Click here to view the embedded video.Marcus Foster- I Was Broken

You are releasing your first full length record this September. In addition to being a musician, though, you recently completed an MA at The Royal College of Art and had a piece at the Saatchi Gallery as part of their NEWSPEAK: BRITISH ART NOW exhibition. With the gearing up for the record, is art still a focus or is it taking a backseat to music?

Yeah, I’m still making art, I’m still kind of working [on it]. But I’m doing a lot more music stuff at the moment. I’ve spent the last six years of my life making art. I feel like it’s the the right time to have a go at doing a bit of music…do that for a bit and keep the balance.

Why now with the music? Did you meet the Communion guys and it just all fell together?

I met the Communion guys when I was doing my Masters. Before I was just working with this one guy. And it was just great that I found them at the right sort of time. With my masters, I was still really busy with work but I found the time to record an EP and go on tour.

Did they just approach you and say they wanted to do this record with you?

They said “Do you want to be part of this compilation thing?” And I was like “Yeah”. “Do you want to come down and play?” “Yeah. Great!” And then we just got on so well recording this one song that we were just like, fuck it. We just became great friends from there.

How involved were they in the recording of the EP?

It was all done in a church in Crouch End. It was with Kev, who is in my band and he also runs Communion. So then we did the album together as well, which made sense and we just kept going. It all worked out.

Are you looking forward to the album finally being released? 

Can’t wait for the album to come out because then it will just be like “Done. Hello. Hi. How are you?” No. I’m really excited about it.

Visual art and music. Do you come at both from the same angle and grapple with the same issues or are they totally different processes?

No, no. It’s a really different process. I’m still trying to find… I don’t know. It’s weird. I’m kinda being forced to make connections with it, which I don’t necessarily feel makes sense. It’s just that I do two things. You know I went to Iceland to do a music video and did the artwork for the album there and I’m starting to try and combine the stuff that I do with my music and artwork and I’m interested in working with videos and trying to make them more of my art…just because that’s what I like and that’s what I’m drawn towards, so just embracing that side of the music. But [music and art] they are a very different process.

For the video, were you the artistic director?

I did it with a close friend, a guy called Max Knight,  who made videos for Laura Marling and Ellie Goulding.  He’s a good friend and we just went out and we had the same vision and I was just breathing stuff beside him frantically. I just realized that I need to work with people and be hands on. It has to be a collaborative process because I distrust anyone (laughs) which I’ve learned from doing this album’s artwork.

Because when you outsource things to someone else,  you feel like that wasn’t what you wanted?

No, I mean it was great. I just learned that it’s an interesting  process.

Would you be happier if it was your artwork on there?

No,  it’s just a different thing. It’s kind of walking a fine line between…I’m still trying to find the balance between what you do let go. How much of me should swing towards the art side and how much you should let go and try and find the right balance of people that are trying to walk that kind of line.

Do you feel like you’ve found that balance here in London in terms of community?

Yeah, I mean it’s good. It’s early stage. Just starting, it’s exciting and it’s going the right direction. I’m meeting new people all the time. Artistic people. It’s just trying to find the right kind of people to work with. I’ve got the right band. I’ve got the best band I could ever want. I just love playing live with them. It’s so much fun. It’s really exciting and can hopefully just keep going.

Is there anything coming up you are particularly excited about?

Green Man Festival. I’m playing a lot of festivals which will be really fun because I’ve never really been to festivals in my life. So it will be nice to play and go to one. And shows. A lot of tours have been fun and I want to keep going.

You went to America two years ago, right?

Yeah, 2009. I’d been to New York once before but I’d never really seen the country so it was cool to see lots of different states. It was when I was in college, too, so I had to make work while I was there. So video ending up becoming an important part of my art practice. It was amazing, I could be on tour playing music, and make sculptures, it was incredible, an incredible realization. A lot of the stuff that ended up being in my final [degree] show was from San Francisco to LA.

What kind of artwork?

Photography and video and stuff. You come across a lot of strange situations and bizarre objects. I realized that the type of videos I would take were similar to the objects I would make. It was an interesting relationship between things, and I write songs a bit like that too…a landscape, traveling.

How did you choose what to document?

