Ted Leo entered his teen years while the hardcore movement was at its peak in the mid 1980s. A New Jersey native, he dove headlong into New York’s scene, immersing himself completely in the bare-knuckled, underground subculture that swept through the city’s basements and garages. Performing in bands like Animal Crackers and Citizens Arrest, he embraced the anti-Reagan, anti-conformist, anti-mainstream ethos of the movement, with all its defiance and aggression. 

Although Citizens Arrest reunited for a few gigs late last year, the original hardcore movement has long since fizzled into history. Leo’s mod/punk revival outfit Chisel dismantled in the late 1990s, setting the stage for a solo career that incorporated elements of indie rock and folk. His current band, Ted Leo and the Pharmacists, has now been touring and recording for about a decade. 

But the DIY spirit of hardcore is still alive and thrashing in Leo’s music. Now 40, his concerts are as fiery as ever, especially when he takes the stage with bandmates James Canty (guitar), Marty Key (bass), and Chris Wilson (drums). 

“We’re all kind of aging punk rockers who, hopefully, gracefully refuse to give up the ghost,” Leo said with a laugh. “I don’t mean to be self-aggrandizing, but I think that most people would probably agree that the show that we put on is at least as energetic as any number of youthful hardcore bands.”

That energy is also evident throughout the Pharmacists’ 2010 album “The Brutalist Bricks.” Although most of the songs have more of a pop punk, indie rock bent than early ’80s hardcore, they still sear with political cynicism. The fifth track, “The Stick,” is like a furious throwback to Leo’s roots. 

“You think the government, it wants you on your knees / But I’ll tell you something, and here it is: / They want you driving to the supermarket, buying milk and cheese / And generating taxes to fuel their corn subsidies,” he shouts.

Leo is kicking off a spate of solo shows that will bring him to the Dover Brick House on Thursday, April 28, following sets from local punk heroes Tim McCoy and Geoff Useless. Seacoast fans have been waiting patiently for this one, as Leo was originally scheduled to appear in January but postponed his tour.  

Leo started playing under his own name after Chisel broke up in 1997. For the next several years, he played almost exclusively as a solo act. It wasn’t until 2001 that he recruited a full-time backing band and formed the Pharmacists. His current solo tour offers a refreshing reprieve from the raucous full-band lifestyle.

“Every year I try to do a handful of solo shows,” Leo said. “For one thing, it’s just fun to get off the band/album cycle, hamster wheel stuff that can often take over your life and squash a little bit of the creative fun that making music is ultimately supposed to be. For another thing, it’s just really nice every now and then to get out on your own and just travel and strip your songs down to their most basic parts again.”

The Pharmacists released “The Brutalist Bricks” a little over a year ago and followed it up with a music video for the track “Bottled in Cork,” first aired on the Funny or Die website last August. In the video, which features several comedians, Leo and his band agree to make a gaudy Broadway musical about his life as a punk rocker. 

Leo created some hype for the video with a lengthy blog entry posted on his website a few days before its release. In it, he described the challenges of making a living as a musician and announced his plans to launch a career in musical theater.  

The blog sparked a flurry of web rumors that Leo was retiring from rock ’n’ roll. It was, in fact, just a hoax. But the post did include some genuine sentiments about the hardships of making ends meet while doing what you love. Leo said he would keep creating music even if it meant holding down a crappy day job. 

“I can’t imagine myself ever not making music,” he said. “I can see myself, in all honesty, pushing a broom, or putting sawdust on little kids’ puke in a grammar school, if I had to. But I don’t think that would preclude me making music in my downtime.”

In March, Leo posted another video on his website, this time playing a song in his parents’ basement. The song is “I Guess I Planted,” an unfinished Woody Guthrie track that Billy Bragg and Wilco recorded in 1998. Leo played the song to express his support for union workers under siege in Wisconsin. 

He said he decided to make the video after several young Twitter followers nagged him to take action on the union issue. He initially reacted with annoyance, but soon decided it was a cause worth setting aside a few hours for. 

“I had a moment while I was feeling bugged for a little while where I was actually like, ‘Wait a minute though, this is actually a really important thing.’ And it’s more important, probably, in terms of the direction that our country’s going to take for the next couple of decades, conceivably, than I think it’s getting credit for,” he said.

Like Bragg, who recently canceled a scheduled performance at The Music Hall with Mavis Staples as part of their “Hope, Love & Justice Tour,” Leo has a long history of social activism, injecting his lyrics with political messages and frequently playing benefit concerts. His social consciousness stems from his punk pedigree.

“I see myself as never really having taken myself too far out of the punk world of the ’80s that sort of presented a lot of the paradigms that I still admire and adhere to and try to measure up to. And, certainly, in that time and in that scene, it was barely even a discussion that music and activism went hand in hand.”

For Leo, making a social statement is a core function of any art. But he does not label himself as a protest musician or political activist. 

“I don’t even really have that discussion with myself,” he said. “Usually, I have the discussion in the other direction. Like, ‘Hey, maybe it’s about time you wrote a song that wasn’t so wrapped up in all this turgid stuff.’”

Leo is in the process of writing new songs and recording demos. He’s got a few shows booked with the Pharmacists for the summer and will likely embark on a lengthier full-band tour in the fall. He vowed to play a range of songs in Dover.

“I’ll play some new stuff, I’ll play some relatively new stuff, and I’ll play some less new stuff,” he said with a chuckle.

The 18-plus show begins at 9 p.m. on April 28 at the Dover Brick House, 2 Orchard St., Dover, 603-749-3838. Tickets are $10, available in advance at Bull Moose locations or at www.doverbrickhouse.com.