When I finally reached him after several arduous weeks of searching, Tim Howard was nestled sick in his bed somewhere in the Jamaica Plain neighborhood of Boston, late on a Sunday night. But in spite of his illness (and late-winter-in-New-England blues), the singer/songwriter known solo and in full band form as Soltero was cautiously happy. His fourth full-length, Hell Train, is his most accomplished and most exuberant and nuanced record to date. Although punctuated with several quiet moments, when the album needs to rock out, it fires on all cylinders. Lyrically, it manages to retain the typically witty writing Soltero has been known for. Howard spoke to me at length before drifting off.

When did this all start, this Hell Train?

I guess mid-2003 it started. It took so long to finish, I decided to do another album in between this and Defrocked (The Tongues You Have Tied).

This is sort of the sunniest side of Soltero we've seen. Were you listening to anything in particular that gave it this feel? I know you referenced the Mamas and the Papas in the liner notes to Tongues.

The album represents such a broad span of time, what I was listening to changed from month to month. I don't really feel like the album represents a particular influence. I think it's more of me doing rock songs in a way I really wasn't able to before. It was doing a dynamic rock album - which I had wanted to do for a long time.

Do you have a favorite track on the album?

It's hard to listen to the album and not feel the nagging sense of dissatisfaction I always feel. But I feel really good about the first track, "If I Had A Chance," and "Bleeding Hearts." That was a beast to produce. I honestly feel pretty good about every track on the album 'cause it took so long to finish.

Your songwriting has been called "tough romantic." Do you consider yourself a romantic?

Really? "Tough romantic"? I just try to write what feels most natural. I think a lot of songwriters approach it much more intellectually. Some people in the indie rock scene say "this is gonna be about whatever," and they set out to do that.

I approach it from the Fleetwood Mac angle - I just write what I feel. I think it's pretty true I'm a romantic - if I wasn't I wouldn't be writing songs. I'm compelled by love and the day-to-day frustration with it, the dissonance of that comes out in my songs. I guess the short answer is I'm a romantic songwriter because I believe in love. I think it's the most interesting topic in the world. I feel like in this society we're taught to strive for romantic love like a little Star of Bethlehem. I'm agnostic about that idea, similar to how I feel about Christianity. Part of me is still romantic, though.

This brings up another topic: I know your second album was called Defrocked and Kicking the Habit. What are your beliefs? Are you an agnostic?

I don't know if I believe in agnosticism (kidding). I guess I am agnostic. The only thing I'll believe from someone else is their expression of unsureness. I think it's bullshit that people have such certainty about the nature of the spiritual universe. I don't care a shred for organized religion. I think in "Hands Up" the line "Life before death, yeah, oh yeah, I believe" might sum it up.

That sounds sort of Buddhist in just focusing on the present moment?

That feels true to me in how the world is. Other belief systems seem contrived. If I really felt the need to pursue something, like a structure, I'd be Buddhist. I don't feel the need, though. I feel content. I feel like I have an idea on the basics of life. I feel like the overarching framework of life is pretty simple but people make it more complicated. I'm pretty content with a simple schema I understand.

I know you had some problems finding a label for Hell Train. What happened?

I initially had someone in Washington State lined up to put it out on a small label, and I'd been relying on it. But that fell through. I found out in December he wasn't gonna be able to do it. I didn't really do the legwork to find another label, so I decided to do it myself, at least the first pressing. I didn't want to wait to find another label. If I found a label I was excited about, I'd have them do the second pressing. I've been sending it out to a bunch of labels to that end. But I was pretty much feeling like if I didn't put it out at the beginning of 2005, I wouldn't put it out because I wanted to start working on the next one.

Is the next one going to go back to more of your acoustic side?

I've got all the songs, but haven't recorded any, yet. I have a feel for what it's going to be like, and it's pretty different from Hell Train. It'll be more intimate, without the full band, acoustic with pianos and electric guitar, kinda like Tongues, but I'm gonna work a lot more on it. It'll have stronger songs than Tongues, and more ambiguous. In the last 10 months I've been writing songs that are not responsive to immediate situations but a little more abstract. They're not as simple as "break-up song," "doin' it" song.

Do you prefer doing your solo acoustic thing or playing with the full band?

I could see a future with both. I love doing both equally -- they express different sides of me. I like the idea of ping-ponging between the two.

You've been talking about leaving Boston and moving down to Philadelphia.

I've been here for five years. I feel like I'm spinning my wheels. I really like Boston. Since I've been here, I've learned a lot about myself and learned what I want to play, but Philadelphia's a cheaper town with a lot of music and art going on. I think if I wanna keep working odd jobs to keep myself alive so I can do music, Boston's not really the right place to do it. I'm talking about moving down there in September. Martin [Pavlinic], my guitar player, might be moving there, too, but we don't have any illusion of plans.

So did you go into Hell Train with a specific theme in mind?

I didn't approach it as a concept album, but got a title pretty early on and that guided things a little bit. Basically I just put together the full band staples. The quieter songs I picked to put on it made it 'cause they seemed to be good juxtapositions with those louder songs. I try to avoid excluding songs because of thematic significance. I try to have it be an aural thing.

One of those nice balances on the album comes with the bells in "Four O'Clocker."

Yeah, I met up with Rocco [Macri], my bass player, at the airport in Dublin back in February 2003. I had the worst hangover I've ever had - I puked four times that morning. But I met him at the airport at two in the afternoon and we drove to Cork. The next day we went to this church where you could play the bells, and Rocco recorded them. The bells are actually playing the bassline from that song "Boys of Brighton" [on Defrocked and Kicking the Habit]. They're the only conceptual thing I had in my head for this album. They were originally gonna be part of "From the Station," but it didn't work out.

So what've you been listening to lately?

A lot of Bob Dylan-New Morning, Bringing It All Back Home, Nashville Skyline. That and rock records like Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin. East River Pipe - he's probably the only living songwriter I don't exhaust listening to. But I've probably listened to Nashville Skyline more than anything else in the past year. My favorite song in the world for the past year though is George Harrison's version of "If Not For You" on All Things Must Pass. That album is the juice!

Joe Sullivan
March 30, 2005