MORGAN Y. EVANS: I love your lyric from "Train Song" where you are talking with the homeless character in the song and he says, "I can't decide what to give up, my life or the habit." Can you tell about writing that song and what you wanted to convey and also the making of the music video? Your songs paint such vivid pictures of life and struggle. Also, what's the scoop on the Train Songs Enhanced CD?

DAN SMITH: Well, thanks. I wrote it originally for an album called Whispermoon that was put out in late 2003. I pretty much wrote it in one sitting, which I usually don't do, but that happened and I was pretty happy with getting to say what I wanted to say without much editing. It's a song that certainly changed how I looked at what I wanted to do with my words. I had been spending a lot of time touring hip hop shows and spending a lot of my time standing outside clubs talking with homeless folks because I'd get tired of being inside, and well, the idea hit me then, out on the street. I think I was in Dallas or Atlanta, I can't remember. So, it's been about 5 years since I wrote the song, and that one song changed a lot of things for me. I decided to make 5 versions of it and a video. It's called Train Songs, and I just put that out to give it some more life, to say thanks in a way.

MYE: I greatly admire your work ethic and that you'll play anywhere. A lot of artists claim that but you really are a true entertainer and will adapt to whatever situation or environment that brings you to new listeners. You named your group after us! It was great meeting you when you played with my good friend, rapper Bobby Delicious, who I used to perform with. The first time was playing a cafe in a snowstorm and the second time back through Rosendale, NY (a sleepy little town) the show was at a 50-year old movie theatre! You have done tours of parties and homes and clubs. What are some of your favorite unorthodox situations you've played in?

DS: Again, thanks so much. I really don't pay too much attention to the work. I just have a lot of short term goals, and I guess when you string them all together it looks like non-stop touring and working. The past 4 years have been the most non-stop I've ever done, and it's been so rewarding and it's been pretty great, too. For the most part, you are right, I will play anywhere. I mean, it has to have power/electricity and has to be somewhat organized, but ultimately I'm trying to empower people who know my music and want to share what they've found with their friends, cities, scenes, etc. I've coined a genre name for it, too, "Talk Music", and I just go where I'm wanted. Thankfully, I am wanted in a lot of places. Giving the power to fans has been pretty awesome. It affords me the opportunity to tour with respect and be able to have truly amazing connections at shows. It takes me to large cities and small cities, venues big and small and super random. It really is unique and almost one-of-a-kind every night, and it makes it really special everywhere we get to play. I've played in houses...so many houses, anywhere you can think of in or around a house structure, I've played it. I went on a whole tour (over 300 dates) just in houses. That was the Listener Tour of Homes. There have been many many potluck dinners, shows on rooftops, in attics, so many basements, garages, art galleries, front rooms, backyards, coffee shops, bars, mansions, double wide trailers, apartments, cathedrals, all over Europe and Japan, Canada, and especially the States, all over the US. It's hard to narrow down what my favorite is really. I think the best is when there is like a potluck dinner and a band or two locally to join in and friends and fans all get to come together somewhere and share in a meal and music for one night.

MYE: Let's illuminate some of the shifts in approach from your early material to Return To Struggleville‘08, which was a sort of a re-imagining of your great Ozark Empire CD, the story of a travelling knife salesmen who's life goes awry. Can you talk about the musical exploration and also as far as the salesman story is concerned, what you wanted to say about loneliness and even capitalism?

DS: Ok, yes, there was definitely a shift in approach. I grew up listening to mostly hip hop music and making it. I've made lots of indie hip hop and avant garde stuff. Whatever you want to call it. I didn't really know what to call it at the time, I grew up in Missouri and just happened to listen to that style and made my own version of it. Well, that moved on in to what I did on my first couple solo records, but I like so many more styles of music and music experience to just stick to a certain genre, especially one that I feel not too interested in, or at least don't think it's very interesting. I write poetry and that style of word writing comes natural to me. So, over the course of touring really heavy my mind and heart started to change as to what I wanted to do and sound like and perform like...what I wanted to say, etc. I decided what I was doing wasn't hip hop or indie or whatever, so I called it "Talk Music". It's basically poetry and whatever music we decide fits with the mood and feeling of the song. The traveling knife salesman story came through a poem I wrote about a guy getting stabbed and I decided to tell his story. It's a story about a guy who loses his job and starts going around selling knives. He's a drunk and a cheat and his wife ends up stabbing him to death in the last song. I didn't have any intentions on capitalistic imagery really, that's mostly subliminal or just happens when you talk about selling things and the emptiness that can come from hoarding things. I like to write stories about life experiences and the things that go wrong and the reasons why and sometimes the things that go right.

