ME
WHAT I HEAR
My life has always been filled with music. Neil Young has been there from the beginning. Then people like Jackson Browne, TVZ, Steve Earle and Patty Griffin, right up through Jason Isbell and Tyler Childers. And a lot of others. My goal is to say things that matter. To craft songs that mean something. To connect.
Praise for the all original album "Kings Of Hard Weather", which we released in 2018:
“Snyderville Electric Band has nailed the classic blues-based rock ‘n’ roll style, which, at times, is kissed with some rowdy Southern swagger. These are the songs that hook arms with road trips that lead to wherever you want to go.” – Scott Iwasaki, Park Record
HOW I WORK
1. I show up when I'm supposed to.
2. I show up prepared.
3. I work hard.
4. Chill. No BS. No drama.
5. I love songwriting. And it shows.
SELECTED MUSIC/LYRICS
Kiowa County Let Me Go
by Hal ODell
The auction bill said dry land farm
Total acres 618
House is older barns are clean
Spring rains turn the pastures green
What it didn’t say was 1923
My great grandpa signed the note
It’s good he’s dead so he don’t know
I went and let the whole thing go
(chorus)
So you can run me off this ranch
Paint the family name right off the gate
You can pave the whole damn place with concrete
Bury all the grass away
Do all you can
With all your time
In the end it won’t be yours
Any more than it was ever mine
Everything worth selling’s gone
Everything that ain't is mine
The hard red dirt I leave behind
I never knew another kind
Kiowa County let me go
All it did was keep me poor
I should have known the game before
But Jesus now I know for sure
(chorus)
You can run me off this ranch
Paint the family name right off the gate
You can pave the whole damn place with concrete
Bury all the grass away
Do all you can
With all your time
In the end it won’t be yours
Any more than it was ever mine
And tonight
Stroke of midnight
I won’t be losing money farming any more
(chorus)
You can run me off this ranch
Paint the family name right off the gate
You can pave the whole damn place with concrete
Bury all the grass away
Do all you can
With all your time
In the end it won’t be yours
Any more than it was ever mine
Somebody Else’s Problem
by G Dymalski, D Lynch, H ODell
(One of my cuts with Snyderville Electric Band, from our album "Kings Of Hard Weather")
In a rented trailer south of Tulsa
I come here a year ago from Lubbock, Texas
It's just a place where I can lay down
Alone or with some girl from town
But it’s mostly just me out here ’til tomorrow comes again
In an old chair with a cold beer and the radio turned up to ten
I’m just a roughneck
And Tulsa's just another roughneck town
Mostly working doubles
I’m not really chasing trouble
But trouble knows the bars I like when I stay late in town
‘Cause it seems to find me every time I wash the weekend down
(chorus)
If it’s too big for the back seat it’s not something that I want
If remembering leaves me worse off for the trouble then I don’t
Whatever I’m gonna let myself believe I got to have
Fits in my car
Everything else is somebody else’s problem
Well I believe that sheriff’s lost his patience
And I ain’t calming down
I cash my paycheck at the bank
Fill the cooler and I fill the tank
I serve one last bar room beating to some prick because I can
Then I smoke it back to Texas
Merle Haggard as my wing man
(chorus)
If it’s too big for the back seat it’s not something that I want
If remembering leaves me worse off for the trouble then I don't
Whatever I’m gonna let myself believe I got to have
Fits in my car
Everything else is somebody else’s problem
South of town on River Road
Left after the train bridge
East four miles more
There’s a gray trailer with a gray door
But save yourself the trouble sheriff I’m not there to find
When I left that bar I left and what I left I left behind
And by closing time
I’m across that state line
Oklahoma in the rearview gone
Oklahoma in the rearview gone
®ASCAP 2017. Mixed by Jody Whitesides.
80 Miles To Tulsa (I'm Around)
by Hal ODell
(Also on "Kings Of Hard Weather")
It’s been almost a year since you left me
Back been here on my own
Your dad came by today
Said he’d seen you and his happy girl was gone
There’s things that he don’t know
He just remembers better days
The way he talked about you
There was more than time and distance in the way
He showed me a picture
Looked like you were made of glass
You were trying so hard not to break
(chorus)
It’s only eighty miles to Tulsa
And I could use a good excuse to drive to town
You can call it’s the same old number
If you need anything I got
I'm around
I’m around
I wish I could see just looking at your picture
What it is you can’t get through
Is it those pills come back around
Or some other kind of devil strange and new
But the truth is
Even when we were together
It was hard to see what had a hold of you
(chorus)
It’s only eighty miles to Tulsa
And I could use a good excuse to drive to town
I wish you'd call it’s the same old number
If you need anything I got
I'm around
I’m around
(alternate chorus)
If you need a friend to point you toward tomorrow
Or to help you get past everything you’re not
If you need someone who remembers
All the things that make you special
If you need anything that I got
I'm around
I'm around
®ASCAP 2017
That’s How You Hold On
by Hal ODell
(I wrote this song as a tribute for the son of a friend.)
Find an old record store smell the incense and the vinyl
I left my fingerprints on Shakedown Street
Or climb high enough to see the world all laid out there before you
I‘m the blue around your head
And the ground beneath your feet
(chorus)
And as you go on
That’s how you hold on to me
As you go on
That’s how you hold on to me
You need to dance even if the whole damn world is looking
I’ll be right there laughing with you oh I swear
Be all in feel every second on your skin
If it hurts you like a hard rain
Or heals you like a prayer
And as you go on
That’s how you hold on to me
As you go on
That’s how you hold on to me
I love that you tell stories about the things that we all did
Don’t dwell on things we never got around to
You have to know I spend my given share of time
Exactly where I wanted
All around you
And as you go on
That’s how you hold on to me
As you go on
That’s how you hold on to me
To me
To me
To me
®ASCAP 2018