Back in the early ’90s, at the not-so-tender age of 37, Robert Pollard made a monumental decision: He quit his longtime job as a grade-school teacher to become a rock star with his band Guided by Voices. “When it first happened, a lot of people were concerned for my welfare,” says Pollard. “They’d say, ‘You’ve got a family and kids, you can’t quit a teaching career and thirty grand a year.’ But I had to — it’s what I always dreamed of doing.”

Over the course of its two decades and several dozen lineups — with Pollard the common thread and creative force — GBV took refuge in the basements of Dayton, Ohio, writing and recording one lo-fi masterpiece after the other. Combining taut British Invasion blasts with prog-rock experimentalism, the group labored in obscurity for years before the public spotlight finally found them with 1992’s Propeller and 1994’s breakthrough, Bee Thousand — a success that allowed Pollard to leave behind his day job.

“Still, I was concerned for the first five to 10 years after that,” he says. “I thought, ‘I gotta watch myself and be frugal and be realistic, ‘cause it could be over at anytime.’ But it just went on and on. And now that I’m doing more than I ever have, I realize it’s here to stay.”

If Pollard never became a mainstream star, he’s certainly become one of the most revered cult figures in music, building a jaw-dropping catalog (several hundred LPs, EPs and singles, and several thousand songs, at last count) and an army of rabid fans with his beer-swilling, mic-twirling, leg-kicking onstage antics.

At age 50, Pollard’s broadened his creative horizons: in addition to his rock career, he’s a successful visual artist and a budding movie musical composer. On Saturday, he returns to Memphis to play the Hi-Tone Cafe fronting a new band, The Boston Spaceships.

Since officially bringing the curtain down on GBV at the end of 2004 with a barnstorming farewell tour, Pollard’s evinced typical blue-collar dedication to his craft, turning out proper solo LPs and side projects with remarkable regularity.

Though he recently unveiled a new solo album, Off to Business, it’s actually a side project that’s re-energized Pollard and brought him back to the stage. Joining forces with a pair of West Coast players, latter-day GBV bassist Chris Slusarenko and Decemberists drummer John Moen, Pollard formed the Boston Spaceships. Initially intended as just another of his long-distance recording collaborations, when Pollard heard the results, “I thought, ‘This is really ass-kicking, and it needs a little closer attention,’” he says. “Like maybe it’s time for me to start a band again.”

Pollard says working with the Spaceships — the moniker a reference to the ridiculous UFO-themed album art of ’70s arena rockers Boston — has had a fountain-of-youth effect. “With my solo stuff, I’m supposed to be mature; I’m supposed to be 50 years old. But with Boston Spaceships it’s like I can be a kid again. The lyrics don’t really mean anything, they’re silly, and sometimes lewd. So I can kinda go back to being a teenager and I don’t have to worry about acting my age.”

The Spaceships recently released debut, Brown Submarine, is as fun and funny a record as Pollard has made in his career — and given the breadth of his catalog, that’s no small achievement. Less proggy than his recent solo efforts, at times the songs sound like lost tracks from his legendary mid-’90s purple patch. But the project also pushes him into new and different directions, with slices of beat-band ballast, horn-laded soul, orchestral gloom and pleasingly weird mini-epics.

The creative success of the Spaceships has spurred Pollard to keep working on material for the band. The group’s second album, The Planets Are Blasted, is already completed, and a third record is in the works.

Moreover, it’s caused Pollard to make a full-fledged return to the road for the first time in nearly four years (though he did play a handful of dates in 2006). Fleshing out the Spaceships live lineup are past Pollard collaborators Jason Narducy on bass and power-pop legend Tommy Keene on guitar.

“I made the comment when I broke up Guided by Voices that I was too old to be a gang leader. But the (Spaceships) is all about having fun and recapturing a little bit of youth, doing things the way we did in the early days with Guided by Voices — and even then we weren’t young,” he says, laughing.

Despite his age, Pollard’s always been given to a kind of youthful hyperactivity. He spends his days in Dayton working on myriad creative projects, and indulging his favorite pastimes.

“I’m a creature of habit. I’ve got a schedule. I drink about four or five days a week,” says Pollard, chuckling. “But I do it like from four in the afternoon until eight at night, and then I’m home before the [crap] starts. That’s how you get in trouble, being out late. I’m usually up before the sun comes out working on lyrics, working on songs, doing collages. Then I start getting bored at noon, and then I wait for four o’clock to roll around again.”

As much as his music, Pollard’s art career — once limited to his album cover collages — is flourishing. Fantagraphics has just published a coffee-table book of his work, “Town of Mirrors: The Reassembled Imagery of Robert Pollard,” and he’s sold out one-man shows of his work at galleries on both coasts, including Sopranos star Michael Imperioli’s Studio Dante in New York City.

“I’ve been making up my own collage album covers since I was a kid — way before I was even in a band or could play an instrument,” he says. “I would even cut out the Warner Brothers logo and put it on them, give the albums producer credits. I threw all of them away, though, because I thought people would find them and were going to reveal me as some kind of maniac. And now that I realize that’s what people want, I’m like, ‘goddamn!’ It’s like your mom throwing all your baseball cards away.”

Pollard’s next artistic venture will likely bring him to the big screen in collaboration with director Steven Soderbergh. A fan who’s used his music in several films, Soderbergh had long contemplated a musical version of Cleopatra based around Pollard’s songs. The project picked up steam when former GBV bassist-turned-Hollywood- screenwriter Jim Greer began working on the script. Last summer, Soderbergh went to Dayton to hash out the songs with Pollard. “He chose 16 songs from my back catalog and we reworked some of them so they can be congruous with the script,” says Pollard.

“It’s gonna have big-time actors in it, man,” he says. “I’ve heard the rumor that Catherine Zeta-Jones is gonna play Cleopatra. It’ll be this crazy kind of thing like (Ken Russell’s) “Tommy” or “Lisztomania.” If it actually happens, it’s going to be surreal.”

While Pollard’s big-screen future remains a tantalizing prospect, more concrete is his upcoming Memphis show. The gig will mark his first local appearance in nearly a decade. At one time, GBV used to make regular visits, recording at the now-defunct Easley Studio and performing at the Antenna Club and Barrister’s with Memphis pals and frequent tourmates the Grifters. “Man, the Grifters were great,” enthuses Pollard. “Back in the days, the lo-fi days of the early-’90s, the Grifters were like the Stones and we were the Beatles.”

And although Pollard has toned down his once highwire stage act, the upcoming Hi-Tone show might mark a return to classic form. “Somebody told me we’re playing a club that used to be Elvis Presley’s karate studio. That’s cool, man,” he says. “Maybe I’ll have to break out my crazy kicks again.”

The Boston Spaceships, with The High Strung

9 p.m. Saturday at the Hi-Tone Cafe, 1913 Poplar Ave.

Tickets are $13 in advance at $15 at the door, available at hitonememphis.com or by calling (800) 594-8499.