But Doughty managed to win his doubters over in three simple moves. First, he allowed the acoustic roots of his highly mechanized Soul Coughing work to show through in tunes such as “Janine” and “So Far I Have Not Found the Science;” attentive fans didn’t have to work hard to connect the dots from the old to the new. Second, he cashed in on the inexplicable overlap among folk fans and electronica fans. Third, he used his deep shadowy voice, charmingly idiosyncratic delivery and relentlessly poetic lyrics to draw the stragglers across the line and into his bright, new musical territory.

But this transformative and freeing solo career was a long time coming. In 1996, after Soul Coughing had finished Irresistible Bliss, Doughty took 12 songs that his bandmates had rejected to revered Low producer Kramer and cut Skittish. This bare-bones acoustic album languished unreleased for years while Doughty battled with substance abuse issues and a hostile band environment. In 2000, with both sets of demons behind him, he took those songs out for a spin and was astonished to find that audience members were singing along. Although many mourned the loss of Soul Coughing and failed to connect with Doughty’s new material, others had discovered Skittish tracks that had been leaked online and were hungry for more.

And more is what they got. During a 2001 tour to support Skittish, Doughty made a stop in our fair city. He packed ‘em in at the Woman’s Club and played a varied set drawn mainly from Skittish and Soul Coughing material, but also incorporating as-yet-unheard solo songs. He indulged his inner comedian—something his former bandmates had discouraged—bantering jauntily about robots, buckets of shoes, and MTV-envy. He recorded this happy mess and released it as Smofe + Smang: Live in Minneapolis in 2002. And, again, the eternally loyal and the recently converted ate it up.

Through mutual manager Jim Grant, he hooked up with local legend Dan Wilson and decided he’d found the man to produce his first full-band solo studio album. He presented his entire solo catalog, and Wilson selected his top 12—a group of songs with which the producer felt a personal affinity. Over the course of the next two years, Doughty flew out to Minnesota whenever Wilson had a window of free time. In fits and starts, they created the album together.

While the full-band project was slowly taking shape in Wilson’s home studio, Doughty took the surplus songs to They Might Be Giants producer Pat Dillett, and created Rockity Roll. (The man certainly knows how to make use of his leftovers.) This lo-fi EP utilizes kitschy synth and programmed drums to support Doughty’s percussive guitar and insistent, rumbling vocals. The result is a poppy gem that forms the perfect bridge between the unadorned acoustic folk of Skittish and Smofe and the elaborate, polished folk-rock of the recently released Haughty Melodic.

A collection of songs whose melodies err on the side of celebratory, but whose lyrics dip into Doughty’s seemingly endless reservoir of melancholy, Haughty Melodic is a very complete-feeling album. The ever-present syncopated thrumming of Doughty’s acoustic guitar—his signature sound—is made new through Wilson’s skillful and innovative arrangements. The initial disappointment of the album’s songlist—which includes tunes Doughty released on Smofe and others he’s been performing live for nearly 3 years—is alleviated by the unquestionable merit of the recording. Beautifully unobtrusive accents—including a cheeky banjo, subtle female harmony vocals, quirky drum fills and ethereal glockenspiel —round out the carefully layered sound that Doughty and Wilson slaved to create. The result is a collection of songs that feel nurtured without seeming forced.

A songwriter with a poet’s heart, Doughty pens some of modern music’s most evocative lyrics. In many songs, he plays narrator to a cast of colorful characters who verge on Tom Waitsian—sensual Cuban women, tattooed bartenders and KFC servers cowering behind bulletproof glass—and observes their lives with the tender irony of the nearly-damned. In others, such as the bleak lament “White Lexus” and the astonished tribute “Unsingable Name,” he lays his soul bare in heart-rending humility.

That mixture of emotional detachment and outright confession is augmented by Doughty’s unparalleled skill as a wordsmith. He fearlessly pairs fun and accessible phrases (“Easy, Cowboy, what’s the rush, now?”) with undreamt-of images (“She may cleave me like a snowplow”)—drawing you into his world only to unceremoniously dump the contents of his brain onto your surprised lap. Shadows of the more obscure Soul Coughing lyrics crop up occasionally (“Does the man who make the shoes own you, clown? / You can’t even pry the nameplate off, now can you?”), as do glib grammar mutations (“You snooze you lose / well I have snozzed and lost”).

