Nearly every genre of music is known for its image. Image is often what dictates the stereotypical look of a certain genre’s fanbase, and often leads to cult followings by enthralled fanatics.

Goth has its pale-faced minions all dressed in black. Alternative has its supposed melancholy teens who find happiness in a bottle of hair dye and funky clothes. And lately, rap-rock has gone the route of fat, necklace-wearing jocks. But only one genre attracts the meditating, slightly schizophrenic, and often freshly shaven heads of music lovers across the world – and that is the post-apocalyptic folk music of Stuart Davis.

Davis, an Iowa native for only a few hours, grew up in Minnesota – the state where wrestlers become governors and Buddhists can play hockey. (He’s currently campaigning to make Minnesota an independent nation.)

Since 1990, he has released 10 albums in 14 countries worldwide. The richly diverse catalog detailing his musical evolution includes the earlier albums “Idiot Express” and “Big Energy Dream,” and also the critically acclaimed “Self-Untitled” followed by one of his major commercial successes, “Nomen Est Numen.”

“Kid Mystic,” released in 1997, began to show Davis’s transition from arcane witticisms to deeply spiritual investments in sex, death and God. It would also be the last of Davis’s work released on the dying label, Triad Records.

After releasing the fan-favorite live album, “16 Nudes,” Davis warded off a premature musical implosion by selling 20,000 shares in his next release, “Bright Apocalypse.” Thus, Post-Apocalyptic Records was born.

Circa Davis’ conception, he has performed more than 1,000 concerts from L.A. to Brussels, and every tiny pub in between. It’s no wonder that this mystical, self-ordained monk would garner the following he has.

The occult-like behaviors of Stuart Davis fans are easy to point out at his live shows. Some show up with burned and maimed Barbie dolls, an idea taken from his darkly humorous song “Barbie.” Other fans sit in full lotus, unlocking their chakras while Davis’s music brings them to a higher plane. Still others can be picked out based solely on the crazed gleam in their eye, no doubt people who, like Davis, have gone through rehab and lived to tell about it.

The cult following doesn’t end there, however. One fan was known to have kissed Davis from a car window while traveling down the interstate at 65 mph. Others have removed parking tickets from his famous brown Dodge van and stored them in the jackets of their Stuart Davis CDs.

But perhaps the most noteworthy followers are those who are bald. No, this isn’t male pattern baldness. These are the fans, men and women alike, who’ve willingly joined Davis on stage to rid themselves of their unholy hair and become followers of Stu.

And most of these behaviors are just things that happen during a Stuart Davis show. After a stunning two-hour set, Davis, both meditator and masturbator, has been known to invite newly ordained followers to visit his temple (take a ride in his van) so as to become enlightened (have sex).

Who wouldn’t take him up on this offer? This big-eyed nomadic boy of Danish stock has a brilliance bested only by God, who by the way, produced Davis’s latest album simply titled “Stuart Davis.”

Gracing the cover of the album in a silvery luster, Davis sits in half lotus, an idol to all who will worship him, finding balance somewhere between pornography and art. While brave enough to display his manhood on this album, musically Davis also takes confident plunges into the inner workings of the human experience.

With songs like “Surfaces,” “Rock Stars and Models” and “Dresden,” Davis explores light and dark forces with naked innocence and brazen honesty.

“Dive,” “Swim,” and “Drown” serve as the three pillars on which this album rests. A recurring theme throughout the album is that of “water,” which is used to represent God and the soul.

Taken as a whole, the album represents an exceptional engagement with human spirituality. But broken down into its most simple elements, it reveals the very fragments of Davis’s existence held together by the sometimes brittle glue of the soul.

So while Davis’s fans grasp for their image and make the transition from hairy to bald, Davis has conjured his own transformation.

Having found solidity in higher powers, he’s given the world his gift of music and has quite possibly received more than he can physically know.