The mythology around seasoned singer/songwriter Hayden (né Paul Hayden Desser) can make you slightly apprehensive about approaching the guy.

To wit: he’s a former local wunderkind who found himself at the centre of a late-’90s bidding war (and turned down offers from the likes of Neil Young) when he was tapped as the industry’s next great indie-rock poster boy. He’s a fragile bird who became a hermit after his 1998 big-budget sophomore disc, The Closer I Get, failed to live up to expectations. He’s a grumpy recluse who winces at the thought of having to explain himself.

But the one character trait most folks seem to miss is Hayden’s dry, deadpan sense of humour. It’s a quality that surfaces in the subtle details of many of the man’s seemingly sad-bastard-oriented tunes. Like the macabre murder-in-the-studio scenario of “Bass Song,” off 2003’s Elk-Lake Serenade, for example, or the poker-faced send-up of his Debbie Downer persona you hear in the tune “Damn This Feeling,” off his fantastic new In Field & Town disc.

In conversation, that understated wit’s there at almost every turn — particularly, it appears, when Hayden’s taking on heavier topics. Ask him whether he’s relieved to be running his own label (Hardwood Records), where there’s no chance major-label pressure might catalyze another breakdown, and he smirks.

 “Oh no, a downward spiral could happen any minute, let’s face it,” Hayden quips, with a slanted grin. We’re hanging out in the great glass atrium of the CBC building, where the singer/songwriter’s prepping to record a live radio performance before taking off across the country on tour.

“But I do feel pretty good about being able to make my own records ’cause I invested money in equipment, rather than cocaine. And through Hardwood, I have a relationship with Universal that’s lasted about 11, 12 years now, which is crazy. But most of all, in Canada at least, people still seem to come see me play, after all these years. Like, at last night’s show? There were people I didn’t even recognize!” he laughs. “That’s a bonus. I almost wanted to stop playing and ask, ‘Do I know you guys?’”

Not that Hayden’s always a barrel of monkeys. Though there’s an authentic sense of hope that pervades even the breakup songs on In Field & Town, the album keeps to the elegant brand of melancholy that’s his stock-in-trade. But unlike, say, the starkly intimate folk of 2001’s Skyscraper National Park, Hayden’s new disc feels fuller and more expansive, thanks to arrangements featuring piano, harmonica and pedal steel, as well as a slew of layered guitar parts and nifty gadgets.

While he had some help from gifted players (members of Hardwood-­signed Cuff The Duke, with whom he’s collaborated in the past, and musical/psychic soulmate Howie Beck, to name a few), the fleshed-out sound of In Field & Town is largely Hayden’s own doing. That’s one reason the obsessive tunesmith took so long to make the record.

“I have terrible musical language ’cause I never work with other people and I never have to explain myself,” he notes. “If a pedal-steel player comes in and I’m trying to guide him, I never make sense.
“But the positive part is that you don’t waste time explaining yourself to anyone; you just go straight to the idea. Truthfully, toward the end of this record, I said to many people — mostly to Howie [Beck] whom I complain to all the time, and trust me, he complains to me too — ‘God, I should just get someone to mix this record. I should just get someone to pick up all the pieces and finish it off for me!’ You reach that point where you’re going insane. A song I thought was great two weeks ago would seem like a piece of shit all of a sudden.”

Hayden’s self-described tendency to disappear “up [his] own ass” as soon as he enters the studio means he’s relatively hands-off with Hardwood, preferring to leave most of the non-creative decisions to music industry vet William “Skinny” Tenn. Nevertheless, the label’s first two signings — Cuff’s alt-country crew and about-to-blow-up folk-soul pixie Basia Bulat — are smart ones.

Not only are they both solid talents who entered the fold on the eve of their graduation from cult curiosity to full-on indie darlings, but the aesthetic similarities between the two acts (both of whom have opened for and/or played with Hayden) are helping establish Hardwood as a label with a clear artistic mandate. Y’know, kinda like Arts & Crafts when those kids were first starting out.

 “Yeah, except I lack ambition,” Hayden laughs. “Just kidding. I think what they’ve done is incredible, but I’m no Kevin Drew, and there’s no empire in the forecast. Nobody puts out albums to make money anymore.”