A Conversation with Steve Earle – HuffPost 4.19.11

Mike Ragogna: Steve, how are you doing?

Steve Earle: I’m doing good. I’m sitting at Liuzza’s in New Orleans, I just ordered a Po Boy, and I’m going outside so I can do the interview. I’m here in New Orleans shooting Treme.

MR: Nice, I appreciate you taking some time. Since you brought it up, can we dive right into Treme?

SE: Yeah sure, absolutely.

MR: Beautiful. Now we have a box set and soundtrack that just came out, it’s the first season, and a second season is revving up. You’re still playing Harley, right?

SE: It’s Harley, yeah. Actually, I got to name my own character. My character didn’t have a name when David wrote it and he said, “Okay, you get to name your character.” I used the name of a character in one of my short stories from my first book that came out eight or nine years ago. His name is Harley Watt.

MR: You have a song that was featured in Treme‘s season that was called, “The City.” It had an arrangement by Allen Toussaint. That song was done specifically for the series, right?

SE: Yeah, we were shooting at the ass-end of Decatur Street, posing as Royal Street, really late at night. David and the other writers were in the pit all day, normally. He came out to the set really late and he pulled me aside and said, “I want you to write something your character would have written.” It’s sort of the latest in a bunch of second chances that I’ve gotten. The next day I wrote it. Right after Treme wrapped last year, I came back, but I was gonna make a record with T-Bone Burnett anyway, and so I talked to T-Bone and he called Allen Toussaint. The week after Treme wrapped last year, we came into Piety Studios and recorded it. Toussaint wrote the horn chart and it was a trip! It was like, he’s f**king Allen Toussaint, so it was very cool; one of the best experiences of my recording career anyway.

MR: Sweet. And the mission was to write something aimed at a post-Katrina, New Orleans. How did it apply?

SE: My character is Harley Watt, a street singer. He’s lived in New Orleans for some years and he stuck it out and then came back after the storm. My character would have written immediately following the storm because that’s when the series was set. You see my character writing the song in the last episode, and you’re gonna hear it again in this season too.

MR: You’ve been involved in this series, but you’ve also been heavily involved in the concept of post-Katrina, New Orleans, personally and the whole debacle. What were your thoughts when Katrina was actually happening?

SE: I was in New York City when it happened.I’m from vaguely this part of the world. My wife’s from Mobile, I grew up in San Antonio, and lived in Houston before I moved to Nashville. I know a lot of people that live here, and I’ve spent a fair amount of time in New Orleans. The first time I came back after the storm was about thirteen months after, which is oddly enough about the time the second series of Treme starts. I did one benefit here at Tipitina’s with a couple of organizations that were trying to help people get back home, get their houses fixed, musicians mainly. It was very scary then because I thought what was gonna happen was that a lot of land speculators were gonna come in, and they did. There was all this property that had been in the same family for years and years, and people had been able to maintain it by just paying very reasonable property taxes and all of a sudden, somebody created all these hoops they had to jump through in order to rebuild on their own property. A lot of people couldn’t afford to do it and they had to sell. There were people just waiting to write checks and buy that stuff up cheap. I think people had it in their minds it was going to become Disneyland, you know, New Orleansland. A lot people were coming in and buying it and having it be kind of a resort for rich people, to have a place to stay when they come down for Jazzfest or Mardi Gras. It didn’t happen, mainly because the economy and the rest of the country fell apart or it would have been really bad. There’s lots of stuff that’s gone on, the city is still a little under 100,000 people short from what it was before, but it’s pretty resilient, it’s pretty amazing. We’ve gotten a pretty good look at that during the last year and a half of doing the series here.

MR: Wow. I’ve read a lot of reports, a lot of columns and opinions about what happened in New Orleans from various perspectives, but this is an angle that should be as equally upsetting.

SE: It’s just one of those things. What I’m talking about is what didn’t happen, and I’m almost convinced that it would have. The only reason that I realized that was that there was a piece of property behind my house in Tennessee, I still own a place there. They built a subdivision, and me and several people and the farmer across the road had been fighting it, but we knew we didn’t have much of a chance because it was against people with money that lived in town who were politically connected. They built this subdivision, they had it all plumbed, they had it all wired, and all ready to go. Then the ass-end fell out of everything, and there’s still a bunch of empty lots sitting back there and they never built it. It just sort of dawned on me when I came back here that it’s similar to what has happened with a lot of stuff that people probably had in mind for New Orleans.

MR: What are your thoughts now about post-Katrina, New Orleans? Are there any things you think still need to be taken care of down there?

SE: Well, there needs to be a full service hospital. There’s still not one. You have to be careful about this stuff down here, but the police scare me as much as anybody else down here. It’s kind of always been that way, but I’ve seen some signs that people are at least trying to do something about it. The main thing is that people here have to take some responsibility for the way they live. I won’t take any money out of New Orleans for the time being. Anything I make here, I try and leave behind in some way. I’m playing here in a few months and I’m gonna leave that money behind for the musicians’ clinic. If you’re ever gonna go to Jazzfest, if you’re ever gonna go to Mardi Gras, or Quarterfest that just ended–which is all free music, all through the French Quarter–for the next few years, these are the years to go and remember that New Orleans is important to all of us. It’s the musical heart of America, and the artistic heart of America in a lot of ways. It’s really important that we all get behind it and we all support it.

