Todd Snider

Mean-spirited letters arrived in Todd Snider’s mailbox months before the release of his eighth album, The Devil You Know. The song “You Got Away With It (A Tale of Two Fraternity Brothers)” has not only hit a nerve with a few defensive ex-frat boys, but also some listeners who picked up on Snider’s underlying political satire. The tale stars “a couple of rich kids,” one of which could ?nagle his way out of any situation, including an undisclosed “thing” with his brother “down there in Florida.” (“I worry forever, never for you,” he sings in character, with his slow Southern drawl).

But Snider isn’t worried about the hate mail. “I don’t expect everyone to like me,” he says from his East Nashville home. “The way I see it, my job is to open my heart and show people what’s in there, and then deal with what they think of that. For the most part, what they think of it is clapping.”

Snider’s latest certainly deserves the applause. From the rollicking title track to closer “Happy New Year,” in which he calls himself an “Evangelical Agnostic,” Snider’s colorful yarns are spun from America’s grittier side, mostly inspired by the characters who live in his diverse—but gradually gentrifying—neighborhood. A construction worker that won’t take any crap from his boss resides near a pool hustler “looking for some company.” Not far away, two thugs mugged a man but lost most of the stu? they stole.

Longtime friends/collaborators Tommy Womack and co-producer Will Kimbrough back Snider with their raw, sinewy guitar licks, joining fellow Nervous Wrecks bandmates and guests like steel guitarist Lloyd Green, ?ddler Molly Thomas and bassist/music journalist Peter Cooper, among others. Most of the band, as well as musician/engineer Eric McConnell, who owns the studio where they recorded The Devil You Know and Snider’s 2004 release, East Nashville Skyline, lives on the East side, too.

As the album surfaces and Snider continues his rigorous touring schedule to support it, he probably won’t peer much into his mailbox. Not that he’s going to worry, mind you, about what’s waiting inside. “Hey,” he says, “I got mean letters for putting horns on a record once.”