You Asked, Todd Answered, Part 11
Final round of Todd Snider’s answers to questions posed in the “Ask Todd Anything, Part 2” thread
By Daryl Sanders
In this, the 11th and final installment of questions submitted in The Snider Files’ second “Ask Todd Anything” thread, Todd Snider addresses deadlines, click tracks, romance and whether he will write another book.
Snider also wanted to give subscribers to The Snider Files an update on his health.
“I think this is the last one of these for now, so I wanted to let everyone know that what my new chiropractor is doing is actually working,” he wrote in a recent email. “I feel better than I have felt in years. My stomach is staying in place, and we’ve turned the clock back on my bones a lot, too. I feel 60 again. And I am looking forward to New York in August, as well as finally playing Mountain Stage in September, playing at the “You Got Gold” concert on my birthday and making up a show in Missouri in November. Next year, I’m back up and at ’em, kicking ass and taking names, just the same as ever if not even more the same.”
Scott Kravetz: Do you generally abide by deadlines and rules? If so, you won’t be answering this. In the words of the great Mac Rebennack, “Peace, brother, peace, the doctor's comin’.”
Todd: I’ve never really had a deadline, but I don’t mind rules. If I know of rules, I’ll try to abide by them. I like to think I know all or at least close to all of the ones that get applied to writing songs. I respect them, and in general, I follow them. But I think breaking the rules is also a way of paying respect to them. Before I made that album called First Agnostic Church of Hope and Wonder, I made a list of all the rules I wanted to break that I hadn’t broken yet and made that a big part of the album. All those songs have wonky teeth. Deadlines though. I can’t think of any time I’ve had one of those.
Kyle: Any chance of another book? I take I Never Met a Story everywhere with me, just in case I need to smile. Will the Hard Working American albums come out after all the solo Sunday shows? Speaking of HWA any chance of a few more live shows getting released? Thanks for always making my day brighter, Todd.
Todd: You know, I read the book not long ago, and when it got to ending where my doctor left me hanging on a high five, it hit me as I was reading it 10 years later, how there was no way the guy walking out of that doctor’s office could have known that his life would never be sweet and simple and wholesome like that again. After that book came out, I started experimenting with drugs, making bad decisions, letting people down. Skyrocketing to fame as an author exposed a side of me that could get pretty reckless. Eventually it felt like everything I typed out read a little like Tom Petty, except it was more like a lot. And then also, death. But I have the title though, I NEVER SAID I LIKED EVERY STORY I KNEW.
I think I might have played Rest In Chaos during that. Also, after The Devil You Know, we’re presenting the next one as Crank It, We’re Doomed. But here's the main thing, and I am sure I’ll explain it wrong. After all the Purple Versions are available for free, we’re making a six-vinyl Purple box that looks like the Purple Building with all the covers by Scramble Campbell — the cat that live paints during Red Rocks. I think I picked my 40 favorite songs from the All My Songs series and trimmed the talking where I could, because I wanted to, and am going to add live in-concert versions of my favorite stories; like that story I tell about being able to be out of somewhere in 15 minutes, which is actually two stories. Also there’s a song called “Blues On Banjo” that makes way more sense with the pre-song bullshit, so I’m putting that on there, and then I have that story I was telling about when I had to hold a banana through a Hard Working Americans show. And then lastly there is a story about Jerry Jeff Walker that I want to put on it, too.
Our band HWA was like a comet. One of my favorite things about being in that band was meeting Daniel Sproul and and playing with him. We did some great shows with Daniel. But there was something electric that had nothing to do with drugs about Neal Casal and Dave Schools. Even just being in the same room together had a way of making it feel like we were up to some creepy voodoo.
Randy: Do you also give romantic advice? Do you plan to challenge the new Tennessee law that prohibits people who were ordained as ministers online from marrying people?
Todd: Throw caution to the wind, forget what people think and put the moves on somebody. Anybody. As a minister, I am zero for two. Both brides broke the grooms' hearts. One even came for mine, but she only got my camera.
Dan Leyes: Some songs come easily, almost prewritten, and it takes minutes. Other songs we work for years on. Do you think there is an essential difference between the two, in the final result? Also, did you ever have to use a click track in the studio? If so, did you find it challenging? Do/would you still use one?
Todd: I like this question. Yeah, no, right? I don’t think there’s a difference. And the HWA songs were like a combination in a way. I can play to a click if I set it. Or here’s an Eric McConnell trick: Mute the strings and strum like you would during the song, so it’s just clicking the strings like a percussion instrument. Record it until your engineer says he’s got four bars of you playing in perfect time. Then have him loop it and try playing to that.
© 2024 Daryl Sanders
I love all of the responses over the course of this project, but the best thing is hearing that you’re feeling better.
Awesome news Todd! Next stop Camp What the Folk!