I documented everything. You just see so many weird things on tour. And objects, buildings and structures that are slightly bizarre. The way I find things…really bizarre things that if you frame them in the right way…like I filmed these lifts in a San Francisco hotel which looked like weird alien pods, and there are thousands and thousands of lights in front of the pods, so the lift looked like it was under water, like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, really strange. It’s just about taking charge of the moment.

What was the coolest/most memorable thing you saw in America?

Loads of things. Loads of weird things. I was impressed by a lot of water towers. And this orange tulip café, which I ended up filming. Which was just kind of really weird. It was just a little café but you couldn’t go in. But I like weird bubbly objects. And yeah, I just saw a lot of weird things. It was amazing. I wish I’d made a documentary of it.

Are you going back soon?

We are traveling to America. I’ll probably be there in end of December/January with a big American tour for the album hopefully. I’ll be there for months and months and months hopefully. We might be doing a little show in New York in a couple of months.

No updates yet about the American tour or the NYC date, but he’s set to embark on a 25-date tour of the UK and Europe starting October 7th in Sheffield with When You Awake-favorites, The Pierces. Click here for the complete dates.

During that same decade, she performed with artists such as Bob Dylan  (see photo above of Dylan and Blakley backstage at The Roxy in 1976) and Hoyt Axton, among others, and dueted with Dylan on his epic “Hurricane” from the Desire album. She also toured with Dylan and other performers on the Rolling Thunder Revue, and appeared as “Mrs. Bob Dylan” in Dylan’s 1977 film Renaldo and Clara, performing her song “Need A New Sun Rising.”

During the 1976 presidential campaign, she performed at rallies and speeches by Jerry Brown and in 1984 she performed, with Kris Kristofferson, at the final Los Angeles rally of presidential candidate Walter Mondale. She’s also starred in several movies, made guest appearances on popular TV shows and produced, wrote, starred in, and directed her own feature music docudrama, I Played It For You which debuted at the Venice Film Festival in 1985. She continues to record new material and release new albums to this day. Check out our interview with her after the jump.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Ronee Blakley: My character as written was more “like” Lynn Anderson and originally she was to be played by vanilla blonde Susan Anspach. The Loretta Lynn tag occurred when I took over the role as a brunette. I studied Dolly Parton, Tammy Wynette and Loretta Lynn. I saw both Loretta and Dolly perform, and hung out with Loretta, who was, and is, an inspiration to me.

WYA: Nashville was just one of the many great movies directed during the seventies by Robert Altman, who also directed McCabe and Mrs. Miller, Thieves Like Us and a personal favorite of mine, The Long Goodbye, among many others. Do you have any specific memories of what it was like working with Altman?

Ronee Blakley: Altman had two rules: don’t contradict me on the set because time is money and don’t show up drunk for work. Those were the instructions he gave everyone, because he was open to ideas and received them gladly, but if he said “no” he was not to be argued with. Those are good rules for every set. Of course most directors don’t instruct their employees not to show up drunk, but that was because he liked to go out with some of us, every night after dailies, for dinner and drinks.

WYA: What was it like recording your first album, Ronee Blakley in 1972. I love your duet with Linda Ronstadt on “Bluebird.”

Ronee Blakley: It was exciting and fun and challenging. I remember driving to Linda’s on Beachwood Canyon, where she lived with JD Souther, to pick her up for the session. She drank alot of carrot juice in those days and sometimes she was a tad orange. The musicians were the best, and when I listen to the album I remember them gratefully for their talent, generosity, and the thrill of working alongside them to bring my songs to life.

WYA: Your second album, Welcome was released on Warner Bros. in 1975. It was recorded at the legendary Muscle Shoals Sound Studio in Alabama. Can you tell us something about the recording sessions and what it was like to work with a music business giant like Jerry Wexler, who produced the album?

Ronee Blakley: Jerry Wexler was a force, someone whose intellect, energy, vocabulary, encyclopedic knowledge of recorded music, and no nonsense attitude I respected until the day he died. We talked during his final days. I was honored to perform at his memorial with Lenny Kaye in NYC. Jerry and I butted heads once, but he came right back out of it and still invited me to his house for dinner. Jerry was funky and funny and honest, always the truth! The Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section was, and still is, a group of great guys, superb professionals who taught me alot. I still seem them and love them. They traveled with me to back me up on “Howard Cosell.” [Note: Ronee's referring to her appearance on "Saturday Night Live with Howard Cosell," with aired on ABC between September 1975 to January 1976].

