Singer-songwriter and Mercer County native Rick Hornyak scheduled six shows in a row during his visit home this week, but sharing his music was just one goal of his trip.

Hornyak, 34, and his bandmates drove straight through from Texas a few days ago, a more than 22-hour trip, for performances in Mercer and Crawford counties. He said he tries to make it back to Pennsylvania from his new home of Austin at least once a year.

He keeps returning to the home he left almost seven years ago to visit with family and friends, Hornyak said. As time between visits passes, “people start to call and e-mail and ask ‘when are you coming back,’ ” he said.

Hornyak’s mother is Punkin Ellis of Fredonia and his father Richard lives in the Sheakleyville area. He said his unusual name — which is Hungarian for “mountain dweller” — got him teased a lot growing up, but now he embraces it.

“Nobody’s going to forget that name,” he said. On his Web site, there are even quite a few other Hornyaks who post comments about being drawn to his music from it.

Hornyak’s current band of hired musicians includes drummer Tom “Tree” West, originally from Mercer, who played with Hornyak in Acoustic Rooster before they both made the trek to Texas at different times.

“Things go full circle I guess,” Hornyak said of reuniting with West.

Paul Lemond, a rare native Austinite, joins him on guitar and Californian Randy Chaffin plays bass.

Hornyak’s musical career started when he picked up an electric guitar at 14. He said he grew up loving Led Zeppelin and “all these great guitar players,” but around age 19 he bought an acoustic guitar and began writing songs.

“Now here it is however many years later and I don’t even own an electric guitar anymore,” Hornyak said.

Writing songs came “pretty naturally” for Hornyak, he said.

“For me, I think it’s just that I write songs to get things off my chest,” he said. “I take something that was a bad thing and make it into a good thing.”

The band will showcase some of his and his bandmates original songs at the local shows and then mix it up with covers by bands like Tom Petty, The Rolling Stones, Austin artist Alejandro Escovedo and some old country, he said.

Hornyak said his influences are “all over the board,” but mentioned Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash, Merle Haggard and newer bands like Jane’s Addiction and Smashing Pumpkins as favorites. He said he’s also been digging a little deeper into older country music since moving to Austin.

A 1992 Reynolds High School graduate, Hornyak was working a factory job when he decided to take the plunge and work on his music. His style seems to fall into the America genre, Hornyak said, capturing folk and alt-country sensibilities with a little bit of rock.