aton Rouge-born singer/songwriter Hudson Bell follows the tradition of the typical San Franciscan. That is, having roots somewhere else a little slower and quieter and leaving old friends and humiliations behind to explore the world as an oyster whether they wanted to or not. But for Hudson, his debut album Under Boxes and Dirt released in 2000 turned out to be a pearl in that oyster after all, gleaming with short sparse songs that showcase his strength in literate lyric writing, an airy folk-rock guitar, and a slow Southern charm. Currently, Hudson is promoting his most recent effort, Captain of the Old Girls, a slightly busier effort that carries heavier influences of old Pavement and Camper Van Beethoven.

Captain of the Old Girls made some top 10 album lists for last year, but more recently, Hudson along with his current band (John Slater and David Paslay, bass and drums respectively), played at this year’s SF Noise Pop Festival with (smog) at Café Du Nord. We recently talked with Hudson at his home in the city, where his love of literature was as apparent as his passion for music, shelves of books leaning as comfortably against the walls as his guitar.

How did you start playing?
When I was thirteen, two friends of mine were taking guitar lessons from this guy named Harrison. He was the kind of guy a lot of people in Lexington [Kentucky] had taken from, so I started taking lessons from him. He was really good because I could bring in whatever I was listening to at the time, whether it was REM or something. He could listen to it and then teach you how to play it right then and there. I took lessons from him for a couple of months, and we advanced really quickly, but it was kind of a disaster because he ended up killing himself. It was a weird thing where I showed up for practice, and he wasn’t there, so my sister picked me up. Then my mom called to see if there was anything she could do, and that’s when they told her he had killed himself. I remember after that I called his answering machine and it was like, “I’m not here right now,” and I remember sitting there thinking this was weird because he was dead. And I never took lessons again after that.

So then what did you do? How did you continue?
I really learned from Zeppelin guitar tab books, to be honest [laughs], and I guess that’s when I started messing with my own tunings…. I really don’t listen to Zeppelin anymore since I sold all my albums in college, and I kind of regretted that.

Why’d you do it? I mean, you’re not the first person I know who’s sold loads of albums they love.
[Sigh] I don’t know, I think the main thing that bugged me out was Robert Plant. I always thought Jimmy Page was cool, but Robert Plant…[sigh] I was getting so much into vocals and lyrics in college [instead of] just rock ‘n’ roll for rock ‘n’ roll’s sake. I actually had this nice Zeppelin bootleg collection, but when I was in Little Rock, I kept book for these Babe Ruth baseball games, and this mom used to talk to me and tell me about her wilder days. Her kid was just getting into Zeppelin, so I passed my bootleg collection down to him.

Well, you did a good deed. Some other kid got inspired by Zeppelin because of you. What about other artists you’re listening to now?
I’ve been listening to a lot of kraut rock lately. This guy Chris Martin who’s in the band Kinski gave me this awesome list of stuff. I also like the new Thalia Zedek EP and I’ve been listening to a lot of Echo and the Bunnymen lately. But I listen to all kinds of stuff, free jazz, crazy psychedelic stuff, old blues and so on.

There’s not a whole lot of kraut rock on your album.
No, I’ve only recently been listening to it. I think for the album, I was probably listening to a lot of Daniel Johnston, I guess ‘cause I was living with my parents at the time and totally relating to this guy. I used to play [Johnston’s] songs with his mom yelling at him, and my own mom got the biggest kick out of it. You know like, “You’ve gotta do something! You can’t just sit around and do nothing! There’s something wrong with you!” Back in the day I had had the same stand-off with my mom where I was like “You’re crazy!”

You said that to your mother?
Yeah, because [my parents] were like, “You’re going to the doctor and you’re having a blood test!” And it turned out that I had this crazy thyroid disorder. Like I’d sleep for twelve hours, wake up, and then just be zonked and go back to sleep, so my parents thought there was something wrong with me. I was just in slow motion. I never felt good, so it made me want to try to feel good, and that probably got me in trouble now and then. So now I have to take this synthetic thyroid thing every morning.

You’ve mentioned before that recording the album happened around some intense things. Do you want to talk more about that?
I had a very comfortable growing up in Kentucky and in high school. And when I went to college [at the University of Mississippi], my parents moved to Arkansas, so when I’d go home on breaks, it didn’t really feel like home, and I didn’t really know that many people there. I just started feeling really detached….I changed from being very comfortable and confident to being unsure of myself. Everyone else seemed like they had everything figured out, and I’d skip class a lot. People probably thought I was a freak. I always figured that college was the time when you’d have these great friends, but I literally talk to maybe three people I went to college with. It just wasn’t a good experience for me. But once I dropped out, I began to learn about the town Oxford, Mississippi, itself. And it was a time when the local music scene was pretty good. I started developing this romance with the town, reading a lot of William Faulkner. And since my parents moved [again] to California, to me Oxford was the only stable thing. It all of a sudden became my home. But eventually I left because I felt I was on a dead end street, and I knew if I wanted to better myself as a person, then I had to leave. But I went back to record the album because I felt I had some unfinished business there.

You also write fiction. Do you think you have habits in songwriting that you wouldn’t otherwise because you’re a literary writer?
[In making music], I think I’m just as much—if not more—influenced by writers as I am [influenced] by like Bob Dylan. Before I write lyrics, I like to read a lot of different stuff. One person I read a lot during the last album was Frank Stanford, this poet from Arkansas who killed himself. Unfortunately, a lot of people I like kill themselves.

Does that worry you?
It doesn’t worry me, but maybe since they are so in tune with their emotions, I have affinities towards them.

Since you write stories and songs, how do you decide when to put an idea into print or into music?
I think when an idea comes, it automatically knows where it’s going to go. I think a story idea is more like a plot-type thing whereas a song is more of a poetic type of thing, where a line sounds good and captures something but isn’t a full plot. I don’t really try to tell stories through songs.

I think some of your songs are very story-like, like in “The Other Side.” It’s very vivid and feels authentic. I mean, it’s about the girl you went out with but in the end things fell through. The girl who ended up marrying and having kids in your hometown while you moved away to the city. And you still think about her from time to time. And that’s how it happens in real life. Can you talk a little more about that song?
That’s probably the most Daniel Johnston-like song. I had this picture of this girl I met the summer before I went to college, and when I moved away, we used to write each other. But then my parents moved, and I was into my own thing. I always kind of wonder what happened to people. And I kind of used that situation as kind of a missed chance. I guess I’ve always had some kind of delusion about first love.

Hudson will be performing Monday, March 31st at The Make-Out Room and Saturday May 3rd at the Hemlock Tavern. Catch a radio feature with him April 1st at 4pm on KSCU, Santa Clara (http://www.kscu.org) and April 10th at 7pm on KCPR San Luis Obispoi (http://www.kcpr.org).

For more info and mp3’s, visit www.upperworks.com.