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Todd Snider Biography
"I'm broke as the Ten Commandments and sometimes I'm harder to follow..."
-from "Money, Compliments, Publicity" by Todd Snider
Initially The Excitement Plan wasn't supposed to be about anything. I was just trying to come up with the best... most open hearted ... well-thought-out lyrics I could come up with. I wanted every song to be sad and funny at the same time, vulnerable and entertaining at the same time, personal and universal at the same time. I wanted every song to be as uniquely written as possible and then I wanted to perform them in a studio loose and rugged and hopefully as uniquely as I could. My hope is to be hard to describe and/or new...I'm not saying I am. I'm just saying that's the hope.
My producer, Don Was thought the best way to go for what I was talking about was live and spontaneous. So we set up at Henson studios in Los Angeles with myself on guitar, harp and piano. Greg Liesz on steel guitar and dobro. Don on upright bass, Jim Keltner on drums and Krish Harma engineering.
Then, with Don being the only one who'd heard the songs and me being the only one who knew them, we recorded completely live for just two and a half days.
As God is my witness and whether you even like this music or not, it was the most exciting, most challenging, most uninhibited and funnest time I've ever had making music...
- Todd Snider
The Excitement Plan's laid- back groove and top- shelf lyrics are being called Snider's best work yet. "This music is sorta JJ Cale meets Jerry Jeff Walker sounding with words that would hopefully impress Shel Silverstein, Bobby Bare, Chuck Berry, Kris Kristofferson or Randy Newman," Snider said. With his contributions of stellar guitar, piano and harmonica, his musicianship shares the spotlight as easily as his treasured lyrics.
Snider is a vociferous musician whose fans know him to be quite the workhorse. His acclaimed 2006 release, The Devil You Know found the barefoot troubadour performing live on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno and Late Night with David Letterman and the CD appeared on numerous year-end Top 10 lists including Spin, Blender and Rolling Stone. More recently, last year's Peace Queer EP--a concept record featuring all the peace, love and anarchy Snider is known for-inspired Blender to say he "morphed from a wisecracking country-ish journeyman to the sharpest and funniest protest singer working today." The EP spent five weeks at number one on the Americana chart and Spin Magazine dubbed him, "One of roots music's slyest, smartest songwriters."
On a final note, Snider adds: "To me, The Excitement Plan is about the lap of poverty, being sung with authority and experience. Where Peace Queer was speculation from afar, The Excitement Plan is certainty from the heart of the story, i think anyway ... It had lots of rewrites on both words and music, lots of wondering what the point was and waiting for it to show up. I don't like to finish any song 'til I know what the therapeutic part for me is gonna be."
Initially The Excitement Plan wasn't supposed to be about anything. I was just trying to come up with the best... most open hearted ... well-thought-out lyrics I could come up with. I wanted every song to be sad and funny at the same time, vulnerable and entertaining at the same time, personal and universal at the same time. I wanted every song to be as uniquely written as possible and then I wanted to perform them in a studio loose and rugged and hopefully as uniquely as I could. My hope is to be hard to describe and/or new...I'm not saying I am. I'm just saying that's the hope.
My producer, Don Was thought the best way to go for what I was talking about was live and spontaneous. So we set up at Henson studios in Los Angeles with myself on guitar, harp and piano. Greg Liesz on steel guitar and dobro. Don on upright bass, Jim Keltner on drums and Krish Harma engineering.
Then, with Don being the only one who'd heard the songs and me being the only one who knew them, we recorded completely live for just two and a half days.
As God is my witness and whether you even like this music or not, it was the most exciting, most challenging, most uninhibited and funnest time I've ever had making music...
- Todd Snider
The Excitement Plan's laid- back groove and top- shelf lyrics are being called Snider's best work yet. "This music is sorta JJ Cale meets Jerry Jeff Walker sounding with words that would hopefully impress Shel Silverstein, Bobby Bare, Chuck Berry, Kris Kristofferson or Randy Newman," Snider said. With his contributions of stellar guitar, piano and harmonica, his musicianship shares the spotlight as easily as his treasured lyrics.
