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Chasing Spirits

David Todoran Talks Apparition and Songwriting

By John Hubner

Fort Wayne Reader

2018-11-16

For the Fort Wayne music fan the name David Todoran is a familiar one. Todoran has been haunting stages and venues in Fort Wayne since the 80s in various musical projects. Bands like The Feel, The Reb Belly Boys, and Eleventh Hour were a few of the names.

But the band that Todoran has called home for the longest is David Todoran and the Mobile Homewreckers with Brad Kuhns on bass and Kevin Jackson on drums. Roots-y, melody-driven pop with a hint of Jayhawks, a touch of the Byrds, and a smattering of the last 50 years of rock and roll make up the band's musical DNA.

Recently the band released what may very well be their best album, the beautiful and ghostly Apparition. I recently sat down with David Todoran to talk about the new record and to pick his brain about music and growing up in the Fort.

J. Hubner: So for the uninitiated, that being me, tell me about yourself? Where did you grow up?

David Todoran: I grew up here. I remember rolling through canyons of brick and mortar and marquees on fire. I went away for a while after high school, and when I returned, to quote Chrissy Hynde: my city was gone. It's cool that so many are working to get it back.

J. Hubner: Were you a musical kid growing up?

David Todoran: I had four older siblings, so there was always music in the house: Cash, Beatles, Motown. Mom always had WLYV Top 40 radio on in the kitchen, and I would sit down with my old man every Saturday to watch Buck Owens and Roy Clark on Hee Haw. I suppose I started banging on a guitar at around thirteen or so. I used to stick my head between the two speakers of this plastic portable phonograph we had and sing along to anything and everything, so I guess I always wanted to be a musician or something.

J. Hubner: When did you get serious about playing music? What was the first instrument you took to?

David Todoran: There was this kid at school, Shawn, who was like this idiot savant. I mean, he'd gotten pretty banged up in a car accident, and then later got pummeled by some cops for mouthing off. He wasn't quite right, but he was always so right. Genuine pearls of wisdom. Cut through the crap. He used to bring over this beat up Melody Maker without a case and bang on it like mad. Couldn't really play a lick. But he knew what was up. One day he tells me that I would like playing with these guys he knew. He was right. That circle widened and suddenly I found myself playing with some pretty heavy dudes. I spent all the dough I made working at Coney Island on a Guild Bluesbird and a Marshall half-stack and never looked back.

J. Hubner: What were those first gigs like?

David Todoran: I started out barnstorming, really. Kids would have these beer bashes in old barns out in Ohio and NE Indiana. There would be hundreds of kids from all over at these things---all from word of mouth. It was a gas, and great experience.

J. Hubner: So pre-Mobile Homewreckers, what were some of the bands you played in?

David Todoran: Well, I was in the Feel and the Red Belly Boys in the '80s, and each of them was a big deal in their own way, but everybody knows about that, and I don't have anything new or interesting to say about those days, so I won't. Lately, a lot of people remember me as the ringleader and occasional trapeze artist in this little circus called the Eleventh Hour. We did a different kind of barnstorming: frat parties and college bars. After a few years rolling from one hedonistic den of debauchery to the next, I figured it was time to get serious about songwriting or get out.

J. Hubner: Musically, who are you pulling inspiration from?

David Todoran: Apparition is haunted with and possessed by ghosts and spirits who've spoken to me and inhabited my brain for as long as I can remember.

J. Hubner: Besides ghosts and spirits, what else influences your songwriting?

David Todoran: You know, I am truly fortunate to have a gig teaching American Literature and Composition at Canterbury High School. Every day, I conduct a seance in which I channel the spirits of giants who speak in tongues, breathe fire, and paint sublime landscapes. They too, haunt and posses my work. Speaking of influences, I'm always harping on to my students about the value of imitation: I'm always having them write imitations of passages or grammatical structures from Baldwin, Fitzgerald, Oates. Imitation becomes influence and influence become voice. Sooner or later, you stop imitating and start speaking from the heart.

J. Hubner: On your newest David Todoran and the Mobile Homewreckers album titled Apparition, you seem to be speaking from the heart. What was the songwriting process like for this album? Who are these characters you're writing about?

David Todoran: Sometimes a song feels right, but doesn't say anything. Other times, a song says something but doesn't feel right. A song has to have something to say. Getting away usually primes the pump for me: strange faces and places. My characters aren't anyone in particular, but I don't write about a basement flamenco cafe unless I've been to a basement flamenco cafe where a woman read tarot by candle light at a table in a corner.

J. Hubner: What was the recording process like with the Mobile Homewreckers this time around?

David Todoran: In a nutshell, I had just finished recording acoustic demos of the Veteran's Spouse Project, so I went ahead and laid down a number of acoustic songs with the intent of doing a low-fi sort of Ray Lamontagne kinda thing. When I brought Kevin and Brad in to fill them out, it quickly became clear to me that it was time to do a full-blown Mobile Homewreckers affair. I ended up sidelining most of the original batch and writing new tunes over the summer and into the fall. So, in many ways, the album was inspired by the sonic collaboration that happened in the studio.

J. Hubner: You stated about Apparition that it "feels more like a first than it does a follow-up to or a culmination of anything that has come before". Can you explain a little about about you meant by that? You've been writing and recording for, what, at least 25 years now? That's quite a statement for an artist with such a musical history.

David Todoran: It's funny, I named the record after the song, but the album itself is like this phantom spirit I'd been chasing for a long time. I did a few records with Ian Spanic up in Milwaukee, and he taught me a lot about recording, and thanks to his influence and a tip from Chris Whitley, I ended up doing a record for this little label in Berlin, Germany. I love them all, but when I hear them now, I hear someone trying on different hats.

It's like the protagonist, Tayo, from the novel Ceremony who is disintegrated and disoriented after the war (which I would metaphorically equate with all of those years in and out of different bands): I had to work through all of these rites-of-passage to find the ceremony to reintegrate singer-songwriter-lyricist-guitarist-bandleader as a whole. Of course a successful end to such a journey is only possible with the right helpers and mentors, and that's why doing the record with both Kevin Jackson and Brad Kuhns was such an important part of the process.

J. Hubner: So now that Apparition is in the wild, what now? You've been playing shows around town. Will you continue to promote for the rest of the year?

David Todoran: Honestly, this is the best damn incentive I can think of to play with my pals Brad and Kevin as often as possible. It's a labor of love, or vanity, or both, and nobody is making money. Also I'm pretty blind with Retinitis Pigmentosa, so there's no actual touring.

We're starting work on a new MHWs record in a couple of months. Also, after finishing Apparition, I went off-road and wrote a batch of honky-tonk-rockabilly stuff that I plan to record soon. I've also been pretty active in writing music for some local theatre productions, but that's another story.

Grab a copy of Appartion at Neat Neat Neat Records and Music and at Wooden Nickel Music. You can also grab a copy online at cdbaby.com

You can catch David Todoran and the Mobile Homewreckers live on November 23rd at 6PM for RSD Black Friday at NNN Records.