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Todd Snider resides in his Airbnb in downtown New York for less than 24 hours, but the apartment is already filled with personal touches from the 52-year-old singer-songwriter: weed, a guitar acoustic, a wad of banknotes, a coffee table and a laptop open to YouTube search for "country singer Sylvester Stallone".
Snider wrote this particular sentence to show his road director a clip of "Drinkin 'Stein", a song by Stallone and the 1984 country musical Dolly Parton. strbad.
"Budweiser, you have created a monster", Snider, wearing a faded Nirvana yellow t-shirt, sings loudly with a huge smile on his face. "They call it" Drinkinstein "."
Snider spends a few days in New York to rest before embarking on two full years of solo-acoustic touring, a prospect that, in his opinion, seems daunting at this stage of his career. The singer has experienced a hectic and sometimes dangerous time for five years following his divorce in 2014. Snider, who has long struggled against back pain, has spent his last years abusing painkillers and opiates – "Everything you can have, everything" – before giving up that habit in the last 12 months.
"I feel good today," said the singer. "In a few days, I will not do it, and a painkiller would really help me, but it would be better for me to stretch myself and maybe smoke some grbad and that I drink a lot of water. "
Snider's new album, Cash Cabin Sessions, Vol. 3, is a sparse acoustic collection of spiritual blues originals and nostalgic memories of old Nashville – recorded, as its title suggests, in Johnny Cash's Tennessee booth – which also marks a musical comeback for Snider after a series of detours in a garage rock jam strips.
"I always thought of myself as a guy like Jack Elliott of Ramblin," he says. "Even though I never made an album like that, I always shot like that. I always thought, "That's what I do." And if I do something else, it's just another thing: a jam band, a rock record, every time I leave that, I see a gap.
For the moment, Snider is especially excited to be attending a studio recording of View, his favorite show while in town. "I watch it every morning," he says. "These are my daughters. I do not have a favorite, I have a tie for five for the first. Richard Lewis will have it so that I can meet Joy Behar.
Snider has recently sat down with Rolling stone for a long talk about his new album, touch the bottom with painkillers, regain health, the promise of Nashville's new generation of songwriters, and much more.
This album looks like a return to the heart of what you know: intelligent and spiritual folk songs. Have you felt the need to go back to your roots after trying new things for most of the last decade?
I am a little exhausted by people. I'm really good now, but I felt like I wanted to learn new things. I was really interested in garage rock, in the early '60s Kingsmen and the Sonics, and I studied it like crazy. And then I tried to reproduce it[le2016[On2016's[le2016[on2016’sBulldog is]. And then I ended up in the Dead and all that, Wobespread Chris Robinson, and I had to explore that with my Hard Working Americans band. I had the impression of having learned a lot from these two types of music. I learned chords that I did not know and went back to work.
Apart from a few chords, what more did you think these detours taught you?
I picked up a ton of jam band. This gave meaning to the acid. And that, for me, is a very melodic thing. Tripping is very melodic. And then with the Bulldog thing, when it started I was a kind of anti-alphabet. What I was reading was that language is the big mistake. It does not work. And that brought me back to "Louie Louie" and the things I grew up on. I forced myself to sing songs that just said "baby, baby, baby". My mentor [Ken Finlay] would have rolled in his grave, but I had to do it. If I could not scream "baby" for a few minutes, I did not think I would ever try to sing another story.
You did not make a record like Cash box since 2012 Agnostic Hymns & Fables Stoner.
This record was a little fuzzy to do. I was a little messy when I did it. I am a little messy, though. When I make records, at least. When I make a record, this is the moment when another person calls a psychiatrist. For example, "agree, just save this and move on." Let's move on to the next problem. But these two albums are similar in the subject, Agnostic and this new. They feel a little similar. It's like tracking, a lot more than the other things I've done since. These would be called bedbugs, I suppose. But I love these two groups. bulldogs It's never the same person, it's just the one who is at home. But the Americans who work hard are a gang. I hope that I will always be in this group and that we will always play.
In addition to being a musical detour, playing in a band like Hard Working Americans has it also been a personal escape? Was it helpful to feel more anonymous?
Yes, because I was not the boss. It was a bit like taking a few years, but still. . It's as if someone said you can come to work, but it does not matter. I could arrive a minute before the show and do it. I stumbled a lot, almost always with LSD or some sort of ridiculous thing. I can not do that when I play alone. I tried it and it does not work. You have to play the guitar. Once I stuck my hands and could not see my hand, so I had to keep the same chord for half an hour. I would like to say that no one noticed it, but that 's what they did.
Does the timing of joining hard-working Americans coincide with your divorce?
It happened right after. I do not think they played a role in each other, but these guys helped a lot. It was not easy.
Having this support system must have been a real added benefit during this time.
If I had been alone on the road, I do not know if I would have done it. There is so much drugs on the road. Once you have opened the door to drugs, there are only a lot of ways to get it. I was really happy to have met Dave Schools and these guys when I did it. But I remember that at one point, I played Exile on Main St. all the way through, and I realized, "I'm fine. I'm back. I can not tell you how many times I have listened to this recording. It was hard to do without my ex. You have this person in your life and this record in your life. But I remember sitting in Phoenix, listening to everything and not having to turn it off, "I'm fine." I was ready to create new memories with this album.
"It's embarrbading, but in reality it's not the case. It's just the way of life. I am not the first. Will not be the last. I would not trade my musical life for anything. Even deep down, I love it.
Where was it?