WYA: You’ve done so many things — actress, singer, songwriter, composer, producer, and director — but I’m wondering, is there one role that you identify with more than the others?

Ronee Blakley: I love doing them all and the way it coalesced in the movie Nashville was maybe my favorite type of combination; working with others closely, writing scenes and songs, singing, acting on film, bringing others into the project, hanging out together, coming up with ideas and realizing the. To have a creative outlet like that is a luxury more desirable than things. To direct myself? Yes, that too is fun!

You can read much more about Ronee here.

MP3: Ronee Blakley – American Beauty (buy)

I caught up with Brian Whelan, founder of a great new LA band, Wheelhouse, via email during a break from prepping for his appearance at this weekend’s Sunset Junction Festival. Brian is striking out on his own with Wheelhouse after having previously been the bass player in Merge Records band The Broken West and also performing as an accomplished sideman with numerous L.A. musicians. His versatile, skillful guitar and bass prowess could previously be witnessed alongside contemporary country rock heroes like Mike Stinson, Randy Weeks and the incredible Tony Gilkyson. Brian also played a number of gigs with L.A. singer-songwriter Kip Boardman, in a band that also featured Wheelhouse bassist Rob Douglas (who has also played quite a bit with Stinson, Weeks, Gilkyson and other artists, including Charlie Louvin) and drummer Derrick Brown. Both Douglas and Brown were in the Vapor Records band Everest for a while. Whelan has moved over to guitar and within the past few months, and in less than a dozen gigs with his new band, he’s shown that he’s a new force on the scene, a true West Coast renaissance man and a vibrant songwriter with a lot of musical interests and influences, including straight-up rock ‘n’ roll, pub rock and outlaw country. Check out the interview, in which we chat about his time in The Broken West, a recent stint appearing on “Mad Men” and more after the jump.

Photo by Kent Geib

When You Awake: I understand that, growing up on the west coast, you split your time between Seattle, WA, and San Jose in northern California. Did the music scenes in either of those two cities have any influence on the music you wanted to make?

Whelan: I wasn’t as influenced by the “scenes” in those towns, although I love them both. I was a little too young to really be hit by grunge in Seattle, and San Jose’s ska scene didn’t influence me too much, although Lee [Pardini] and Kevin [Higuchi], who are playing this weekend with me, are in pretty deep with all that stuff.

When You Awake: What are some of the albums in your collection that you can say have helped shaped your taste in music?

Whelan: My first records were greatest hits comps from Eddie Cochran, Little Richard, Elvis Presley, Buddy Holly and Chuck Berry. These are still the records that most inform my own songs and shows.

When You Awake: Many of When You Awake’s readers might recognize you as the bass player in The Broken West. You guys recorded for Merge and did a lot of touring around the country. How was that experience?

Whelan: It was a great experience overall. I learned a lot about writing from Ross [guitarist Ross Flournoy] and the other folks that worked on the creative end of that band, the songwriters and producers, etc. I think touring at that level is a super struggling experience that I don’t exactly want to duplicate any time soon.

When You Awake: You’ve also played guitar and bass with L.A. country rock luminaries like Randy Weeks, Mike Stinson, Tony Gilkyson? Did playing as a sideman in their bands help shape the direction of the music you’re making with Wheelhouse?

Whelan: I would say that that experience definitely shaped what I’m doing now – those guys are all heroes of mine. All of them are tremendous writers, so that was something that brought me in early on. Playing with Tony is like getting free guitar lessons in some ways – you can hear his licks turning up in my solos if you listen.

When You Awake: You played with Ross in The Broken West, and bassist Rob Douglas and drummer Derrick Brown were in Everest, among many other groups, and you have Mona Elyousef on backing vocals too. It seems like a really solid bunch of players, and all the guys in the band are great musicians.You definitely get to play some rockin’ stuff.

Whelan: Ross has been helping out with the writing and production. Live he plays lead guitar and chain smokes. Mona is along to sing all the harmonies – she’s really great and it’s rare to find someone who sings harmonies well. Rob finds tons of old vinyl and digs up songs that we can cover; sometimes he’ll find stuff that I just listen to over and over – “Dear Dad,” “Shame Shame Shame,” and on and on.