MYE: Even though you have probably done this countless times, could you do the mandatory explaining of what you mean by "Talk Music" versus rap, to the uninitiated? Your music and lyrical flow reminds me of almost, the oral tradition of telling tales but more like you said, poetry than empty-content bragging. That's what I always loved about better hip hop anyway.

DS: Hip hop and rap have become words with no more meaning to me personally. I am comfortable calling something what it is, and I know there are some rappers and people who make the music who I think are pushing it forward, but I think it's pretty dead. Those genres just are not moving me in my mind and heart. They are unforgiving for the most part to any invention or new beginnings in sound and creation within the genres...so I decided to start my own. It began out of touring. The people who were throwing the shows would put "hip hop show" on the fliers. Some people would come out with completely wrong expectations and some people just wouldn't come out because of their expectations. My goal is and was to play for everyone because I have words and stories about and for everyone, not just people who are into hip hop, and I especially have no time to talk about hip hop in my words. So, the people who would come would say, “This isn't really hip hop,” and the people who didn't come were just missing out on something new and different. So, I thought about it, and said, “Let's call it something different to mix things up,” maybe catch people trying to figure it out, and just have to come and listen for themselves. So, I called it Talk Music. It's basically poems over music...which is sort of hip hop or rap, but it's just more than that. It's like the indie folk version of rap. Talk Music.

MYE: You did SXSW recently. How'd that experience go?

DS: I've played SX twice now, and it's always been just a blast to hang out with friends and tour friends and play lots of shows and see lots of shows. I love that festival, there's nothing like it that I've been a part of anyways. There's a ton of music going on. I feel really small when I play Austin during that week, but it's good fun. I'll play it again and again, you can never play it too much. There's always official and unofficial parties and shows going on, literally anytime of the day or night. My tip for listeners is to just go and pay the cover at the doors of the bands they want to see and don't buy the wrist band. It's super-expensive and you can get in most of the shows for 5 bucks.

MYE: Can you tell me about The Not Waving, Drowning book and CD?

DS: Yeah, totally. It's a poetry/spoken word album and booklet. I've always thought about and talked about putting my words and poems into a book, and so I did it. I wrestled up a bunch of songs and poems I've been working on and a few older favorites and made an album out of it. Some of the tracks will be made into songs for the new album, and some will just stay right there. I'm writing an album right now about my friends and family and how they parallel in my mind to my favorite characters from the Neverending Story.

MYE: The Return To Struggleville version of "It's Time For Drastic Measures" is so bittersweet and great. It is very somber but uplifting. "I can't have it until I've really worked for it" is a great line. It reminds me of a time Dr. Know of Bad Brains told me about how he traded some great gear he'd gotten for free for some ganja and how he regretted it but at the time didn't care because he hadn't worked for it himself. You learn from things like that. I sure have. But, working for something and even in the failing, like my friend Afzaal from the metal band Crisis used to say, “Dream big and dare to fail”...Even when you fail if you've really tried and put the sweat in, there is some reward that transcends everything and it is really “you”, I believe.

DS: I don't want it if it's easy and I can't have it until I've really worked for it. This is just how life is for me...life and everything that's come to me, it's the beautiful struggle that I look forward to and that I'm glad for. It's a struggle for us all, we can all relate to that.

MYE: Dan, what do you think were a few of the most pivotal moments in your life as a musician or a fan or even learning about your own sense of self-expression?

DS: I used to be absolutely terrified of performing live. I just didn't know how to do it. I've been playing shows for 7 years on the road, and it wasn't really until about the last 2-3 that I felt like I've learned who I am and what I want to do. I'm always learning of the places to go to when I perform, but I've learned how to love it, regardless of the space and the amount of people. Touring homes really started to open my heart to that, to treat each opportunity to be with people as special...if it is awkward, or intense, or flattering, whatever comes to just be in that moment, and give my heart.

MYE: You've got a lot of West Coast stuff going on this year. Can you tell us about the current touring? Are you and your wife lugging the washing machine around still? That's dedication! Do you ever use it anywhere to wash your clothes or is it too beat up from being used as a percussive instrument?

DS: We're bringing a washing machine along. You can't wash clothes in it though, it's strictly a concert washing machine, with no guts. It sounds better without guts. It's lighter, and you can pack stuff inside and on top of it in the van. I'm actually just touring by myself or with Chris these days, and Kristen is back in Arkansas and not touring anymore. Being this small, sometimes you have to be very flexible with who can come on the road and who can't. I've loved touring with friends and being on the road with a band and making music live, but it's expensive...so at least for now, we've been scaling down bringing lots of people on the road.

