interview with Todd Snider by Andrew Dansby

By ANDREW DANSBY Copyright 2010 Houston Chronicle
March 10, 2010, 11:21AM

Todd Snider knows his place. He's respectful and reverent toward the great songwriters he's learned from: John Prine, Randy Newman, Billy Joe Shaver, Jerry Jeff Walker, Roger Miller and numerous others.

But the guy who sang My Generation Part 2 is my favorite songwriter of my generation. Snider's isolated from the bargain bin cynicism that pockmarked so much rock from the '90s.He's also not much for cryptic trench-coat poetry.
As a writer, he's direct, poignant and very funny. He's a jester and a player who feels bad, writes about it and makes others feel good (sometimes), much like his heroes did, except for Newman, who probably doesn't care how people feel.

Snider doesn't subscribe to trough generation rules that suggest hippies are to be reviled and mopers are to be hailed.

He's a patron saint for pugnacious peaceniks who like good storytelling and self-medication, though the latter has caused its share of troubles. Snider's latest, The Excitement Plan, is a third consecutive masterpiece, showing Snider exercising a precision in his craft that he only hinted at when he released his debut 16 years ago.

The work hasn't made him rich — “They call us alternative country, I like to call it unsuccessful country,” he quips — but it's made him fondly relatable and quietly admirable as guys with guitars go.

Q: So is The Excitement Plan curing people's ills as you said it would?

A: Oh, that liner-note jive thing? Really, my dad used to say that all the time. He was a grifter. All this talk about money all the time. Dad used to talk about this thing, the “Excitement Plan” is what we called it in the family. He'd do it, con somebody out of their money, and then we'd have to move.

Q: Randy Newman was a reference point I didn't get until this record, but now I hear him in some of the older stuff too. You a fan?

A: I've been hearing that a bit more lately. Jerry Jeff's phrasing and Prine's phrasing are two things I accidentally lean on all the time, especially the old records. But the Randy thing, I feel like it's been sitting there. I'm glad if it finally worked its way into my stuff. My hope when making albums is to find some sort of unique place to stand at that party. I don't know if I've accomplished it, but I've gotten around the world a few times by trying.

Q:There was a vulnerability on his latest album that I thought was an interesting complement to Newman's usual style. And that reminded me of your stuff.

A: I listened to it once, but sometimes it's painful to hear a good record when you're working on something. When Dylan put out Modern Times, I was staying on a houseboat. I listened to it one time and got my lyric book and threw it in the lake. I met Newman on a plane once and learned a lot. He's a very honest person. There's no pleaser in him. We were playing a music festival together, and I asked if he was going to see Buddy Guy play. He said, “No, I don't like music.” What? He said, “I know all those (expletive) chords.” Maybe that's how I felt, too, I just didn't know it was OK to say it.
He told me his kids liked me. And he said, “I've never listened to you because my kids like you. If I played you and liked it, it'd ruin my day, and if I played you and hated it, it'd ruin my day.” (Laughs.)

Q: Well, you can't call him a softie.

A:No, but I get it. I feel more than ever lately that music has been a way of practicing to die. It sounds morbid, but it isn't really. But I don't want music to be distraction from my doom. I want it to be a way to face it and embrace it and ask forgiveness for it. I haven't been making up songs since the last one. I don't know, it feels like I'm about to be a happy person and maybe even a sane person.

Q:A lot of people say they're done with the next one by the time an album comes out. That doesn't sound like you.

A: No, it's never been that way with my songs. I've never been the aggressor. I make up songs all day every day, but I have no massive desire to record them. It's like people gotta beg me, “Let's make an album!” Really? Why? Me and (producer Don Was) sat down to make this record and I asked him “What (expletive) good reason is there in 2009 for anybody to make a record?” And Don said, “There is no (expletive) good reason.” And I thought, well, at least we're on the same page. People say albums are like kids, I never felt that way. I don't have kids either. I never thought about songwriting as a precious thing.

Q:Disorganized Crime shatters my ignorant perception of Portland, Ore. So it's not full of people drinking coffee and reading books?

A:Yeah, well that's the other Portland. Man, they used to shanghai guys in Portland. There'd be bars with trap doors, and if you fell through you were gone. Willie Pendleton ran the whole thing. They hung him and his wife by their feet and shot him nine times in the head.

Q:That's thorough.

A: Yeah, it certainly is. He was my dad's drinking buddy. They never figured out who did it because there were too many people with motives. He was a coke dealer and a snitch. Eventually he got murdered, and too many people in the town were happy. And I was one of them. He wreaked some pretty serious havoc in my life. He played a big role in breaking up my home.

Q: I heard you didn't start writing songs until you were 19. Was there no pull to do it earlier?

A:Not really. I'd been out of my house for maybe three years, just a sofa kid sleeping on people's couches. A bum, really. Then I saw Jerry Jeff Walker, and it sounded like he was singing about my life only with bouncy chords that made it sound fun. I thought, “Wait, am I missing the fun? I thought I was broke, but Jerry Jeff says I'm free. Maybe this isn't bad.”

Q:Houston was home for a while, right?

A:Yeah, that was the first time I ran away from home. I was about to be a sophomore or junior and our family had fallen apart. We were broke and moved to Houston for a job. The summer we moved there I felt like I could see what was going on. My parents told me the economy was bad. I thought, “The economy is definitely going to be bad for everybody who does cocaine all night. Having multiple girlfriends and (expletive) will run up the tab. I don't know if Jimmy Carter's the reason we don't have any money.” I got in a car and got back to Oregon. I'd rather sleep on somebody's sofa than be a part of all that lying.

Q:There was a time you were asking fans to throw flowers on stage instead of drugs. Did you find it heartening that they did?

A: Yeah, and they sure did. Y'know in music, nobody just gives their drugs away. If you're in a bar at home, nobody is like, “Here's some weed,” and then walks away. They always want something. Man, from the concert to the bus people want to hand you the biggest bags of drugs. It's astonishing. So I wrote that if you wanted to throw something, throw flowers. I was trying to be funny, but the next time we played there were all these flowers. And then I couldn't get free drugs on stage anymore, so it was a huge mistake.

andrew.dansby@chron.com