Everyone's idea of hell is different. If you're David Usher, there's a place that's a little cleaner, a little friendlier but a whole lot more sinister and soul-sucking.

The suburbs.

That's where he found himself one day -- in Toronto, in a beautiful neighbourhood, with a big, beautiful house and a wife and small child.

And it was a hell he had to escape.

"I didn't like having a house -- it freaked me out," says the Canadian singer-songwriter, who first became known to the national music scene as frontman for West Coast band, Moist.

"Suddenly, I found that I was at Home Depot all the time -- and I don't like Home Depot.

"And I started to feel like it was an OK thing to be at Home Depot.

"That, for me, is a little bit twisted."

So Usher up-and-moved his family to New York.

There he could get back to the loft life, which he and his wife were previously so accustomed to, and, more importantly, he could get back to something his success with Moist and then as a solo artist had assured he would never have again north of the border.

"Partly it's that no one knows who I am there," Usher says before also reeling off what he calls "the classic reasons" people love the Big Apple such as architecture and the energy.

"But also because no one knows me, I can wander in a sea of people as an observer.

"And that's a great place to be as a writer.

"When people are watching you all of the time it's very difficult to absorb things.

"But there, no one gives a (damn), so I listen in on everybody, so to speak."

It's there that he began -- with no label, no publishing company, no players, and no real friends -- work on his forthcoming disc, If God Had Curves, which is scheduled to hit stores April 26.

Usher calls the disc "a reaction to the last record," his somewhat more extroverted and poppier Hallucinations, and it is, to a great extent, informed by his New York life.

That is, it's quieter, a little more thoughtful and a whole lot more personal.

But still, the songwriter managed to not only include others -- who fill things up and give the album its many textures -- on his fourth solo effort, but also bring some new Canadian friends into the recording process.

One of them was veteran folkie Bruce Cockburn and another one, notable for Calgarians, was Tegan Quin, from Tegan & Sara, who lends her vocals to the peppy Hey Kids, which is perhaps the album's highlight.

"I essentially just called her," says Usher, who had seen her perform last fall in New York, and then invited Tegan to record her part in his apartment.

"That's what I did with this record -- any idea that came into my mind that I thought would be interesting, someone to work with, or a sound idea, I tried and waited to see what happened."

Local fans won't have to wait until April 26 to hear what happened -- David Usher will perform songs from If God Had Curves when he performs tonight at The Whiskey.