Steve Earle Screwed a Chord Progression and the Bare Bones of 3—If I Take Really Good Care of Myself and I’M That up in 15 Minutes.” a Melody
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
ISSUE #27 MMUSICMAG.COM ISSUE #27 MMUSICMAG.COM Q&A street performers in New Orleans and help “Remember Me” is a personal song. trying to keep from being called hillbillies, and her land a record deal. Lucia came up with It’s about me being old. I’m 58 and my son is Dwight Yoakam and Steve Earle screwed a chord progression and the bare bones of 3—if I take really good care of myself and I’m that up in 15 minutes.” a melody. I took that and wrote the melody lucky, I might see him through high school. Guitar Town being a No. 1 country and chorus. In the second season, you see That’s just the math. I felt the need to leave album still blows my mind. I’m very grateful Lucia sing it for the first time on the street. I something behind, just in case. for it since it was the beginning of my career, wrote most of “Love’s Gonna Blow My Way,” but I saw immediately that I was going to but Lucia wrote the instrumental section in How have you evolved in the 27 years have to cultivate a different audience, the middle that doesn’t have anything to do since your debut, Guitar Town? because country radio wasn’t going to with the chord progression, which is sort of I’m still trying to say the same things now continue to support what I did. The single a classical thing to do. that I was then. I think I’m way better at it performance on Guitar Town was very now. I’m a better singer, and that was mostly spotty, and I saw that I was going to have What does Ray bring to this project? emphysema. I don’t have any records that to do something else. I was lucky I had a Before The Low Highway, Ray and I hadn’t I’m ashamed of, but I have a little trouble publishing deal. I made $85,000 a year co-produced a record since The Revolution listening to my voice on the older stuff. This just from publishing, so I could live on that Starts Now, but we’ve done other projects idea that the political records I made over the and use the money I got from performances together, and he mixed Townes. Ray’s past few years are something new isn’t true. to pay the band, keep a cheap bus, and especially good at what he does. When we Copperhead Road was a political record. I stay out on the road. work on my stuff, basically he’s the engineer was raised in the ’60s and ’70s and never and I’m the producer/arranger. He carries a thought there was any reason to separate Any goals you want to achieve? lot of the water on the technical end. art and politics. What I’m doing isn’t first and I’ve thought about writing a musical. I’m foremost pop music, it’s first and foremost working on a memoir now that will probably What was the recording process like? I wanted to make a record with my touring band the Dukes because they’re the best band I’ve ever had. We recorded in Nashville T for five days and did nearly all of it live. ed Barron The only overdubs are the organ part on “Pocket Full of Rain”—Allison [Moorer, Earle’s wife] left that day because our son John Henry wasn’t feeling well—and the backing vocals on “After Mardi Gras.” Everything else was recorded live. Ray started mixing the record after five days. I’m rarely present for mixing anymore—I trust Ray. Before mixing, STEVE EARLE we sit down, listen to everything, and I get A powerful storyteller takes a hard look at hard times my notes in. Then he mixes, and we can communicate on the internet. A lot of this record was mixed while I was on vacation “ALL SINGER-SONGWRITERS DO THIS homelessness (“Invisible”) and the meth figuring out what they’re here for. I don’t. I in Florida. All the songs were pretty easy to job on groundwork laid by Bob Dylan, who epidemic in rural America (“Calico County”), know why I’m here.” record, we never struggled in the studio— built his own fame based on Woody Guthrie,” alongside songs written for HBO’s New Skip Bolen/EPA/Landov though I struggled writing “Invisible.” says Steve Earle. “We’ve all done it with one Orleans–based drama Treme, on which Earle How many songs did you start with? I started it for I’ll Never Get Out of This foot in the 1930s, even though none of us— played a street musician. I had 10 of the 12 songs written, and wrote World Alive but never could get it to hold including Bob—witnessed that time firsthand. In addition to being an actor and two in the process of recording. Several together. I guess it just needed to be part of Onstage in New Orleans, 2012 Times are really hard these days. What I’m musician, Earle is also an accomplished songs were written for Treme, since that’s this group of songs. Thematically, “Invisible” seeing out the window is a lot closer to what prose writer, with multiple publications to what occupied a lot of my time when I was has more to do with this record than the last, art. The intention is to Woody saw than it’s been in a long time, his credit and more in the works. “I write writing for this record. I wrote two songs which was an inward-looking record. This is make art, and that goes ‘It’s OK to be a redneck, though I’m seeing it from a half-million-dollar every day, though not necessarily songs,” he with Lucia Micarelli, who plays Annie on more outward-looking. hand in hand with politics. tour bus rather than a boxcar.” says. “I write about stuff I feel needs to be Treme. “After Mardi Gras” was a case of life I think the audience but you can wallow in it The view from that bus window written. I write mainly because it’s my job. I imitating art and art imitating life. There was Seems “Calico County” is a jab at the I have understands that served as inspiration for Earle’s 15th studio write because I believe it’s what I was put a storyline on the show where Harley, my redneck glorification in country? connection between art to a point where it’ll hold album, The Low Highway, a collection co- here to do, and I believe it’s disrespectful character, is trying to convince her that she Absolutely. Some people blame that and politics. There are produced with Ray Kennedy that includes to the cosmos not to do what you were put needs to learn how to write, because that redneck trend on me. All the people who some who thought they were you back.’ unflinching depictions of economic hardship, here to do. A lot of people have a hard time will set her character apart from the other heard “Copperhead Road” and didn’t get seeing something else in me it blame that on me. It’s OK to be country, and were mistaken. Even critics thought I come out early next year, and a novel that to be a redneck, but you can wallow in it to was some kind of neo-traditionalist country will come out about a year after that. I’ve a point where it’ll hold you back. I’m trying artist. They were disappointed I wasn’t, but I got to finish a couple of other projects ‘This idea that the political records I made over the to evolve. I don’t watch reality television. I never told them I was. I used the word hillbilly I’ve got on the front burners before I think past few years are something new isn’t true.’ don’t even watch Will Ferrell movies. I’m and pissed off George Jones, God rest his about anything new. trying to become smarter. soul. He said, “We spent all these years –Juli Thanki 36 37 M mag 27.indd 36 6/11/13 9:02 PM M mag 27.indd 37 6/11/13 9:03 PM.