His stage name is simply Hayden, but that's really his middle name. His last name is Desser, and all he will admit to for a first name is the initial P. Fans think his name is Paul, but the 27-year-old singer/songwriter/musician from Toronto won't say.

"I don't like to talk about it," he said.

So why just "Hayden"?

In order to compete in a recording contest run by his hometown rock station, CFNY-FM, he had to fill out an entry form. "But the entry blank said 'No Solo Acts,' " Hayden said, so he wrote down his middle name as the made-up name of the "band" he was in.

The name stuck.

Now, three years later, Hayden really is fronting a band. Although he started out as an introspective, acoustic-guitar-playing musician, he assembled a group for his current tour to help him perform the more complex, up-tempo numbers on his just-released second album, The Closer I Get. The album is a follow-up to his homemade CD, Everything I Long For, which was recorded on a four-track machine that he procured from a friend.

His modest debut swept critics off their feet and sparked a bidding war that found execs from DreamWorks as well as rocker Neil Young trying to sign the young man to their labels. Outpost Recordings (co-owned by former R.E.M. producer Scott Litt) was the winner; that label re-released Everything I Long For worldwide in early 1996. Tours of the U.S. and Europe followed, including performances at Lollapalooza and the H.O.R.D.E. (Horizons of Rock Developing Everywhere) Festival and a spot on the bill at the 1996 edition of Neil Young's Bridge School Benefit concert, where Hayden shared the stage with David Bowie and Pearl Jam.

Although Hayden is now traveling with his band across Canada, his concert tour to promote the new album will bring him south to play a series of U.S. cities in June.

The Closer I Get starts off in typical Hayden fashion, with two quiet acoustic tunes, "The Closer I Get" (RealAudio excerpt) and "Stride." But then he drops the solo strumming and rocks out on tracks such as "The Hazards of Sitting Beneath Palm Trees" (RealAudio excerpt) and "Better Off Inside."

"Better Off Inside" boasts a string-bending hook, distorted guitars and an incredibly catchy chorus. The moody, psychedelic instrumental "Waiting For A Chance To See Her" sounds like a typically dreamy excursion by the Cure. Both tracks are co-produced by Hayden and Steve Fisk (Screaming Trees, Geraldine Fibbers).

Though Hayden has grown out of his four-track self-recorded sound, his lyrics are still as deep and cryptic as those on his debut album. Besides penning the lyrics on The Closer I Get, Hayden plays most of the instruments on the CD himself -- some 16 in all -- but the only ones he's willing to claim competency on are guitar and piano. Production duties on The Closer I Get variously go to Litt, John Hanlon (Neil Young), Daryl Smith and Fisk.

Some of Hayden's fans were worried when they heard that he had signed with Outpost and brought in big-name producers. They were afraid that his music would lose the intimate touch that they love. Chris Hayward, 20, from Vancouver, British Columbia, said that the homemade sound is part of Hayden's appeal. "My favorite time to pull out Hayden is late at night in my bedroom," Hayward said. "I turn the lights off and sit on the floor against the side of my bed. I can't see a thing and all I can concentrate on is Hayden. It's like he's in my bedroom singing to me."

Ryan Robertson, 19, from Oshawa, Ontario, said there are now two Haydens: the one that plays solo acoustic and the other that fronts a band. He saw both Haydens in Toronto last week and said the solo show was mostly old stuff. Then the band totally rocked out on the more frenetic new tunes. Robertson stood down front to get a good view of the chording used on the new songs. "It was really loud," he said, "but totally amazing."

So is this the start of something big for Hayden? "I don't think he's really suited for the mainstream," Robertson said. While Robertson liked the Toronto show, he said he's happier when Hayden makes everyone sit on the floor in small clubs. And Robertson said he doesn't want to lose that intimacy, even if Hayden plays a few big outdoor festivals this summer. "I mean, he could be this guy that goes to my high school or one of my sister's friends that happens to plays guitar."

Shawn McNulty, 23, from Minneapolis, said he ran out to buy a copy of the new CD on the day it was released. "It was hard to wait for it," he said. He was a bit worried that it might sound overproduced. "But I don't think it does," he said. "It's an interesting use of all the different instruments. He did a really good job keeping that 'indie sound' with all those engineers, producers and other musicians."

McNulty said he's growing to like the album track "Bullet," with its Neil Young-styled strumming and harmonica. It's Hayden, just turning on the tape machine and singing. "You can listen to his albums all the way through and just lose yourself, become totally enveloped in them," McNulty said. "It just gets down in your soul or something."

Last Friday night, Hayden dashed across the border for one gig in Detroit before heading back north for the rest of the Canadian leg of his tour. Hayden hits Vancouver on June 3 and Minneapolis on June 23. In between are dates in Boston, Philadelphia, New York and Chicago, including a couple of gigs at the Guinness Fleadh Festival in San Francisco. His tour ends July 1 in Los Angeles.