It was about a year ago. But just after, I had a fit just before a show. It was embarrbading. I did not take care of myself as much as people did. And that must have stopped. There is a comedian named Richard Lewis, he is on the new album, and he's a friend of mine and he's just ridiculed me: "Come on, man." Between him and the group and everyone, I just come, you know, just went back to work.
Did Richard Lewis contact you?
Towards the end, there was a prize giving ceremony that I missed. I think Jim Keltner could have been there, or maybe Don Was. In any case, they called Richard, and he called me. He reached out his hand. That's how I know him, because he was told that I was in the process He started calling and I was drugging, he was saying to me, "I can say it." He made fun of me and I was embarrbaded. I did not stop for another year after that. Everything exploded at a festival we had not even played. It was the beginning of the end.
I remember pretty much back then, in 2016, who had seen an announcement where you had to cancel very direct programs with your back problems and pain medications.
Yes, that was it. I just fell into this hole. It was just a difficult time, so I took hard drugs and overcame the problem, and it's over now. It was not an addiction. It was not a depression. People would say that I was depressed and that I would be like, "No, I'm happy. That's right, it sucks. That's why I got baded and sing blindly for a few years. I already did it It's like the third time. "Every day at a time …" I do not do that.
This type of mentality is not for you?
The thing of AA? I did it once or twice. I've been to rehab a few times. It works for a lot of people. I do not know if I could honestly say that I have already tried hard enough to see if it would work for me. I usually smoked a J after I got out of these things. Some people say it's not drugs. That's all I do now. When I smoke, people act as if I were sober: "All right, Todd takes care of himself."
You said that the beginning of the end for you was a festival in which you did not finish playing. Did this make you the bottom line?
That's when I thought, "Okay." The show was canceled. I ended up going to the hospital. The concert the day before and the next day was great. It's embarrbading, but in reality it's not. It's just the way of life. I am not the first. Will not be the last. I would not trade my musical life for anything. Even deep down, I love it. I love this night where we have not played. I had a good time. I did it. I laughed a lot, even in the ambulance.
You took a lot of pills to help you cope with your back pain?
Yeah. Today is much better to exercise. I have to do sit ups. But it would be so much easier to simply inject morphine into my hip in the morning. I wish you could do that and live. And I hope that if you wake up and shoot morphine at the hip, that does not mean you're going to play before noon and so on, but that's the case. If I put myself in drugs for a long time, I would attack the muse and avoid the concert because you are in a deck of cards that you think will be a song and everyone goes away. to be really proud of you. And then, no story comes from those three days you've gone, and everyone is unhappy that you're gone. And you do not have a song to show, or a story, or anything.
You do not feel that these new songs are very much related to the period you are talking about.
That's true. I thought more about songs. There are many songs on the songs of this album. Many sing about singing. There were a lot of songs that looked like "she's divorced, and now …", but they did not do it. There was a lot. "Oh, I'm so depressed because of a girl." I do not like these songs.
Is there a new song that makes you feel the best?
The one on the banjo [“The Blues on Banjo”]. But also "Like a Force of Nature". This song looked like all the songs that I had launched [about divorce] were reaching for that one, and I finally got it. I thought, "I can live with that. I will say that like that. "
This album gives the impression of honestly counting with the time in which we live. It is therefore quite logical that the narrator of "The Blues in Banjo" flirts with the conspiracy theories, the truths of 9/11.
That's what a lot of people do. I'm very much in the ideas: the military-industrial complex and the industrial complex of the prison. I do not think they are conspiracies, but simply a flow of natural power. On this new album, I hoped I did not seem to draw any conclusions or ideas. It's interesting again. I am one of those who think that the value policy is probably more of a show. They say that if you are not angry, you are not careful. I am kind of not.
You are not angry or you are not careful?
Both. But I fight, because I mean, "oh, Trump makes no difference." But his racial bullshit on television makes it hard to say that. If I were sitting with him, all I would say is, "I thought you were going to hire the best people. You have said it again and again. You've fired half and they're all clowns. But see me, I do not really like to be so entangled, unless you start talking about how young black men are treated. It's something we can really do. If you have an event for that, I'll go there.
Johnny Cash, Loretta Lynn and Cowboy Jack Clement all appear on this album. What motivated this type of thinking about old Nashville?
Part of that was that I was coming back to where I came from: Kristofferson and all that. And Nashville turned around, and I was part of it. I married guys [Jason Isbell and Amanda Shires] who lead the charge. I have spent all my life hoping that this will happen, that this moment will happen. And so this song about Cowboy Jack, "Cowboy Jack Clement's Waltz", do you know Kristofferson's song? [“The Pilgrim: Chapter 33”] where he's going, "this song started about Johnny Cash …"? I've almost done "this song started about Jason Isbell, Carll Hayes, Justin Earle Towns, Sturgill Simpson, Amanda Shires and Elizabeth Cook. sure. "For me it was the whole point." Hey, the guard is changing. "It's really cool to see this thing do not spoil.
What is the longest period of your life without your solo folk shows?
Maybe half a year. Not long. Because I have to. Someone will introduce themselves and say, "You owe someone that money," then I have to go play on TV shows. I never got too far from that. It's been very hard for me for a while and I hope it will not happen again. I am only an old arthritic type. But I was also ready for a company for a while. And some jammer. This year, I want to try to do all my shows. If I do that, it will be the first time. But last year, they missed me only because I got sick. But today, I look pretty healthy. It's my motto: "I look pretty good." I do not shoot like bands. I am on the same turn as I have always been. It's just a long Daily Planet tour, you know? I went on that one, and I never went home.
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