Doughty’s vocals can verge on a growly drone, but this collection of songs has him moving gracefully through his range. With virtually vibrato-free delivery, his low baritone is intense, frank and clean … but can feel a bit sparse at times. Producer Wilson wisely layers on harmony vocals and buoys Doughty’s voice with soaring pedal steel and diffuse Wurlitzer. The album also features a duet with Dave Matthews on “Tremendous Brunettes.” (Haughty Melodic is on ATO Records, a major label susbsidiary that Matthews co-owns, and the two musicians have been friends for years.) Bizarrely, Matthews sounds like a crotchety old man soloing on this track, but he blends seamlessly with Doughty on the harmonies.

Unusual and varied instrumentation, tight production and mind-bending lyrics make this album a satisfying helping of high-quality folk-pop goodness. Die-hard Doughty fans and newbies alike will find Haughty Melodic an adventurous and worthwhile listen.

I was lucky enough to corner Doughty via cell phone a few weeks before he launched his current tour to support the new album. He filled me in on the details of the album’s conception and birth; life after Soul Coughing; and why he can’t help exposing his soul to the masses time after time.

PULSE: How and when did you first hook up with Dan Wilson?

MIKE DOUGHTY: Well, my manager, Jim, is also his manager. I had a bunch of songs without bridges, and Jim suggested that I just go out and work with Dan and have a “bridge workshop.” So, basically, that’s what happened. Also, I had a couple of songs that were half done, “American Car” was kinda half done. Dan helped me re-jigger it, and also helped me write a couple of bridges. Then we did a couple of demos and they just sounded so great that I thought, “This ought to be my dude.” So that started the long and arduous process of flying back and forth from Minnesota for a week’s worth of work, or a month’s, or three days, or basically whatever he had available.

PULSE: So you recorded Haughty Melodic based on Wilson’s schedule?

MD: Yeah, basically.

PULSE: On the songs you two co-wrote did Wilson mainly help with arrangements, or did he contribute lyrics and musical ideas?

MD: He basically helped me write stuff. I would say, “Well, I’m thinking about going to this chord.” And he would say, “Hm, why don’t you try this chord?” It wasn’t like he was really co-writing, necessarily—he was mainly acting as a catalyst. Although there are certain decisions he made, things he shifted around. He acted as songwriter-as-zen-master, in a way. You know, shifting the weight around within the yogic structure of chord progressions.

PULSE: A handful of the album’s songs skip bass guitar in favor of other low-end sounds. Did you just want to mix it up, or is there something more specific behind that choice?

MD: Well, I really dislike the bass guitar. I love the upright bass, I love the tuba, I love the low end on a piano, I love the low end on an electric piano or a synthesizer. But, in general, I think an electric bass adds this weird foam. It fills up certain frequencies and sort of blocks everything out. So I was looking for instruments that had different overtones. There are a couple of songs on the album with electric bass on them, just to have something in that area, living in bassland … but most of them include upright bass or piano. Different, more unique ways of dealing with that frequency level.

PULSE: I read that you wanted to put Magnetic Fields’ “Book of Love” on Haughty Melodic. Why didn’t that work out?

MD: We recorded it, actually. I had this idea of ending the album with a cover. We covered that song, and we covered Kenny Rogers’ “The Gambler.” But then we had this other song called “Your Misfortune” that we had written together. It was actually a close co-write for me and Dan. And I don’t know what happened, I think we just forgot about it. We recorded it in the fall, during our very first demo session, and we uncovered it as we were just finishing up and saying, “What are the dregs of this project?” And we just thought it was so nice, and had that record-ending sound to it. So we put that in there instead.

PULSE: Do you ever compose on instruments besides guitar?

MD: Yeah, whenever I can. I’ll use keyboards. I have this weird Chinese lute I got in Shanghai that’s great to mess around on. And a little Roland MC 305 groove box. Anything to get outside of the guitar-head. That’s a very well-worn geography for me. I tend to think fresher if I can get out of it.

PULSE: This album contains songs you have released on previous recordings, and have also been performing for some time now. How do you keep these songs fresh in performance?

MD: You mean how do they differ from performance?

PULSE: How do you keep yourself from getting bored with them?

MD: Oooh. Really the only way to do that is to write songs that you really dig. I would love it if there was some zen technique or something … but no. You just have to write stuff that you really like! [Laughs] Songs that you won’t get sick of.

PULSE: Do you ever change up the arrangements in performance?

