Snow will never fall again, that much he promises.

From alcohol abuse to jail to stardom to obscurity and back again has been a mostly upward journey, the only direction to go, the singer has decided.

Born Darrin O’Brien and raised in a heavily Jamaican section of suburban North York, Snow, 31, is clearly enjoying his reincarnation from international reggae-cum-rap star – thanks to his huge hit Informer in 1992 – to pop singer. Long gone are the days when he would go on a two-day bender and wake up in a lockup – or a hospital.

“Never again. I’m never going to let my daughter see me behind bars. Never,” he says. “I learned the hard way, but at least I learned.”

Just being around Snow is like experiencing a moderate to heavy caffeine buzz: his intensity is infectious, as if he’s got a nuclear reactor in his socks that needs to be rigorously stifled just so he can sit still.

“Things are good now, real good,” says the singer, tapping his feet, bouncing his knees.

“Before I used to be hot-headed – cut me off in your car and I’d chase you down with a steel pipe. Now it’s like, the guy cuts me off,” he says with a devil-may-care wave, ” ‘Oh, sorry, my fault.’ I just feel good now, like nothing can bother me.”

Considering his chequered past, it’s amazing that Snow is alive and free, let alone getting ready to tour the material from his album Mind On the Moon. He is something of a legend on the Canadian music scene, with a reputation for explosive and violent behaviour.

That, he blames on the booze.

“I was Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,” he says.

Certainly two charges of attempted murder (he was acquitted) and later assault causing bodily harm (he pleaded guilty and spent 2 1/2 years in jail) have helped to build the image.

“Alcohol was my only downfall,” Snow says, shaking his head.

“I guess that was worse than drugs for me. I got rid of that and now I’m all right.”

He has been sober for 31 months. He doesn’t plan to drink again.

“I just quit and that was it. I knew what it did to me. I was an alcoholic, I think. I didn’t drink at home, I didn’t every day. But I’d drink maybe three or four days a week, two days straight. I was hospitalized a lot.

“I don’t ever want to forget about it. I just want to keep reminding myself about the times I was inside and the times I did the stupidness. So that I don’t do it again.”

Ironically, this tough guy’s latest hit single Everybody Wants to Be Like You, now in its 14th week in the Canadian Top 30, is a catchy, good-natured pop tune with not an aggressive note to be found.

Stranger still is the admission that he is painfully shy – especially when he gets asked for his autograph. And he gets stage fright. “You can’t even talk to me,” he says. “Until I get out there, it’s just bad, bad, bad.”

But he’s also generous to a fault, when it comes to his fans. Manager Paula Danylevich says she has a hard time persuading him not to give away his clothing.

“Hats, jackets – they don’t even ask. He can’t help it,” she says, which elicits a bashful grin from Snow.

“My fans, I love them. I’ll give them anything,” he says with a shrug – then a grimace. “I even gave away my favourite hat once, but it made the person happy, so I got over it.”

Snow will begin touring in the spring, around the same time his album will be released in the U.S. Immigration problems caused by his convictions have been cleared up, opening the door to his tour.

In April, he will also make his film debut in A Prison Song, a Robert De Niro-produced musical featuring Elvis Costello, Mary J. Blige and rapper Q-Tip in the leading role.

In it, Snow stresses, he sings but he doesn’t rap. He has never considered himself a rapper, though early on there were comparisons made between him and white rapper Vanilla Ice – at which he bristles.

“Because there was dub, fast-talking, which is Jamaican and close to rap, in Informer,” he says. “I hate that Vanilla Ice thing.”

Snow’s musical style has changed, though, veering away from the reggae-heavy earlier material and closer to pure pop.

“I don’t try to follow what’s hot out there,” he says.

“I just do something that I feel good about and I’ve been doing that from the first album to this album here. If it hits, it hits. Sometimes it don’t, sometimes it does.”

The uncharacteristically mellow attitude is shaped in no small part by Snow’s dedication to five-year-old daughter Justuss.

“I’m just into being a good person,” he says. “This time around it’s much better. I’m liking it much more. My life is just normal.”