Snyder revs up for solo success

Jewish Telegraph, April 2004

ADAM Snyder will always remember his last concert as part of Mercury Rev . . . as it was in Israel.
Adam, whose debut solo album Across the Pond has finally been released in England, recalls: ‘‘It was a great concert, part of a festival and we went down well.
‘‘The show — in 2000 — is actually the smallest part of my memory. We stayed in Israel for a week visiting Tel Aviv, Jaffa and Jerusalem.
‘‘It was not about music. It’s the best trip we ever took.’’
Adam added: ‘‘I’m trying to make it happen again. I have friends over there and I want to go back.’’
Adam was born in New York City in 1966. Aged six, his family moved 90 miles north to Kingston.
Three years later he started piano lessons and dabbled with the guitar.
‘‘My piano teacher was disappointed when I started to play rock music instead of classical,’’ he recalls.
He played in a number of school bands before being invited to join Mercury Rev — with whom he recorded the classic album Deserter’s Songs.
‘‘It surprised me that I could make a living from my hobby,’’ he said. ‘‘Music was such a great passion and was so dear to me.
‘‘I had a number of real jobs including in publishing, interviewing musicians and, naturally, waiting tables.
In 1988, Adam moved to Manhattan, playing clarinet on the streets and piano in a bar in Brooklyn.
Within a year, Adam was living in Seattle, sleeping on a friend’s couch and busking.
But he once again got restless and headed down the West Coast until he eventually arrived in Los Angeles.
New York was his next destination, but within six months he had moved to Iowa.
Adam played his first full-length solo show at the Mill in Iowa City in 1993.
His big break came the following year. In September 1994, Adam opened for Mercury Rev side-project Harmony Rockets in an upstate New York bar.
A few months later, while in Memphis, he got a call from Mercury Rev inviting him out on the road with them.
‘‘I didn’t think they were serious,’’ he recalled. ‘‘So I said send me plane tickets and we’ll talk — and they did.
‘‘I toured with them before joining full-time.’’
The tour took them to Britain, Europe and across the States in a cramped van.
‘‘In America we could fill a room while in Europe we could play larger venues.’’
Mercury Rev spent two years crafting Deserter’s Songs. The first year was spent in Adam’s hometown, Kingston, while the second was spent driving back and forth to producer Dave Fridmann’s studio near Buffalo.
The album raised Mercury Rev’s profile and the next tour saw them travelling in roomy buses.
Adam says: ‘‘I knew my time with Mercury Rev would begin and end. It reached a point where I had to commit longer or not at all.
‘‘I was in my 30s by now and I was going to wind up mid-40s before the next window to leave opened up.’’
After the Israel farewell, Adam returned to hawking home-made CDs around bars in America and playing to 50 people at a time.
He played a number of shows in London and then toured Ireland with The Waterboys.
He finally landed a solo record deal with David Gray’s HTI label in 2001 and spent three months recording Across the Pond in Gray’s London studio.
‘‘The album has come out in fits and starts,’’ Adam says. ‘‘The music industry has its own internal clock, but I’ve not had that luxury. I’ve been promoting it in pieces.
‘‘On the positive side though, it has given me tons of time to write new material. I’m working on my next album now and I know what I’m doing.’’
The single, Leaves of Grass, is available to download for free from Adam’s site, www.adamsnyder.com
The album, Across the Pond, is also available to download in high quality MP3 format from the site for £5.99 including all the artwork.
‘‘The single download was someone else’s idea,’’ Adam joked. ‘‘Give people something as a token gesture but we have to sell something.’’
Adam’s next album will feature a collection of songs about Kingston, New York, and a number of political tracks.
‘‘The first album was my childhood one,’’ he says. ‘‘The new one will be the ghosts of the past.’’
He also admits that there is a chance of a reunion with Mercury Rev — ‘‘although no time soon. We’re friends and neighbours and hang out together.’’