When You Awake: “Decider” is a really great song. Seems like you get to rock out more with this band. And you know I love the covers you’d done, like that Buzzcocks cover “Why Can’t I Touch It?”

Whelan: “Decider” was recorded when I had tendonitis so Ross is playing all guitars, and it features the San Jose rhythm section that will be appearing with me at the Junction on Sunday. This song is from my forthcoming LP that I hope to put out next year.

When You Awake: You recently got to appear on the AMC TV show “Mad Men,” playing the part of a folk singer named “Rudy” – what was that experience like? Any future plans to appear on TV shows?

Whelan: It was a great experience – Jon Hamm told me to steal my costume! So that was great. Ross and I got involved in an indie film called Nesting so you can look for that – our song “Everything” is being used also for that. Beyond that I don’t have any plans for the screen – I just pick up the phone and say “yes.”

Wheelhouse will be taking the stage this Sunday, August 22nd at 2 pm, at the FOLD stage, located at Sunset and Edgecliffe. When You Awake faves Leslie and the Badgers will be playing right after Wheelhouse, and Brian says he hopes to coax another guest performance out of Ms. Stevens (she joined the group earlier this year at the Grand Ole Echo). Maps and schedules can be found at www.sunsetjunction.org.

Brian and the band will also be playing at 8:30 pm TONIGHT (Saturday, Aug. 21st) at the Cinema Bar in Culver City, warming up the stage for the Cheatin’ Kind and Dan Janisch.

MP3: Wheelhouse- Decider (Rough Mix)

Guest Contributor Cheree Franco chats with Robin Pecknold about his favorite night-time music, the meaning behind his song “Blue Ridge Mountains” and whether he’s an extrovert or an introvert:

At the Newport Folk Fest I managed to catch up with Robin Pecknold, frontman of Fleet Foxes, for some backstage banter. Except that as soon as I found myself sitting cross-legged on the grass, facing the person behind the ethereal songs that got me through last winter, I knew I wasn’t quite prepared to conduct a professional interview. I blame it on lack of sustenance (did I really expect a bagel to last upwards of 12 hours?) and dually, the sun. Check out the interview, in all it’s glory, after the jump.

Cheree: I guess, um, tell me about yourself. How did this whole thing happen? You guys have been together a long time, right? Someone just passed your tape to Sub-pop?

Robin: Um, we started the band about three years ago and I think we were kind of like, we started to work [for the record/on the record? This part is illegible due to me moving the voice recorder] and my friend Phil was helping us record it and he’d done a lot of records for Sub-pop so he knew the people there and once we were kind of like
halfway done with it, and then um—

C: Well how did you guys meet? You and the guys in the band?

R: Me and Skye with to school together, and Casey and Christian we met once we started playing music in Seattle, doing this thing called Crystal Skulls.

C: And then, I guess, so this whole year has been when everything’s sort of blown up for you guys?

R: I mean, last year was a much busier year, I think for us.

C: What’s the difference between this year and last year?

R: Well last year, the record came out in June and we toured I guess three months before that, and the whole rest of the year. This year we’ve been touring less and writing the new record.

C: And when do you expect to finish that?

R: I have no idea.

C: Is it going to be along the same vein? I guess, how would you describe what you do?

R: How would we describe what we do?

C: Yeah, how would you describe, I mean, it’s folky, but it’s not straight-up…

R: Yeah. I think that’s a pretty good description, folky, but not straight-up folky.

C: Really? You’re just gonna give me back my own words? That’s totally cheating, but hey…

R: I think that…I think that there’s like elements of folk music, or that’s the basis of it, as opposed to based in rock or something. Um, you know.

C: Is this the kind of music that you’ve always played? I mean with the other band…

R: This is the only band I’ve ever had. So I think, like, when I was a teenager I used to record a lot of Elliot Smith type songs, I was constantly obsessed with him, but yeah, it’s always kind of been in this vein for sure.

C: And you think the new record is gonna be…

R: I think it’ll be similar or at least the main difference would be songwriting, you know….

C: As in different songs or a different approach to songwriting?

R: Just kinda how you put a song together and where the chorus goes or you know, if there’s a chorus at all, how long the song is, it’s different that way, as opposed to like, now we’re gonna do a dance or a techno record or something. It’ll still be acoustic instruments and stuff.

