Initially The Excitement Plan (June 9th on Yep Roc Records) 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."
In addition to the new album release, this year also finds Snider doing what he does best: playing live. With a 30-date West Coast tour already under his belt in early 2009, he will spend the spring and summer criss-crossing the Midwest and East Coast with notable festival stops at Bonnaroo (6.14)--where he will be joined by Don Was--Allgood (7.10) as well as at 10,000 Lakes (7.25) with more to be announced.
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 - The Excitement Plan
