<\/p>\n
\n\tTodd Snider<\/a> is in pain.<\/p>\n \n\tAnd fans hoping to catch the gritty, live-it-to-the-hilt storyteller in person would be wise to catch the full-band tour he is launching at the end of October in support of High, Lonesome and Then Some<\/em>, his just released new album.<\/p>\n \n\tAfter more than three decades of hard living on the road, Snider has been mostly away from the stage since 2022, suffering from spinal stenosis. The 14-show run that kicks off on Oct. 30 at the Gothic Theater in Englewood, Colorado, could very well be Snider\u2019s last tour.<\/p>\n \n\tSnider is also reckoning with a pileup of grief and heartache that has compounded itself over the past decade: close friends died and various personal relationships went south. He\u2019s dealt with the resulting pain by writing a flurry of songs, nine of which made the cut for High, Lonesome and Then Some<\/em>, Snider\u2019s first record of all-new material since 2021\u2019s First Agnostic Church of Hope and Wonder<\/em>.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cI couldn\u2019t tour, so I got into this routine of working on songs and all kinds of other different art, along with this meditation thing I\u2019ve gotta do,\u201d Snider tells Rolling Stone<\/em>. \u201cI kind of blended it all together. I would be painting and making songs at the same time, and I was alone the whole time. When it came time to record, I felt like I wanted to sit in the same chair.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tSnider says he\u2019s often modeled his art after Jerry Jeff Walker, the cosmic-cowboy troubadour that he regards as a hero who died in 2020<\/a>. \u201cHe tried to create moments, and make it like a fun trip when you make an album,\u201d Snider says. \u201cI tried to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tThe result is a nine-track record that plays out slowly and deliberately. Snider\u2019s cracking vocals are laid over simple drums and riffs closer to blues than folk. This is intentional, and it\u2019s where the \u201chigh\u201d in the title comes into play. Snider wanted the record to evoke the feeling of being stoned and slowing down the pace of life to something he can process. It came to him when he began picking a Waylon Jennings song and then overlaid a Bob Marley song on top, creating what he called a \u201cslow choogle,\u201d which he made the theme of the LP.<\/p>\n