C: And you write the songs, or everyone writes the songs?

R: I write the songs for the most part. So far I’ve written them all, but a couple on the next one, we’re working collaboratively on.

C: And where do your ideas come from?

R: I think it’s just trying to evoke an atmosphere or something, you know, like trying to, I think, um, the most inspiring thing could be just the feeling of a certain place or certain time, you know. That’s kind of what you can base stuff on, maybe—

C: So they’re not necessarily narrative, like a certain place in time in your life specifically, or like a certain place and time—

R: Yeah, like either in your life or an event in your life or just like, you want music to evoke a feeling, just like ‘night-time’ or awe or something.

C: Did you used to make seasonal mixes? Are you that guy?

R: Seasonal mixes?

C: Yeah, or do you like, have music that you only listen to at night?

R: Yeah, totally, yeah, yeah, yeah.

C: What’s some of your night music?

R: I definitely like Bert Jansch, you know, um—

C: I don’t know who that is

R: J-A-N-S-C-H, yeah, that’s a good night-time guy. John Renbourn is a good night-time…Robbie Basho, he’s like another kind of Nick Drake-y type dude.

C: I do know Nick Drake. But did you used to make seasonal mixes, or do you still—

R:I haven’t made a mix in a long time, but yes, absolutely.

C: Um, what did it feel like to see all these people, is this the biggest show you guys have played?

R: I don’t think so, we played Glastonbury which was like 100,000 people, and that was—

C: Oh yeah, Wikipedia says you’re really big in Europe.” line

R: I don’t think they were all there for us, but that was the capacity. It was just people, as far as the eye can see.

C: Do you get nervous?

R: It’s so abstract, you know. I’m maybe more nervous playing for thirty people than any more than that, you know. I think that at a certain point it just becomes this indistinguishable mass.

C: Did you eat the cake that they gave you guys? [Some fans passed a cake to the stage before Fleet Foxes played their Newport set]

R: No, they told us not to eat the cake.

C: Because it might be poison or something?

R: No, they were just like—don’t eat it!

C: What are you going to do with it?

R: I dunno, schellac it and frame it.

C: Yeah, then it’d be art.

R: Totally.

C: But, um did you know who gave it to you guys, or someone just handed it and that was it?

R: That happens every once and awhile.

C: What other things have you gotten?

R: We’ve definitely gotten a lot of food, and someone made like this weird wire cut-out thing, like they took this long thing of wire and formed it to say Fleet Foxes and made a fox, all on this one piece of wire.

C: And you guys are all still living in Seattle?

R: Yeah, yeah.

C: Are you from Seattle?

R: Yeah, I was born and raised there.

C: And you went to school there and decided to stay?

R: Me and Skye were both born there and so was Casey. Christian and Josh grew up on the east coast, and just moved to Seattle at various times.

C: Do you think you’ll be there forever or do you think—

R: I think it’d be nice to live somewhere else for awhile, but I don’t think anywhere else would really feel like home, I guess. I like being from Seattle, and I like staying in Seattle…I feel like, moving somewhere else, you would have to be plugging into something that wasn’t fully your own…

C: Just because it’s home, or because it’s your scene and your friends…

R: Yeah, your friends, your family’s there.

C: What’s the first music that you remember really getting into?

R: Probably the first stuff that I was like ‘okay I wanna play music’ was Bob Dylan, Bringing It All Back Home and Blood on the Tracks. For sure.

C: Remember how old you were?

R: I was 13. I was like, I wanna play music like now.

C: So you went and got a guitar?

R: Yeah, well, my dad got us, me and my brother and sister, all guitars when we were, well I think that Christmas, when I was 13.

C: In Mississippi you get a deer rifle when you turn 13.

R: Deer rifle? (laughs)  And a driver’s license?

C: That’s 15, they moved the age up though, but yeah, I got mine at 15. Um, okay, I guess, your experience here…

R: Yeah, it was great, it was really fun. It’s definitely somewhere that, as a Dylan fan, I’ve read about Newport in ’65 and it even hit when he would play Newport the years before that, just all the crazy stuff that went down. So it was definitely an honor to be asked to play, and Gillian Welch is just amazing…So I was glad to see, I’d never gotten a chance to see her.

