{"id":4518,"date":"2012-06-29T09:35:54","date_gmt":"2012-06-29T15:35:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stylusmagazine.ca\/?p=4518"},"modified":"2012-06-29T09:35:54","modified_gmt":"2012-06-29T15:35:54","slug":"todd-snider-agnostic-stoner-folkie-takes-to-the-folk-fest-stage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/2012\/06\/29\/todd-snider-agnostic-stoner-folkie-takes-to-the-folk-fest-stage\/","title":{"rendered":"Todd Snider :: Agnostic stoner folkie takes to the Folk Fest stage"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\nby Sheldon Birnie<\/strong><\/p>\n

Todd Snider is an American stoner-folk-songwriting troubadour in every sense of the terms. For the past 20 years, he\u2019s written 12 albums and performed to thousands of fans across the world. In anticipation of his Winnipeg Folk Festival performance,<\/em> Stylus caught up with Snider <\/a><\/em>at home in East Nashville for a phone conversation about his craft, his love of Jerry Jeff Walker, the Folk Fest, and the Nashville Predators.<\/em><\/p>\n

Stylus: You\u2019re coming to Winnipeg for the Folk Fest, and you\u2019ve got a couple new records out. Why don\u2019t we talk about those first? You just did a record of Jerry Jeff Walker tunes [Time As We Know It: The Songs of Jerry Jeff Walker<\/em>]\u2026
\nTodd Snider: <\/strong>Yeah, it was fun. It was, it felt like\u2026 The reason I did it was the last record, Agnostic Hymns & Stoner Fables,<\/em> it felt like the end for me. I\u2019ve said what I\u2019ve got to say. I think I\u2019ve made 12 records, so what is that, roughly 120 songs? That feels like enough, you know? So I figured I\u2019m going to stop this part of my life, the making up songs part, and try to find some other things to do. So I felt like making the Jerry Jeff record was more like a present to myself, you know. I don\u2019t think the world needs new versions of these songs. Jerry Jeff did them best. This was more like a going away party for myself. I\u2019ve had a lot of fun making records. I\u2019m not going to not make records, just maybe not as Todd Snider. I\u2019m not going to do that no more. I\u2019m going to tour and everything as long as I can. But I\u2019ll probably focus more on my side band now. Or maybe try to write something else. Anyway, in my mind I\u2019d just made up my last batch of songs and to celebrate that I threw a party and sang my favourite songs of my hero. And the guy who made me want to do it to begin with. It was a stoner party. And a drunk. But it came out good. The songs still sound good.<\/span><\/p>\n

Stylus: What made you decide to stop? Was it a long time coming? Or when you were done the record did it just feel like the end of the road?
\nTS: <\/strong>I started to see it coming after The Devil You Know<\/em>. So about three records back I could see this craving\u2026 Well, no, let me think\u2026 Maybe right around The Excitement Plan<\/em>, after I was done that record and I felt these songs coming. I could just see that this thing I was trying to say my whole life, I feel like I\u2019ve said it. That desire to be understood is lifted. I don\u2019t care if I\u2019m understood anymore.<\/p>\n

Stylus: Maybe that Agnostic Hymns<\/em> record really was a good way to go out. It sounds like it was a fun record to make.
\nTS: <\/strong>That was an even bigger party than the Jerry Jeff one. That wasn\u2019t supposed to be that way. We just got into it over there at Eric [McConnell]\u2019s for a few days. It seemed like the right thing at the time. I feel like parts of that record I\u2019m singing to my entire life as a person who wrote and recorded, which I\u2019ve been doing now for just coming on to 20 years. That was a good time, you know.<\/p>\n

Stylus: Shifting gears here a little, you\u2019re playing the WFF, which is kind of Winnipeg\u2019s biggest party. Have you been up here before?
\nTS: <\/strong>I think maybe I have. I think I met Corb Lund there. And there was this other girl, she\u2019s having a really good year\u2026 Fuck, I can\u2019t remember her name, but I met her there too.<\/p>\n

Stylus: What can we expect from you up here?
\nTS<\/strong>: Oh, let\u2019s see. I try not have a plan or a goal when I go up. But I know I\u2019ll probably have a good time. There\u2019s lots of stages, right?<\/p>\n

Stylus: Yep.
\nTS<\/strong>: I remember it. You get to meet lots of other singers. I\u2019ll probably just\u2026 Well, I\u2019m going to bring my band, the Burn Outs, so that\u2019ll be fun. It\u2019s just a little band, but we\u2019re mighty.<\/p>\n

Stylus: What do you think of when you think of Canada?
\nTS: <\/strong>Well\u2026 Man, I gotta think of that girl\u2019s name\u2026 What is that guy, Bon Iver? Kathleen Edwards! Aren\u2019t they boyfriend and girlfriend these days? I saw her name in a magazine and I was like, \u201cI know her!\u201d That was a decade ago it seems like, when I met her and Corb. So I think of the friends I\u2019ve made. And Fred Eaglesmith.<\/p>\n

