee Marvin hung out in and the band started doing the song and we just instantly looked at each other and we knew this was it.”

And it’s a funny song, and perhaps a little autobiographical.

“No matter what kind of entertainment you are talking about, funny and sexy never go out of style and I have half of that down,” he laughed. “Look how long Dean Martin kept going. If you have that you are going to be around a long time.”

But Thorogood does have an eye for good lyrics.

“I will listen to anything,” he said. “I’m an equal opportunity thief. But you know, there’s nothing original. There’s someone who formulated things but there’s only one person at a given time who was original and everyone else just borrows. Chuck Berry was original but look how many people just copied what he did.”

So what is a great, original song?

“The two most beautiful songs are ‘Yesterday’ and ‘Somewhere over the Rainbow,’” he said. “There’s beauty and tragedy at the same time. That’s the holy grail. It’s like Chaplin. He was tragedy plus comedy.”

Part of his beliefs stem from the idea that people just want a good song because perfect technique is not the key to entertainment.

“Most people out there who go to shows are not perfect technique musicians but people wanting to have fun,” he said. “I’d try to play something and a lot of times I would play it wrong. There was a reviewer who marveled at my technique and how I had developed a dirty sound. Billy laughed and said that as clean as he can play, he’s trying to do it right.”

That doesn’t mean the sound isn’t important.

“You want a sound that people know immediately,” he said. “You want a distinctive sound and as soon as you hear this trash guitar, you know it’s me.”

That guitar sound comes from his use of hollow body guitars, which figured early in his career.

“Sometimes the economy is the thing and when I was starting that was all I could afford,” he laughed. “It’s actually both the money and the look because no one else was playing it.”

But again, it comes back to a good song. That’s one of the things that drew him to one of his concert classics, “Move it on Over.”

“For a guy like Hank Williams Sr., the technique doesn’t matter because the general public will remember a good tune whether its played on a pedal steel or a buzz saw,” he said. “Would it have made a difference if the Mormon Tabernacle Choir sang ‘Yesterday’ or if Aretha Franklin had sang ‘The Thrill is Gone?’ It wouldn’t because those songs are so good.”

Speaking of songs, Thorogood certainly is not resting on his past success, with his latest album, “The Dirty Dozen” being released on July 28.

The album features Thorogood's signature blues-rock vocals and guitar playing on 12 songs, many of which were written by a who's-who of American blues legends, including Muddy Waters, Bo Diddley, "Sleepy" John Estes, Chuck Berry, Howlin' Wolf, and Willie Dixon. Also included are several out-of-print songs from the past.

The album clearly shows that he is inspired by all kinds of things and genres but it all comes back to humor.

“I watch comedy, musicals all sorts of things to get ideas,” he said. “My bull is never ending. Thorogood never runs out of funny things to say, and let’s face it, people come to be entertained and that’s why I’ve been able to keep going.”