MR: Beautiful. Now, you’re no stranger to politics. Your album Jerusalem, for example, is pretty intense. It’s also my favorite by you.

SE: Oh, thanks.

MR: Okay, let’s get to your new album, I’ll Never Get Out Of This World Alive. Not only do you include “The City,” but you also have a couple of songs you wrote for Joan Baez–“God is God” and “I’m A Wanderer.” Can you go into how you started working with Joan and what the story is behind those songs?

SE: I’m lucky enough that I can say Joan Baez sings six of my songs. She had already recorded, “Christmas In Washington” and “Jerusalem.” I got a call and was asked to produce Joan’s last record, and you know, she’s f**king Joan Baez, so I set it up and showed up. I got to write several songs for her. There’s three of my songs on that record, two of which I wrote specifically for Joan. In fact, I called her and asked her permission before I recorded them myself because I wrote them for her.

MR: I interviewed her and she had nothing but phenomenal things to say about you. She loves you dearly.

SE: A few weeks ago, I got to go see her get an award that was created in her name by Amnesty International in San Francisco. I got to sing “Joe Hill,” which was pretty cool. I had a blast.

MR: Nice. “Heaven Or Hell,” that’s your duet with Allison Moorer. Obviously, you’ve done it before, but what’s it like working with your wife creatively on a track?

SE: We get to work. I’ve produced about three records of hers. We had a duet that we wrote together on Washington Square Serenade. This song, I actually wrote originally for Robert Plant and Alison Krauss to record. I sent it to T-Bone, and then T-Bone didn’t end up finishing that record. I decided it was too good of a song to leave lying around so we just decided to record it ourselves.

MR: The title of your new album, I’ll Never Get of This World Alive, is also the title of Hank Williams’ last single, right?

SE: Yeah. It was his last single and it was also the title of my novel. It was always going to be the title of my novel because Hank Williams’ ghost is actually a character in the book. I didn’t know what the title of this record was until I finished it in sequence and figured it was kind of about the same things that the book was about. So, I just gave it the same title.

MR: Nice. Is Guitar Town technically your debut? Didn’t you have some Sony singles previously?

SE: I had a couple of Sony singles and an EP that came out on an independent label in ’82. Then two singles in ’83 and ’84.

MR: So, the album Guitar Town is released, the title track is huge, the album is huge, and you and your album help coin the phrase “New Country.” Amazing.

SE: Yeah, a hundred people contributed and coined it–to refer to me and a handful of other people, Dwight Yoakam, and a few other people that were around me.

MR: Then you came out with something that was touted as your artistic album,Copperhead Road, in ’88. Jerusalem, that we just discussed, was in ’02, and you start gathering Grammies, like for The Revolution Starts Now in ’04, Washington Square Serenade in ’07, and Townes in ’09. And the “The City” was nominated for a Grammy, for Best Song Written for a Motion Picture, Television or Other Visual Media. And wasn’t there a potential Emmy in the mix?

SE: It actually didn’t receive the Emmy, it was nominated, but it didn’t win. I got beat by Randy Newman both times.

MR: Right, Randy Newman.

SE: Yeah, you can’t beat Randy Newman in a movie category.

MR: Yeah, and with a genius like Randy Newman, it’s sort of like one must bow down to that guy anyway.

SE: Absolutely, absolutely, all my career.

MR: The obvious question then, after being the critics’ darling for so long now, how do you feel about that? And what is it about Steve Earle now that’s different from Steve Earle of the early days?

SE: I’m sober. And if I hadn’t been, I probably wouldn’t be alive. Things have changed a lot. I’ve never made a record that I’m ashamed of. I’ve taken a lick or two here and there, but my life is pretty good. The acting thing is relatively new and I’ve just discovered that the more things I do, I find different things I can bring back to my home craft which is writing songs.

MR: Beautiful. Having had such a prolific and dynamic career, do you have any advice for new artists?

SE: It’s tough man I don’t even know what to tell my son. I came along in the ’80s, I came along from the old music business, where it’s whoever dives with the highest, hungry, huge figure wins. It just doesn’t work like that anymore. But the other side of it is, the business being downsized has actually kind of made it more democratic. You can go out and find ways to make your own record and get it out there now. If you really want to you can be heard. Keep things simple. Learn to go out and play solo. That’s a really really good thing to learn, if you’re a singer-songwriter. Don’t be dependent on a band because you may not always be able to afford one. I take a lot of pride in knowing I go out with one guitar and do a show. I’m touring with a band this tour but I’m constantly reminding everyone, hey, I could go down to the subway and busk if I had to make a living, I promise.

MR: Thank you. And, of course, you are going to go on tour with The Dukes again in support of this album, right?

SE: Yeah, we start June 9th in Seattle, Washington.

MR: Beautiful. Do you have a closing thought or two?

SE: I think I’m gonna go eat my po boy.

Transcribed by David Proctor Hurlin