C: When you say a feeling of a certain event or a time in your life, this might be a complex question, you don’t have to answer it, but um, is there a particular song that you associate, well I guess, can you elaborate on that with specifics?

R: You mean, with songs that I’ve written or…

C: Yeah.

R: I think that like, ah…

C: It’s a tough question.

R: There’s like, the second to last song on the album, “Blue Ridge Mountains”, my granddad had just died and…it was just kind of reminiscence about times me and my brother had been with him, and yeah, it was trying to evoke that place I guess.

C: So they’re really personal, but also…I don’t know, I feel like they’re really intuitive and universally evocative, in the sense that…I’m really big into myth of place, that’s why I move so much…

R: Yeah.

C: Yeah, but, is there anything else you need to say about the festival?

R: Um, to say about the festival…

C: Or about anything, is there anything you feel you need to share—

R: That I need to get off my chest?

C: Yeah.

R: Um…it’s definitely a beautiful place…and it’s kind of, I’m looking forward to Pete Seeger absolutely.

C: Yeah, because he’s 90.

R: And yeah, it’s just nice to be outside…

C: That’s true…okay, I do have two more things actually.

R: Okay.

C: Your dynamic with the rest of the guys in the band, I mean not your dynamic specifically, but how does the dynamic of the band work?

R: Um…you mean in terms of?

C: I mean in terms of, are you friends, or it’s more of a professional relationship and you used to hang out but you don’t really hang out now that you’re, or I dunno, band dynamics can be really messy or raw or sometimes they’re really professional…

R: I think it’s like, we definitely hang out for fun, it’s not like we never see each other when we’re not working on music or playing shows. I think everyone’s pretty easy-going, no one takes it too seriously, no one’s too self-involved to have fun with it and, yeah, I mean I think it’s like, sustainable, you know? That’s how we treat it.
Nobody’s too insane, everyone’s kind of interested in, like—

C: That’s important. A lot of great bands self destruct.

R: (laughing) Yeah.

C: Do you consider yourself an introvert or an extrovert?

R: Definitely an introvert I would say, I think…that that’s kind of where music comes from or something, introverts.

C: So then, to be onstage, giving, exerting so much, is that strange for you?

R: I think that everybody has different sides to themselves. I think um, I think…I dunno, I think you can either make music for yourself and other people identify with something in it, and it’s not like you’re doing it for them, but they can find the value in it and then they’re kind of sharing that experience together, you know. It’s not like you’re really pandering to them. I don’t think we’re performers in the sense that we’re trying to make people enjoy themselves and like put a show on, we’re just trying to play the songs as they were written and you know, do it well, and hopefully people will enjoy it, but it’s not really for, you know, we’re not setting shit on fire and
doing cartwheels.

C: Do you think you’d write the songs anyhow, even if you weren’t playing them publicly?

R: Oh yeah, absolutely. Songs are just like what you do after a certain amount of time’s past in you life and stuff has happened to you, you write songs about it.

Justin Townes Earle.  Being the natural skeptic and usual hater of most things, I was fully prepared to sneer and silently judge this musical offspring of a very remarkable and renowned country singer (I’ve made a clipped choice not to mention his father’s name in this piece.)  While it’s an honor to be compared to his Daddy, I’m certain JTE is over the comparison and name-dropping.  And JTE is due his own respect as he’s earned his right with me to stand alone. The very thought of a kid of some famous musician tinkering with notes makes me bristle—Lennon, Dylan—don’t know, don’t care.  This one’s the exception.

I got my grubby paws on his two solo albums, The Good Life and Midnight At The Movies.  I say solo, because he also fronted two bands:  The Swindlers and The Distributors before venturing out onto his own simply as Justin Townes Earle.  What bludgeoned my auditory senses were the incredible depth and his capacity to tell a story as if he were an old man.  The guy is only 27 years old!  The sound is stripped-down, no bullshit resplendence.  Then I became an all-out YouTube lurker, checking out his live performances.  He’s tall, rail-thin but has a commanding presence and owns the mike and stage like a seasoned pro.  Accompanied by his multi-finger pickin’ sidekick Cory Younts, who plays a mean mandolin,  Earle’s a capella delivery is an Ali-like smooth punch right into your gut.  It’s simple and restrained, but the sound is excessively absolute.

