Chad Brimm and Chelsea Duncan will play at the Red Room at Grill, a 24-hour diner on East Congress Street.

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It seems like the wind carried local singer-songwriter Chad Brimm into Tucson less than a year ago.

And it may push him back out.

The Chicago-area transplant wore mostly black, with a thick goatee and dark sunglasses, during a recent conversation. Brimm makes acoustic, downtrodden, harmonica-aided folk with a road-weary voice befitting a seasoned troubadour.

But the music is actually the opposite of what he had been performing since he was a teenager in the Windy City's scene: death metal.

Death metal is that special style of metal that involves vocalists doing their best impression of deep-voiced, throaty demons, while berserk guitars and drums howl and punish from all over. It's the musical equivalent of falling down a never-ending staircase while getting bashed by baseball bats.

Brimm was a vocalist and bassist for death metal bands that included Impetus, a Dixon, Ill., act that opened for the likes of Slayer and Motörhead. After more than a decade of overheated screaming, Brimm, then 28, decided the music wasn't talking to him anymore.

"I wasn't as pissed off as I was when I was 20," he said.

It was around this time that he began listening to Bob Dylan, Neil Young and Townes Van Zandt.

Feeling it was time for a change, Brimm bought an acoustic guitar and began writing folk tunes.

"Half the people thought I lost my mind," he said. "The other half thought it was cool."

Brimm spent a little more time in the Midwest, recording under the name Season's End. After finishing up work on his third album, 2007's "The Road Ahead," Brimm decided on a whim to move to Tucson.

Brimm, 33, who plays mostly coffeehouse gigs, has found the local music scene vibrant and embracing.

In September 2007, he met fellow singer-songwriter and Tucson native Chelsea Duncan, 22, at an open mic night at Epic Cafe. Brimm had been looking for a female vocalist, and the pair decided to partner up for live shows.

"I just think the harmony works out," Duncan said.

They now play together as a duo called simply Chad Brimm and Chelsea Duncan. Next up is a gig Saturday night at the Red Room, a tiny space within Grill, a funky 24-hour diner on East Congress Street.

Brimm and Duncan haven't yet collaborated on songwriting, but they trade off performing their own work at live shows, helping each other out on guitar, vocals and sometimes percussion.

Brimm just finished a new album of original material called "The Stories in Between." The CD, recorded at his Tucson home, features Duncan on backup vocals. It will be for sale Saturday night.

In May, he's taking off to work in Alaska for a little while and might not return to the Old Pueblo.

"I'm kind of sick of planning things in my life," he said.