Looking into the slightly mundane life of a brilliant local guitarist — Jim Bybee.

Jim Bybee came to the Northwest quite quintessentially, “to escape the rat race of L.A.”

And he found a good place for it: Poulsbo. By day, he works a home office day job. By night, he still lives the dream, albeit to a different degree, playing solo acoustic shows at local coffee shops, art galleries and private parties.

He’s still hoping for that day when he might be able to make a living with his music. But he essentially escaped from decades of doing just that when he left the bloated circuit of Southern California for small-town North Kitsap.

“Between the ages of 14 and 36, I was never not in a band,” Bybee said of his professional years in California.

He played in a bevy of bands over those two decades — cover bands, original bands, studio bands — “whatever,” he said, “just to kind of keep busy.”

He even wound up working as a guitar technician at a luthier shop at one point.

But he never took the leap of becoming the professional free-agent-type of touring musician — one of those guys who’s hired to tag along in support of some big name solo act. Now, at 45, he says he regrets it.

“When I played in bands, I always wanted it to be like The Beatles or U2 or The Police, you know in a conglomerate group,” Bybee said, noting the sense of solidarity. “But if I had it to do over again, I probably would’ve become one of those touring musicians.”

He knows he was good enough. And he knows that path would have most likely enabled him to really make a living in music — actually playing music, rather than working for a musical instrument company while playing 40 or 50 gigs a year on the side.

But there’s a certain allure to the hope of being in a band like The Beatles or U2 or The Police. It’s the same appeal that’s spawned countless garage bands over the ages. The appeal of a rock star. The appeal of the life behind the music.

It’s an appeal that has faded for Bybee.

“I’m just tired of bands,” he said when asked why he hadn’t sought any band members after coming here. “I’d love to play in a band, but that was part of the thing that kind of drove me to take the day job when I did 10 years ago … you can work so hard with something and one person can derail it.

“Up here, I wanted to figure out a way to be more self-sufficient,” Bybee added. “And I didn’t want to sing anymore.”

All of which led him to the world of fingerstyle guitar — a type of playing tailored to the solo player, where strings are plucked by each individual finger, allowing one to play the bass line, chords and melody of a song all at the same time, all on six strings.

“So, I’m trying to sing through the guitar pretty much,” Bybee notes. “It’s a challenge.”

But he gets wicked with it. Probably best known in the North End arts community where he lives, he’s one of the leading actively gigging solo guitarists in Kitsap.

He played this past weekend at the Global Bean; he’s readying for the Kingston Farmers Market later this month, May 23, with a gig at the Island Music Guild with Valerie Markell later in June and a new album called “The Universe” also in the mix.

For more, see www.jimbybeemusic.com.