I had the great pleasure of getting Earle on the phone for a quick interview.  He was on his tour bus riding through downtown Seattle.  The phone connection sucked, but he was ever so patient and gracious.  Our conversation went from the sublime to the rather silly:

When You Awake:  You pay tribute to the great American folk hero in your song “They Killed John Henry.”  What is it about his legend and persona do you identify with?

Justin Townes Earle:  I think that it all relates to my grandfather.  He told better stories than anyone.  One was the story of John Henry.  The other was Joe Hill.  Those were big ones.  He spoke about these men that were bigger than life.  And that’s what Papa was.  He could solve everything and he really was untouchable.  He died a lot earlier that I thought he should.  Papa was just like those guys: one mythic and one very real.

Continue reading the interview after the jump….

WYA:  Why the choice to do without a full band in your live performance?

JTE:  Mainly, that’s just a pure economic decision.  If I were a member of a band, everyone in the band would starve together.  But when you’re a singer/ songwriter—the band, they get paid first.  They are independent contractors and I have to pay them no matter how much I make.  In the last few years, this current set up has become the show and it’s what people have come to expect at my shows.  Most people that come to the shows are about the songs anyway.  It’s not about the band.

WYA:  The Replacements are one of your favorite bands and you cover one of their songs “Can’t Hardly Wait” on your sophomore album Midnight At The Movies.  Why?

JTE:  It’s just one of those things that comes down to…if you’re my age, born in ’82—that’s about the time—1986 -1990—when they were really at the height of their fame.  And if you had parents that were remotely hip, they had Replacements records in the house.  My mom even had Metallica records.  She just liked what she liked.  I was just listening to what my mom was playing around the house.  Without a doubt,  “Can’t Hardly Wait” is the closest thing to a hit that they ever had.  In 1990 that song was everywhere.  Hell, it could’ve been on a tampon commercial, it was so-everywhere!

WYA:  You mentioned your musical influences to name but a few, Woody Guthrie, Charlie Pool and even hip hop and Motorhead, as well as the obvious Townes Van Zandt whom you are named after.  What is the commonality for you of all these varied sources?

JTE:  I’m a songwriter.  Most of what I go for is just good songs, good lyrics and good structure.  Proper instrumentations that represent the song, most people have difficulty with.  Often you hear a record with a great song, but the record sucks.  Like Motorhead:  I would never say they are great musicians, but Lemmy is the living embodiment of metal and Rock ‘n’ Roll.  Motorhead does Motorhead better than anyone, you know?  The Roots or Outkast…hell…Anybody, any musician that can listen to that and say it’s not good music can kiss my ass.  The last Outkast record was the best I’ve ever heard.  That stuff holds the same quality that Woody had back in the day—it’s just very urban music to a different beat.

WYA:  Was it a conscious choice to not be on your father’s record label, E-Squared, and to go your own way with Bloodshot instead?

JTE:  I feel that’s one of the most important decisions I’ve made as an artist, and how involved I got in my career with my dad’s.  I’ve found over the years that in order for us to maintain whatever father-son relationship, we have to keep the business world very separate.  Because it’s money and people fight over that.  We don’t need that.  We’ve always had a rocky relationship—it’s been great over the past several years, but it still gets pushed to the edge.

WYA:  You sang a song as guest artist on your father’s recently released tribute album to Townes Van Zandt.  I know you’ve performed with your father previously, how was working on this album different?

JTE: It was actually something where I was in town for a few hours.  I had to run into the studio real quick—literally for two hours—while I was in the city to do that.  When we go on the road, it’s really, really stressful as it is.  It’s just not a good idea to work with my dad.  I’m not saying we’ll never perform together again.  His career is very established and we stand where we stand individually, as individuals.  And as artists, we have our particulars and we both have things that are very deep set.  We live and tour very differently.  I mean look, two bands that aren’t related, but with co-billing—one of them in that group dynamic is going to be an asshole at some point.  There’s so much ego tied up in this business.  I’ve never had a problem with treating people different, but it’s a stressful way of life.  You just get down-right sick of shaking people’s hands and just want to lock yourself up in the hotel room and be able to…no, you have to say, “No, not today.”

WYA:  You mentioned your paternal grandfather as being “the model of a man,” as well as believing that he’s an exceptional storyteller.  What character attributes make him a model man?  And do you see any of him in yourself?