MD: A little bit. The phrasing tends to change little by little. Two years on, I’ll listen to an old recording and it’s completely removed from what I’m singing now. But it’s really a matter of trying to keep yourself interested. And when I do start feeling weird about a song, sometimes I have to put it in the stable for a while. Put it back in the bag. It takes a certain amount of resolve to do that, though. Especially if it’s a song that people really love, or gets a great reaction during a show and you may need that reaction to complete the arc of a setlist. But I really try to be disciplined about just playing stuff I like, just trying to enjoy what I’m doing. That’s the most compelling way to do it for an audience, I think.

PULSE: Much of your solo material is deeply personal, verging on confessional. You’ve said you feel like it’s your job to be brutally honest in your songs. Do you find that kind of honesty freeing? Frightening? Both?

MD: Both. It’s horrible to play something and think, “I don’t really want to tell the world about this. [Laughs.] I just prefer to sing about chicks and cars, bling and bootyshakin’, or whatever …”

PULSE: So what drives you, then, to expose your emotions to the world?

MD: Not to be corny about it, but I get into a real trance-y head when I’m writing. I try to pick subjects that feel really honest and compelling, and that make a certain kind of poetic sense—which is not necessarily a literal sense. I don’t know. You just sort of plug ‘em in there, and it begins to form a story. But later I’m like, “Fuckin’ A, what the hell am I doing? More songs about chicks and cars, please!”

PULSE: It seems like there’s always been a lot of love between you and Minneapolis, dating back to the Soul Coughing/REV 105 days. Any guesses as to why the Twin Cities have always responded so strongly to your music?

MD: I have no idea. No idea at all.

PULSE: Do the Twin Cities feel like a second home?

MD: It never really did until I started making this record with Dan, actually. Before this record, I’d come into town and stay at the Crown Plaza or something. So really, going to the Borders in Uptown on a weekend is a new experience for me. Or going to … I can’t remember if it’s French Meadow or French Market?

PULSE: French Meadow, awww, best pancakes in the universe.

MD: Yeah, and that tempeh rueben.

PULSE: What did you learn from the experience of going completely independent and self-releasing albums in the wake of Soul Coughing’s break-up?

MD: What did I learn … well, in Soul Coughing, I’d been on a bus, and there were roadies and that whole apparatus. And, basically, I quit Soul Coughing and I had all these huge changes in my life. Then I found myself alone in a rental car, which is exactly what I wanted. I wanted to go around and be alone. But what did I learn? I learned that it felt great, and at the same time that it was enormously humbling to be completely without any means of support other than my own willpower.

PULSE: How do you think ATO is different from other major label subsidiaries? The label calls itself “artist friendly”—what does that mean to you?

MD: They definitely are artist friendly. They’re not messing around with what I’m trying to do. In fact, I tend to welcome more collaboration than they’re comfortable with! [Laughs.] I’ll be like, “So what do you think?” And they’ll say, “Oh you know, whatever you want.” And I’ll go, “No no no, what do you THINK?!” [Laughs.] So they’ll feel obliged to say something like, “Yeah, yeah I think that’s the right idea.” But then they’ll get super-embarrassed and say, “But you should do whatever you want!” So they’re really great. I haven’t got a bad thing to say about them.

PULSE: That must be a huge relief.

MD: Yeah, but to be honest, I’ve always had good experience with labels. Warner Brothers was really nice to Soul Coughing. They were golden, man. They were great.

PULSE: You manage to get political while avoiding being preachy. How important is it for your music to have a larger message?

MD: Not really important at all. You’re talking about “Move On,” right?

PULSE: Primarily.

MD: Well, I woke up one night in August and I just couldn’t sleep. So I just rolled out of bed and the song came out really quickly, which almost never happens. I’m always going back to the notebooks and getting stuff out and plugging it in. Songs will remain partially done for a long time. But with this one, I actually had extra verses that I didn’t use, which never happens. It was all done, right there at 4 or 5 in the morning. It was so eerie. It really blew my mind.

PULSE: You must’ve been channeling the muse.

MD: I don’t know. It might’ve been that I just really knew what I wanted to say. I really knew what I felt about this. But I think you’re right, it’s super important to avoid being preachy, to speak from a position of your own experience and your own feelings rather than jabbing your finger at whoever. ||

Mike Doughty performs on Sat. May 14 at the Cedar Cultural Center with Kelly Buchanan. 8 p.m. All Ages. $18 adv/ $20 door. SOLD OUT. 416 Cedar Ave. S., Mpls. 612-338-2674. Doughty will also be performing a free in-store at 4 p.m. on Sat. May 14 at the Electric Fetus. 2000 4th Ave S., Mpls. 612-870-9300.

Find out more about Mike Doughty on his official website at MikeDoughty.com.