STEVE EARLE How a Singer-Songwriter, Actor and Activist Learned to Be a Novelist

MARCH/APRIL 2011 ISSUE MMUSICMAG.COM Q&A Ted Barron Ted STEVE EARLE How a singer-songwriter, actor and activist learned to be a novelist SINGER AND SONGWRITER STEVE stay clean is to not fool yourself about form. I’m much more old-fashioned, and Earle will soon release both a new T Bone what you’re in control of. Why hire T Bone that comes from songwriting—a beginning, Burnett–produced album and his first Burnett and then try to tell him how to put middle and an end. I had to learn novel—both named for the Hank Williams the record together? how to get a lot of information out and classic “I’ll Never Get Out of This World to develop some sort of narrative in Alive.” Earle struggled with drug addiction Did you know during recording three to four minutes. in the late 1980s and early 1990s, but his that the album and book would be high these days is productivity: He’s also companions? Did having a baby inﬂ uence you? writing a play, acting on HBO’s Treme Not until I sequenced it. I did know the Probably. It’s the ultimate expression of and adjusting to life as a new father—he album was about pushing things as far optimism to have a baby in your mid-50s. and wife Allison Moorer welcomed a baby past the decimal point as possible literarily. Now I want to be in shape to throw a baseball boy into their New York home last year. The book was always going to be called in six or seven years. I’ll Never Get Out of This World Alive How was working with T Bone? for obvious reasons: Hank Williams’ Will you encourage your new son to It was hugely liberating. My last record ghost is a character in it. follow in the family business? [2009’s Townes, a tribute to the late I have no reason to discourage anybody from singer-songwriter Townes Van Zandt] was This isn’t as political as some of your doing this. Nothing bad that’s happened to all somebody else’s songs, so for this one I other albums. me has had anything to do with what I do spent a lot of time writing. T Bone worked Well, it’s less political than Jerusalem [2002] for a living. I would have been an addict if on the record a lot longer than I did. He was and The Revolution Starts Now [2004], I’d been a carpenter. involved from beginning to end. He wakes but it’s as political as Copperhead Road up every day intending to make art. That’s [1988]. That’s a much more political record Do you feel part of a genre? what he and I have in common. It was a great than people give it credit for. It was my I come up three different ways in crossword experience. There was a time when I would post-Vietnam record. puzzles: country, folk and country-rock. never have allowed anyone else to touch There’s nothing you can do about it. This is anything with my name on it. How would you compare songwriting the most country record I’ve made in a long to writing a novel? time. But it’s my idea of country music, which What changed that? A book is really hard. This took almost eight has always been different than Nashville’s Well, I’ve been clean for 16 years. One years. There’s a lot of feeling around in idea of country music. of the things you have to do in order to the dark when you’re used to a shorter –Jeff Tamarkin ‘It’s my idea of country music, which has always been different than Nashville’s.’ 6666 M mag 10.indd 66 4/17/11 8:05:00 PM.

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