Todd Snider catches a 'Buzz' on new album

Todd Snider’s new album, “Eastside Bulldog,” is 26 minutes long.

“That’s about how long it took to record, too,” Snider said while sitting on the back porch of his Hendersonville, Tenn. home.

“Eastside Bulldog,” released on Snider’s own Aimless Records, is an album of songs written by his alter ego/nemesis Elmo Buzz, an East Nashville native who’s obsessed with Hank Williams Jr., and loves “chicks and cars and partyin’ hard.” Buzz hates slow songs, story-songs, “that f***ing bulls**** about your feelings” and Snider himself, whose barefoot, fingerpicking folk shows are rife with rambling stories in between the songs. And like the work of John Prine (one of Snider's heroes), the songs tend to be darkly humorous.

“I’ve learned a lot from him, especially about how important it is to stay close to your art," said singer-songwriter Amanda Shires, who has toured and recorded with Snider. "I don’t think anybody does it as well as he does…when he’s on-point, there’s nobody that can out-write him.”

An Oregon native, Snider grew up on ‘60s rock from the Pacific Northwest, like the Sonics and Kingsmen. He channels some of those sounds on “Eastside,” the most rocking solo album he’s made to date. “My favorite lyrics are the ‘wop-bop-a-loo-bop’ (kind),” he said. “There’s something to be said for ‘yeah, yeah, yeah.’ My favorite lyric on the new record is, ‘Hey, baby, let’s rock and roll.’ I was trying to make up lyrics like that."

Looking at his toes, which are painted with chipped, blue nail polish — remnants of a tour with his band the Hard Working Americans — Snider shrugs: “This is probably my record that I like the most, but I don’t think people that like me are going to like it that much.”

Snider has been an integral part of East Nashville's singer-songwriter scene for years. "I think you can directly trace the rise of East Nashville, both musically and culturally, to Todd’s (2004 album) 'East Nashville Skyline,'" said the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum's Peter Cooper, who also co-wrote "Ways and Means," a song on "Eastside Bulldog" that name-checks East Nashville bars and musicians. "That was the first time most people outside of this area ever heard of East Nashville. And the album embodied the spirit, grit, and artistry of East Nashville."

Snider relocated to nearby Hendersonville after his divorce. This is the third summer he’s spent there, planting his own flower garden (“I don’t know the names of them; I just grab colors until it looks like Jimi Hendrix’s belt or something”), swimming in the lake behind his house and playing music. “I sing for 90 minutes out here every night just because I need to. Not for practice. It’s just something I’ve got to do…so I sing for the geese.”

This weekend, Snider will perform for human audiences instead. Friday night, he’ll play a 50th birthday show at the Ryman Auditorium. On Saturday and Sunday, he’ll be at the 5 Spot and Woodland Presbyterian Church, respectively. Those two performances are benefit shows for the church, which is currently preparing to provide meals, sleeping bags and tents to the homeless this winter.

The next week, he and his dog Cowboy Jim set out on tour. After that, he’s not sure what lies ahead: “I’ve never had any plans before. I don’t guess I’ll ever start making them. I’ll just make s*** up, I guess. Go on tour. Die eventually, which ain’t the worst thing. Can’t be that bad; everybody does it.”

If You Go

8 p.m. Friday: Todd Snider with Rorey Carroll at the Ryman, $30-40

9 p.m. Saturday: Elmo Buzz Birthday Bash at the 5 Spot, 

12 p.m. Sunday: Woodland Presbyterian Church

Who is Elmo Buzz?

Snider began using the pseudonym “Elmo Buzz” as a way to get around radius clauses, which prevent artists from performing within certain distances of a concert for  a number of weeks before and after the show. “That morphed into this band and I came up with the idea for the person that Elmo Buzz was: he's kind of the opposite of what I do...and he hates me because I stole his look," Snider said.

“The legend – or the legend I came up with and pretend someone else told me – is that Elmo rehearsed his band for 12 years before they auditioned at the 3 Crow. They got the gig, and on the first night, they (emptied) the house. So Elmo yelled at the band until he thought they were better. The second time they played, they still cleared the house. The third time, his sister got so excited by how great they finally were, that she jumped up, started dancing like crazy half-naked, and now people go to his gigs. He thinks it was coincidental."