Stylus: He\u2019s playing in Winnipeg at the same time as the Folk Fest, but a different venue.
\nTS: <\/strong>Oh, so he\u2019ll be in town? I hope I get to see him.<\/p>\n

Stylus: One thing I\u2019d like to know, and this is the fan in me coming out here, is a little backstory on your tune \u201cPlay a Train Song.\u201d Robert Earl Keen just put that tune on his latest record [Ready for Confetti<\/em>]. Can you tell me a little about that song, if you don\u2019t mind? I just love it.
\nTS:<\/strong> That\u2019s a song about a friend of mine named Skip Litz. This neighbourhood I live in, East Nashville, it\u2019s sort of a musician\u2019s neighbourhood, and it started about ten years ago. He was kind of the architect of all that. He was a roadie for Doctor Hook and the Medicine Show, then he ran sound down at this bar right in the middle of our neighbourhood. He sold dope. He\u2019d do anything. He was the hub, the mayor. If you needed an amp, you called him. If you needed a drummer, you called him. He was like the pimp of everything. If you needed a human toe, like in The Big Lubowski<\/em>, you called him. \u00a0He had become a really close friend of mine. He lived right around the corner. We became like everyday, best friends for five years. I was the sidekick. The Barney to his Andy. The\u2026 well, I guess Fonzie didn\u2019t have a sidekick. The Squiggy to his Lenny. I would ride with him. He had this old Cadillac, and he would park it\u2026 He was just cool. It was like out of movie or a cartoon to see this guy. In fact, just this morning my wife was going through a closet and she found this sign that we saved after he passed away. It was hanging in a bar here, and it says \u201cNo Smoking, Unless Your Name is Skip Litz.\u201d So that\u2019s how, I don\u2019t know why, but he would park on the sidewalk. He just did what he wanted and it was known. He\u2019d walk into a bar and yell \u201cPlay a Train Song\u201d and the band would do it. It was a fun tradition around here. Sometimes the band would try to stand up to him and they\u2019d realize that the whole crowd was going to go with him. I imagine if you\u2019re from out of town you\u2019d think he was just a drunk heckler, but you\u2019d better play a train song or the crowd would start booing. So he was a cool guy. Then he found out he was going to die, then it was getting worse. There was a surgery here and there. Towards the last 8 months of his life, he asked if he could come travel with me, cuz that\u2019s what he wanted to do. Then we went, I think we went like the beach in Florida and went swimming and shit and had a blast. Then we came home and I was supposed to go to Virginia, and we were having a little cook out the night before we were supposed to leave and I couldn\u2019t get him on the phone. I went over there with our roommate and my wife and two of our friends to see where he was. For some reason we had a funny feeling about it. We went over there and he was laying on the couch. The television was all that white static stuff, you know, when the channels were gone. And he was laying there smiling, like whatever happened, he was probably watching something funny on TV and his heart just popped or something. But it looked like he was laughing. And he was stiff and cold as shit. I went over and shook him and knew right away, shit, it\u2019s over. And so then, he was friends with all these songwriters around here. One of his riffs was, he\u2019d say \u201cYou a songwriter? Well I\u2019m a song, man. Just different. And better.\u201d And when he died, boy, I wrote a song, but it wasn\u2019t the only one. There\u2019s about five or six songs about that guy.<\/p>\n

Stylus: You\u2019re a pretty outspoken advocate for marijuana users. Can you comment on the marijuana policy, in the States or in Canada? Or just generally?
\nTS: <\/strong>Foolish old men being foolish, I say. We\u2019re right in line behind the gay community. There are probably more beleaguered members of our community, behind the gay community. The gay community is finally figured out, or at least smart ones are starting to tell the dumb ones that it\u2019s not such a scary thing. And here we come up right behind them. All the way up. I don\u2019t know if you guys will come with us or not. But you got some good shit going on right now. Isn\u2019t your health care better than ours? And your hockey. And Neil Young\u2026<\/p>\n

Stylus: The Nashville Predators had a pretty good run this year\u2026
\nTS: <\/strong>How about that? I was excited. Didn\u2019t we make it through a round in the playoffs? Yeah, that was fun. We were watching some of that on the bus, trying to root for the home team. But we really didn\u2019t know what the hell was going on.<\/p>\n

Catch Todd Snider and the Burn Outs at the Winnipeg Folk Festival this year. You won\u2019t regret it.<\/em><\/p>\n

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by Sheldon Birnie Todd Snider is an American stoner-folk-songwriting troubadour in every sense of the terms. For the past 20 years, he\u2019s written 12 albums and performed to thousands of fans across the world. In anticipation of his Winnipeg Folk Festival performance, Stylus caught up with Snider at home in East Nashville for a phone […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[360,1106],"class_list":["post-4518","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-features","tag-folk","tag-winnipeg-folk-festival"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4518","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4518"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4518\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4518"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4518"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4518"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}