Photo: Starla Groves

One of Benjamin Tod’s first tattoos reads, “I am not a product.” Permanently imprinted on his wrist at 14, it remains relevant nearly two decades later.

Tod presents as an intimidating figure. Most photos of him are tintype-styled, sepia-toned images with incredible focus on the intensity in his eyes and neck filled with tattoos. His solo work and the music of Lost Dog Street Band trade in a non-romantic nostalgia—self-described as deep and dark, this work tends to reflect pain, suffering and isolation. Tod goes it alone on the streets and rail cars of America—his eyes and lyrics say it all. 

Born just outside of Nashville, Tod busked Lower Broadway in his early teenage years, ducking into the classic honky tonks to use the restrooms. He’d poke his head into these venues “and kind of be wowed by the culture of the show.” Even though he was surrounded by some of the world’s best players and producers of the genre, his “original rebellion was from the country music scene.” 

Tod’s chosen influences, Bob Dylan, Woody Guthrie, Jim Ringer and the other keepers of folk, provided a path toward that darkness. Over the course of several years, he built an incredible following for his brand of poetic string band music, due in large part to his steadfast work ethic. Without the support of industry infrastructure, he managed Lost Dog Street Band and his solo career, even as they steadily grew in popularity. 

“What other band is selling out 1,000 cap venues, loading their stuff in and running their own sound, driving all day, and setting up everything on the back end for promotion and running their own pages full time — it’s impossible,” he asked rhetorically and answered himself. “The demand became too much for the production.”

The last tour pushed Tod to the edge, and he experienced physiological distress nearly every night. So he took a break for a few years allowing him to focus on the music and his other passions. 

“You have to decide when you pump the brakes,” he said. “People will run you as hard as they can, but you need to choose to pull back on the reins.”

During this last grueling tour, Tod started playing around with some upbeat honky tonk and Western swing licks during sound check—in part because he’s been listening to a lot of classic country from the mid-Century period. These melodies and ideas became the foundation of his latest solo album—slated to hit shelves and streaming platforms on October 18. 

Shooting Star is a significant departure from Tod’s previous releases. Over time, the original rebellion seems to have given way a bit. 

“I enjoyed making this album as opposed to it being a push up a hill of my personal and existential battles,” he said. The tracks include honky tonk bangers, slower-yet-hopeful ballads, swingin’ beats built for dancing and references to the greats from the 1950s through the 1990s. 

The first single off the album, “I Ain’t the Man,” released on July 26, provides a wonderful window into the rest of the album. Listeners will likely find themselves tapping a foot along with a driving country beat, anticipating the auxiliary string parts — from a clean Bakersfieldian lead guitar, sharp fiddles and pedal steel — and signing along to positive, if a bit dark lyrics. Anyone listening to the end of this song and not thinking about finishing the dance with a spin and a dip may need to spend some more time in a dance hall. 

More than ever, Tod has found himself pulled toward the background soundtrack of his youth. He’s been listening to the likes of Zach Top, Jesse Daniel and Jousha Headly—who, to his great surprise, created some of the “two to three thousand great country albums that came out this year.”

He said that he feels “less bound to the deep, dark poetic writing” that has defined his career until now but already has work ready for distribution that tacks back to his foundational catalog. 

“But all of my writing is more country than it was because that is where my heart and my mind are,” he explained. “I’m not trying to depart from the legacy I built, but I want to open up a new avenue and show I can compete and write in any direction I want.” 

The 33-year-old artist is doing more these days—he’s the cofounder and vice president of Muhlenberg Music Mission, a Kentucky-based non-profit that provides music lessons and instruments to those in need. He also takes care of his property and aims to spend time with his family. 

“I’m not willing to do a lot of things other artists are willing to do, whatsoever. Some people are built for that—they are living art all the time. And I did that for 15 years. I describe what we did as ‘living art in America.’ We traveled around and played on the street, by freight train or thumb or sometimes by a run-down van. But I’m not that anymore.”

Tod is pleased his career launched and reached the level it did through the hard work and grit of his experience. Yet now, with the level of notoriety he’s achieved, he is becoming willing to accept help—frankly, he needs to. 

“I began working with Thirty Tigers, getting management, and moving some of these responsibilities because the demand for my music became too much to manage.”

This fiercely independent iconoclast realized that it is no longer his battle to “butt heads with the industry and every single player who is corrupt within it.” 

“I don’t feel like it’s my cross to bear anymore,” he said. “It doesn’t mean I’ve sold out, but it does mean I’m going to accept help at a reasonable cost to help my career. At a certain point, it’s really nice to hand this off to someone who is dedicated to this as opposed to you making Facebook events on the side of the road when you have to play a show in 20 minutes.” 

The softening of his tough, do-it-yourself approach should be understood as a sign of maturity, experience and an understanding of limitations—art from a place of self-awareness. Not a rejection of his ethos. 

“I’m basically a normal dude who likes to work on diesel trucks and heavy equipment and manage lands, who plays music a couple months out of the year,” he said without one shred of irony. 

Tod won’t be placed in a category and is unwilling to depart from what drives his projects forward. He’s more than the darkness or the honky tonk bangers of this new album. 

Simply, he’s not a product.