Snider is a vociferous musician whose fans know him to be quite the workhorse. His acclaimed 2006 release, The Devil You Know found the barefoot troubadour performing live on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno and Late Night with David Letterman and the CD appeared on numerous year-end Top 10 lists including Spin, Blender and Rolling Stone. More recently, last year's Peace Queer EP--a concept record featuring all the peace, love and anarchy Snider is known for-inspired Blender to say he "morphed from a wisecracking country-ish journeyman to the sharpest and funniest protest singer working today." The EP spent five weeks at number one on the Americana chart and Spin Magazine dubbed him, "One of roots music's slyest, smartest songwriters."
On a final note, Snider adds: "To me, The Excitement Plan is about the lap of poverty, being sung with authority and experience. Where Peace Queer was speculation from afar, The Excitement Plan is certainty from the heart of the story, i think anyway ... It had lots of rewrites on both words and music, lots of wondering what the point was and waiting for it to show up. I don't like to finish any song 'til I know what the therapeutic part for me is gonna be."
Todd Snider All Music Guide Biography
Singer/songwriter Todd Snider first garnered attention for his timely alt-rock satire "Talkin' Seattle Grunge Rock Blues," a folk-rock song that struck a chord with younger people fed up with angry alternative rock bands, and at the same time, appealed to aging rockers who grew up with the folk revival of the 1960s. Snider was born in Portland, OR, and grew up in Santa Rosa, Austin, Houston, and Atlanta. After moving to Memphis in the mid-'80s and establishing residency at a local club named The Daily Planet, he was discovered by singer/songwriter Keith Sykes, a member of Jimmy Buffett's Coral Reefer Band. Sykes began to work with Snider to help advance his career, and after passing on demo tapes of Snider to Buffett, he was signed to the star's Margaritaville Records. Snider's debut album, Songs for the Daily Planet was released in the fall of 1994; "Talkin' Seattle Grunge Rock Blues" was added to the album as an afterthought only after intense lobbying by a Canadian music critic, and ultimately became a minor hit.
On his second effort, 1996's Step Right Up, Snider and his band, the Nervous Wrecks (comprised of lead guitarist and multi-instrumentalist Will Kimbrough, bassist Joe Mariencheck, drummer Joe McLeary, and keyboardist David Zollo), continued blending bluegrass, blues, folk-rock, and country-rock to forge their own distinctive sound. On his third album, 1998's Viva Satellite, Snider took a Tom Petty approach, replacing much of his acoustic setup with twang-drenched electric guitar. In 2000, he signed to John Prine's Oh Boy label and returned to his singer/songwriter roots with Happy to Be Here. He recorded three more records for the label, 2002's New Connection, 2003's Near Truths and Hotel Rooms Live, and 2004's East Nashville Skyline. That Was Me: The Best of Todd Snider 1994-1998 was released on Hip-O in 2005, and the next year Snider's eighth album, Devil You Know, came out. In 2008 Snider released the politically charged Peace Queer, an eight-song collection of antiwar songs as filtered through Snider's signature wit and amiable pathos. ~ Richard Skelly, All Music Guide
On his second effort, 1996's Step Right Up, Snider and his band, the Nervous Wrecks (comprised of lead guitarist and multi-instrumentalist Will Kimbrough, bassist Joe Mariencheck, drummer Joe McLeary, and keyboardist David Zollo), continued blending bluegrass, blues, folk-rock, and country-rock to forge their own distinctive sound. On his third album, 1998's Viva Satellite, Snider took a Tom Petty approach, replacing much of his acoustic setup with twang-drenched electric guitar. In 2000, he signed to John Prine's Oh Boy label and returned to his singer/songwriter roots with Happy to Be Here. He recorded three more records for the label, 2002's New Connection, 2003's Near Truths and Hotel Rooms Live, and 2004's East Nashville Skyline. That Was Me: The Best of Todd Snider 1994-1998 was released on Hip-O in 2005, and the next year Snider's eighth album, Devil You Know, came out. In 2008 Snider released the politically charged Peace Queer, an eight-song collection of antiwar songs as filtered through Snider's signature wit and amiable pathos. ~ Richard Skelly, All Music Guide
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