MYE: Another thing about the Listener Project that is so cool is that while it mixes hip hop and poetry and some rock aesthetics, the vibe and approach is very positive and grass roots. You remind me of what inspires me most about the best side of what attracted me to love punk rock growing up. The underground community and activism more than just undirected nihilism. And it is like my friend Kaya Chaos from the old punk band Deviant Behavior said to me once, “All the cool punks love hip hop."

DS: Yeah, I don't think I could tour if there wasn't a reason. I mean, I'm not a model who makes fancy music about high school love, and I have no aspirations to be a flash in the pan, so hard work and steady is what I'm in to. Grass roots is super important. There are downsides to it, but there's downsides to being on a label and the machine of things. That's not to say I wouldn't be into being a part of a larger company, to make money for someone if they think they could do it. I know there's tons of good things about being independent and record labels alike, but I do what I can. That's all I know how to do.

MYE: Do you mind reminiscing about what it was like making your somewhat notoriously great cult/underground Christmas album? It's one of my favorite records ever and must have been very fun. The sampling alone is a blast!

DS: Yeah, totally!! That was a fun project. I'm working on something similar, or at least have the idea in the works, but I don't want to say too much about that. The Christmas album was something fun to do on tour. For some reason I was listening to Christmas music on my iPod while my friends drove on a tour and I was getting all these ideas to do an album...so I called my friend Nate up and pitched him the idea and he loved it. So we made a Christmas album. Just fun stuff. We bought Christmas sweaters and headed to Kmart for the photo shoot. Those pictures are somewhere on MySpace. We did a Christmas tour, too, to support the album. We played two weeks of just Christmas parties and it was great times!

MYE: I've been saddened a lot at times by the pain in the world, and I think everyone struggles with wondering why nature is so survival of the fittest. I think I have a much more progressive spiritual side, where I believe in a good force that I could call God, but it is hard for me to trust the Bible as literal because it seems like it could've been manipulated easily by man for power. I often ask bands and artists about this, because it is so complicated to different people, and there is plenty of good as well as bad that has come from faith. You often talk about God, so I wanted to ask your thoughts. I try and find the best elements of kindness and compassion inherent in Buddhism and Christianity or even the positive side of Agnostic or Atheist beliefs philosophically, the want to know and question. But I feel something, an energy within the Universe and all of us. Even if we are just chemicals and electrical impulses, there is still the spirit. Is life all just a test and how do we reconcile so much suffering existing with a compassionate God? Or is it more about learning that all things are temporary, do you think? Sorry, this one is rather involved. Hope you don't mind, but I admire your thoughtfulness.

DS: Wow, now this is a question. I don't know where to start. First off I am a Christian. I try as I may to do my best to follow my faith and make it my life, but just like everyone I fall short of perfection...and I'm certainly not afraid to show it or say it or live like that. I think when mere humans start to put their spin on religion with their fears and dreams it becomes something imperfect and wrong and everyone gets to see the imperfection all out in the open. We're all here in the same mess, the same place. I'm no better than you or some priest or a murderer. I try and love and live and treat others like I would like to be treated. I believe that God is love and love is real. I believe there is a creator for all of this and that is God and that we have a choice to follow that or not. It's up to us. No pressure in that, just peace. At this point in my life, it's simple to me, but when you start to look at all the people who have taken advantage of faith in the name of God, who have bent their ideals and started their "religions" in the name of good, it's really evil and I try and just see things as they are in that sense. I don't believe in religions, I have a faith that is personal to me. These are my thoughts and beliefs. It's arrogant for me to expect you to believe that, too. This is where personal faith and the things we can't see come in to being. This is the stuff that happens to each of us in the way we choose to live life. There is pain in this world; this world is not forever. We live and we die, that is for certain. I think God is a compassionate God, just like a parent. It is ultimate love to create something and give guidelines, but then allow us to make our decisions and our own wounds and hurts. We bump around this planet hurting each other. We are not perfect. God would not be a compassionate creator if he constantly made us do whatever it is he wanted us to do like a puppet master. It's our choice to do the things we do to each other. That is real love, even if it hurts us and God.

MYE: What's up next for you, as far as writing goes? Do you always write like a routine or wait for the muse/life to guide you?

DS: Well, I'm writing and creating the next stuff now. It usually comes and goes. I wear a lot of hats to make this all work, so I'm not creative all the time, but right now has been really busy with creating and making new songs and words, and that's been exciting. Maybe a couple albums in the works, plus a side project I'm thinking...lot's of stuff to keep me busy and my friends busy.

MYE: Thanks, man.

DS: Thanks for the interview.