The process of securing an interview with Matisyahu was friendly, but formal.

I often call artists directly at a certain time to chat. For Matisyahu, the Hasidic Jew and reggae/hip-hop artist who will perform Thursday in Bend (see “If You Go”), his publicist called me and connected us, but not before warning me that his schedule is “extremely tight” and that she might have to break in and stop the conversation before the scheduled 15-minute deadline.

These are the kinds of things that make a music writer a little tense. But my nerves melted away as Matisyahu, who just happens to have spent a couple of formative teenage years in Central Oregon, began reminiscing about Bend.

“I met a guy there named Aaron Chambers, and we started doing little shows together at Café Paradiso. Is that still around?” he asked with a genuine curiosity not often heard in a rock star’s question to a journalist.

“Nope,” I told him.

“Oh,” he replied. “Bummer.”

If his two years in Bend are enough to claim him as a local, then Matisyahu, 28, is by far Central Oregon’s most famous musical export in recent memory. Born Matthew Miller in Pennsylvania and raised in New York, Matis, as he’s called, came to town in 1997 in need of guidance after dropping out of high school to hitchhike around and follow the band Phish.

He left “on tour” early in his senior year and tried to return four months later, hounded by substance-abuse issues. But school wasn’t right for him, and he looked West.

“I sort of needed to clean myself up, and I ended up in Central Oregon,” Matis said from a tour stop in Cincinnati. He started out in a wilderness program for troubled teens and then entered the NorthStar Center’s residential treatment program in Bend.

Once the stint at NorthStar was over, “I ended up staying (in Bend),” he said. “I liked it.”

He got a job working at Mt. Bachelor ski area and did some acting, landing the lead role in “Equus,” a play staged at Central Oregon Community College. He also started writing poetry and music in earnest, and he met Chambers, who still lives in Bend and performs regularly as MC Mystic.

The two formed a duo and began gigging around town. For Matis, it was the first time he really played his music for people, he said.

“Café Paradiso used to have open mic night on Thursday nights, and we’d go in there and we’d perform. I’d beatbox and freestyle, and he’d play the drums,” he said. “They gave us our own night, and we put a band together (called SoulForI), and we’d play.

“That was the first time I’d ever really started performing regularly. All of my desire at that point (was) to be a performer in music,” he said. “I was getting a lot of experience in front of people, in front of an audience, and just getting comfortable.”

Today, Matis sees that experience as one of the most important things he took from Bend. And in the last few years, feeling comfortable in front of a crowd has certainly come in handy. He’s become a worldwide star, drawing thousands of people to his shows thanks to a much-buzzed-about appearance at the 2005 South by Southwest festival and the blockbuster success of his 2006 album, “Youth,” which was one of the best-selling reggae records of the year.

Much of Matisyahu’s mercurial rise can be attributed to the vibrant grandeur of his music; this is reggae and dancehall for the new century, fused with rock and hip-hop for mass consumption.

But undoubtedly, some buzz also built because the guy is nothing if not unique. He’s a practicing Hasidic Jew who wears a long beard and traditional clothing of the faith, quotes the Torah and doesn’t perform on the Sabbath.

And that — in an indirect way — is the other significant thing Matisyahu took from his time in Bend. Having grown up Jewish in New York, he was always around other Jews. When he moved to Bend, though, he had ample opportunity to analyze his faith outside the influence of friends and family.

“It sort of brought out of me this question: ‘What does it mean that I’m Jewish? What does it have to do with anything?’ That’s when I started questioning it a lot,” he said. “The whole thing was very spiritual. I used to go up to Pilot Butte. I used to ride my bicycle up there at sunrise or sunset and just spend a lot of time thinking about my life.”

“I was getting clean and getting this clarity in my life. I was away from home,” he continued. “Those memories are very distinct in my mind, sort of like Bend is. It’s just a beautiful, outdoors, crisp kind of place.”

IF YOU GO

What: Matisyahu, with opener Blue Scholars

When: 6:30 p.m. Thursday, doors open 5:30 p.m.

Where: Athletic Club of Bend, 61615 Athletic Club Drive, Bend

Cost: $35 at Boomtown (388-1800) in Bend and at the door. Tickets for the show and dinner are $75 and can be purchased at the Athletic Club of Bend (385-3062).

Contact: 389-0995 or www.c3events .com