Ahead of his Tower Theater appearance on April 17th, I had the chance to ask Nashville (via Portland) songwriter Todd Snider, some questions about his latest album Agnostic Hymns and Stoner Fables, his own wicked sense of humor, and his views about songwriting. You’ll be able to catch a scaled down version of that discussion tomorrow when the latest issue of The Source Weekly hits stands. I’ve also picked out a few of my favorite responses from Snider that didn’t make the piece and posted them below for you to check out. Be sure to grab a print copy tomorrow and read the rest of what Snider had to say. If you’re a fan of his… part of it may shock you.
On writing songs…
“…from my world view making records is just acres of words and emotions being sorted and shifted by instinct with the hope of someday, doing something that moves me as much as The Stones or Dylan moves me…”
On life and death…
“I’m sad that I’m going to die, but I’m not worried about it. It’s not something that might happen, it’s all we know for sure. Hope isn’t something that I have ever craved or needed… faith either. I like to look at the now for what it is, not for what it could’ve been. Right now we know we are here. We don’t know why we are here or where we’re going when we leave here… and that’s a huge lack of information to try and live with. Denial of this drives mankind crazy and causes war and famine. We want to pretend we’re not dying, so we build things, play sports, save trophies, make scrapbooks, have pageants and proms. Count me out.”
On his “Stoner Fables”…
“… no lessons. If you learn something from me, it’s your own fault and I will not be held accountable in any way.”
On his approach to live shows…
“…I truly don’t give a shit how the shows go or who takes what away from them. I don’t care if I’m cheered or booed. Which I think tends to make my shows go well. It’s more a bi-product of indifference than it is a product of hope or effort. For me it’s like surfing. The only part of it that’s up to me is getting in the water. The rest is instinct and acceptance.”
“The key is not to have goals. For me the key to everything is to avoid goals. They are a waste of notebook paper.”
On the music of Jerry Jeff Walker…
“I do feel blessed by music and I feel an enormous dept to Jerry Jeff and his wife for carving out the art they did. His art watered the seeds of my discontent as a young man. In fact… fuck Metallica. I’m going to spray paint “Jerry Jeff Walker” on the side of my old school. He’s ten times more dangerous and unpredictable of a man than that whole band and all their friends combined.” (see the print copy for added context)
On the recording session for an as yet unreleased album of Jerry Jeff Walker covers…
“Between you and me, the police should have been called to this session. Luckily they were not and everybody came out fairly intact.”
This article appears in Apr 12-18, 2012.
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