Lonesome George is always on. Even in a short phone call to promote his upcoming show at the Snoqualmie Casino Oct. 1, George Thorogood, the rocker behind the hit songs “Bad to the Bone” and “I Drink Alone” brought out his best material.

He talked in a stream of rapid-fire jokes, interspersed with references to musical icons like Chuck Berry and Paul McCartney, and the effect they’ve had on his industry, pop culture in the 50s and 60s, and a very brief reference to his stint in minor league baseball.

“Chuck Berry invented rock and roll,” said Thorogood, when asked about musical heroes. “It changed the world when Chuck Berry said ‘Roll over Beethoven and tell Tchaikovsky the news’… I’m entertaining, but Chuck Berry’s important.”

He didn’t actually say that he listened to Berry, though. Instead, he said, “I like to listen to the audience screaming my name.” Does it happen? “Not often enough!” he growled.

That growl, his signature basso rumble, led to his musical career, not the other way around. “One Bourbon, One Scotch and One Beer” notwithstanding, Thorogood said “My voice has always been down there, that’s why I listened to Howlin’ Wolf, Johnny Cash, Alvin Bishop…. I wasn’t drinking whiskey when I was 17, believe me.”  He was destined to have an audience, though. He really did start out as a baseball player, but decided in 1970 at age 20, after seeing John Paul Hammond play, that his future was in music. From a solo career in the style of Elmore James — “I went for a target that I knew I could hit,” Thorogood explained — he formed a band, the Destroyers, in the early 70s and they recorded their first album, George Thorogood and the Delaware Destroyers, released in 1977 on Rounder Records.

That album, along with a never-before released track, “Goodbye Baby,” were re-released earlier this year on vinyl LP, CD and digitally.

It’s a milestone in his 40-year career, but that album, like baseball, isn’t in his rotation today.

“Me playing baseball on weekends, that’s not important. That’s not what I’m about,” he said. “The Native American movement is something I want to be involved in.”

These days, he says, he tries to raise as much money as he can for scholarships and other support programs for Native Americans. “It was their country, their culture, their music, and they were nearly wiped out…. Some day, there will be a 100 percent Native American in the White House, because we won’t be a real country until we have a real American in the White House,” he said. “Maybe it won’t happen in my lifetime, but maybe it will in my daughter’s.”

Then it was time for his next call, his next performance, time to finish on a joke.

“Remember, rock and roll never sleeps, it just passes out.”

For information on his upcoming show, visit www.snocasino.com.