When he was growing up in Larchmont in the late ‘80s, Marc Rosenthal tagged along as his older brothers, Tom and Ben, formed bands and played gigs in local clubs, even at the famed CBGB in the Bowery.

“At a very small age, at 12 or 13, I’d see the rehearsal process,” says Rosenthal, who now goes by his stage name, Milton. “Seeing them book gigs, loading in at the clubs, learning how to put together a set list, seeing a band fight, seeing how songs got written, seeing how you chose covers. And meeting touring bands who were professional that had managers and labels and seeing how it worked.

“From the age of 4 or 5, it’s really all I ever wanted to do. But to be able to see it with my brothers doing it only fed the fire,” he says.

By the time his brothers went off to college, their kid brother had formed a band of his own.

Milton returns to his Westchester roots with a performance at Mamaroneck’s Emelin Theatre on Saturday, part of the theater’s Indie Rock series.

“When I was a kid, the Emelin was a big deal,” the singer-songwriter says. “If you were from that town and you liked the arts at all – I remember I saw that Ahmad Jamal Trio at the Emelin when I was 12. Anything that happened at the Emelin just had this air of ‘you’ve made it, that’s pro, that’s real.’

“It was a dream for me,” he says. “I couldn’t even imagine being on a circuit like that where you could actually play the Emelin, like that was your gig.”

Saturday, years after leaving Larchmont – for college in Saratoga Springs, Manhattan and Argentina, and for a career in the Midwest, Brooklyn and, now, Manhattan – Milton returns to realize that dream, bringing his latest CD, “Grand Hotel,” on Maggadee Records.

The disc finds Milton’s gravelly voice at its finest as he and his band glide effortlessly from one song to the next: a dozen stories told by narrators with a real story to tell.

Milton’s lyrics are deep, the emotions real but never easy, and the melodies are infectious.

He welcomes inevitable comparisons to Bob Seger, Van Morrison and Warren Zevon.

“Van Morrison is the one I spent most of my time being freaked out about and digging a ton,” he says. “Warren Zevon: I definitely had that ‘Excitable Boy’ record growing up, and Bob Seger was all over the place when I was a kid.”

The connection to Seger is inevitable, Milton says, for a singer with what he calls “a rough voice.”

His writing approach goes back to something he learned in sixth-grade creative writing, he says: “Show and not tell. Paint the picture fully rather than trying to explain.”

“I try to bring you to a scene and set the whole thing and have narrators who are just being themselves,” he says, adding: “They’re largely based on my experience, but they’re mixed around with people I’ve met.”

In the song “Everybody Loves You,” Milton plumbs celebrity and adulation, “like if you suddenly fell in love with Kate Winslet and everybody loved her, too. It would be easy to say: ‘Oh, it’s just the whim of the people,’ but it’s true. She’s really great.”

The lyric goes:

“I’ve tried, but I can’t erase you from my heart’s rolling tape

I could look for flaws that would give me pause

But that would just be sour grapes.

Why defame your pretty name with things that aren’t true?

Everybody loves you, I’m just everybody, too.”

“I try to make melodies that are catchy and nice and something that you’d like to listen to again,” he says. “But if you get down to the story of people, it’s never that clean.”

Witness the CD’s first track, “Night Driving,” as gentle a driving song as you could want, but one that tells of a man who is alone.

“I get off most nights before eight.

The traffic ain’t bad, it ain’t great.

I get home and I got me a date

With the TV and beer.

A free man who comes and goes just as he pleases

I guess that’s about the only life I’ve ever known.

And now I’m night-driving alone

Feel a chill down deep in my bones

And I’m taking the long way home

Once again.”

“A lot of people have told me that when they learned the lyrics to ‘Night Driving,’ they thought it was a terribly sad song. And I always thought: ‘But it’s sort of healthy, too.’ It wouldn’t do it justice to say it’s just a sad song. The person who’s narrating that song is somewhat basking in that loneliness in a happy way, enjoying that moment of being alone and digging the music and driving the car and longing for the girl.

“There’s some sadness there, but there’s also some joy to be in it, to be alive,” he says.

“Grand Hotel” is dedicated to Milton’s aunt, Jan Robbins, “one of my lifetime supporters, confidants, best friends,” who died while the album was being finished.

“She was very encouraging from an early age. I used to get a Beatles record from her for my birthday every year, which is exactly what I wanted,” he says. “She was very tuned into me. Unfortunately, she was very ill, and right when we took the pictures for the album, she died. She used to see us play at Joe’s Pub and sit in the same table every time.”

Milton’s band includes Sami Buccella on bass, Adam Chasan on drums, Frank Campbell on piano, Martin Kearton on lead guitar and Becca Parrish on vocals and percussion. Milton plays guitar and harmonica and has the lead vocals.

“They’re great players who can play all kinds of styles – country or jazz or rhythm and blues,” he says. “They can all play me into the ground, but they’re all playing to make the song better.”

What Milton has that his brothers didn’t back in the early ‘80s was the Garage Band computer program that lets him write out a song on his computer with demo parts, e-mail it to his band members, tell them that they’re going to rehearse in a week’s time and ask them to “find their way with it.”

“They come in with it and if something’s not working, I point it out, but it’s a group that has a large vocabulary and a similar frame of reference. I can say: ‘On the second side of that Neil Young record, that piano sound that guy gets, I’m looking for that.’ And they’ll understand it.

“It’s music-nerd stuff, sure, but it works,” he says.

Milton gets back to his hometown once in a while to visit his parents, who still live there.

“One thing I’ve noticed. When I was growing up and it was time to leave elementary school, there was a line of moms and they’d all have these beat-up station wagons. The coolest ones were the boxy Volvos, but very often the wood-paneled Chevys – because they had broken the bank to get into that neighborhood. Now there are rows of giant SUVs and you can’t see the street.”

“But Larchmont is a place of great nostalgia for me,” he says. “You could hear the snapping of the tracks of the commuter trains. That was my deal: to sneak down to the city and experience music in the Village.”

Milton
Where: Emelin Theatre, 153 Library Lane, Mamaroneck.
When: 8 p.m. Saturday, part of Emelin’s Indie Rock series
Tickets: $22
Call: 914-698-0098
Web: www.emelin.org
Music Web site: www.miltonmusic.com

“The Listening Room” video was shot in February, before the release of “Grand Hotel,” which includes the track “Pretty Face” that Milton and Sami played. (Video by Mark Vergari/The Journal News)