JTE:  I sure hope that there are some of my grandfather’s qualities in me, but I’m no way near anywhere he was as a man.  He raised five children on an air traffic controller’s pay in the 50’s and 60’s.  My dad was raised by a really great man, but he made specific moves to really fuck up and unfortunately, I inherited that.  My Papa took his children to state parks, ate apple pie with them.  My point being that he was a true family man…I hope somewhere in there, I think that I’m carrying some of his attributes.  He was a great man.  But I don’t think I am near what he was.  I haven’t even lived enough for that, not real life.

WYA:  What hip hop artist’s persona speaks to your style of storytelling and song writing?  Would you agree that hip hop is storytelling at some of its best?

JTE:  I would say it’s those guys that are really, really good writers.  I think hip hop is absolutely full of imagery. Some guys—the way that they lay out that imagery through their lyrics is truly a unique style of writing.

WYA:  Having performed at the oldest continuous radio program in the U.S. –The Grand Ole Opry –what was that experience like?  How many times have you performed there?

JTE:  I performed at the Grand Ole Opry just one time.  I was really surprised we were invited even once.  I mean, my dad’s never even been invited to the Grand Ole Opry.  Yeah, he’s performed there, but that’s cause Emmylou Harris said, “____[his dad’s name] is performing with me.”  It was just one of those moments in my life where it was everything that I thought it would be.   When I was a kid…I mean, it’s absolutely one of those most thrilling moments in your life that you won’t forget.

WYA:  With due respect, at age 27, you’re really in the spring of your life.  How does someone so relatively young, manage to write lyrics that speak of more mature experiences of desolation, anguish, and dispiritedness?  It’s as if you’ve lived many lives to give you the depth and understanding of someone who’s at the winter of his years?

JTE:  One thing is that I really screwed up.  I was in a position where my mom worked a lot and left me alone a lot of the time.  I grew up really fast.  I had friends  that were much older than me.   I know how to be an adult and a junkie, but one thing I don’t know how to be is a kid.  When I was 13, I was shooting heroin, selling weed—that ain’t much of a childhood.  And you lose those years.  So I write what I write.  I could never write a lullaby.  Maybe I could, but I’d have to get a lullaby manual or somethin’.

WYA:  Now some silly, fun questions, if you’ll humor us:

•    What hair product do you use to slick your hair?

JTE:  It’s called “Olive Oil.”  It’s a lotion, but it’s made for Black women’s hair.  And it’s made with pure olive oil.

•    Gram Parsons or Neil Young?

(It took him a minute to answer this, he had to think about it long and hard)
JTE:  I’m gonna have to say Neil Young, because he’s just got more work.   I think Gram Parsons was great, but his great stuff isn’t as good as Neil Young’s great stuff.

•    Nina Simone or Billie Holiday?

JTE:  Billie Holiday! I love my Nina Simone, but nobody sings like Billie.

•    Have you ever hopped a freight train?

JTE:  I have one time in my life hopped a freight train.  It was at a rail yard  in south Nashville.  I ended up in Lebanon, Tennessee. My mom had to come and get me. I was 10 years old.

•    What’s your biggest pet peeve of the minutia of being on the road?

JTE:  It’s probably when I show up at a venue and often, nothing is what it’s suppose to be.  You’ll show up and there won’t be no bottled water.  And you have to ask,  “Um, excuse me, but can we get water?” And they look at you like you’re the jerk, “You want water?” I mean, it’s Austin, in the middle of the dead summer’s heat…they act like we‘re animals where we run around doing nothing.

•    What’s the most disgusting thing you’ve ever eaten?

JTE:  Hmmm…Some stuff from England.  Because they have some of the most favor-less food I’ve ever encountered in my life.  But, I guess it’d have to be haggis. That was really bad.  It’s a Scottish delicacy.

Forget all the damn hipsters who front like musicians and who can barely play a chord.  Come down to McCabe’s in Santa Monica on Sunday, May 24 and see for yourself why I’ve decided that Justin Townes Earl is The Real Deal. Show starts at 7 pm with Charlie Wadhams and Frank Fairfield supporting. You can buy tix by clicking here. And don’t forget to pick up Justin Townes Earle’s latest record, Midnight at the Movies (out now via Bloodshoot Records.)