Q Our guest
is not in town to sign books or sign records or play a concert, he's
here to play for those of you who listen on the radio and listening
in this room. And also, to talk about a great new record called "Jerusalem".
Please welcome to the KGSR airwaves, Mr. Steve Earle.
A (While picking Baby
Let Me Follow You Down) I used to be a folk singer. Now I'm a recovering
folk singer. The thing about the folk singer thing is there was a lot
of rules and I had to give it up. Some rules are okay. I don't mind
following rules that I agreed with in the first place. One rule that
was okay was the great Jimmy Driftwood told me at the 1972 Kerrville
Folk Festival that when I played a song for folks, I ought to tell everybody
where I learned it from. So I'm going to tell you-all right now up front
I learned this song off of a Bob Dylan record. Bob says right on the
record where he learned it from. He says he learned it from a guy from
Cambridge, Massachusetts, named Eric Von Schmidt.
Now, another rule if you're a folk singer you had to ramble around a
lot. And my rambling brought me to a town in Central Mexico called San
Miguel de Allende by the late 1970s. Nice town. Every dog has a bandana
around it's neck and a frisbee in his mouth. Kind of like Austin before
the whole dot com thing went to hell. I discovered that my neighbor
across the street in San Miguel was none other than Eric Von Schmidt
from Cambridge, Massachusetts. No, really. Lived right across the street.
But he wasn't being a folk singer anymore, he was being a painter. And
he was painting Custer's Last Stand because his dad had painted Custer's
Last Stand, the one that we all grew up with in the Smithsonian. But
he got it wrong. And Eric was going to correct that. There's something
about the Indians were coming from the wrong direction and Custer had
recently been back to Washington and had had a haircut, which, considering
how it all turned out, I think is sort of a moot point.
I lived there for two years and I thought, you know, the folk singerly
thing for me to do would be to go across the street and introduce myself
and learn something from him and sing it for you-all and tell you-all
where I learned it from. But in all that time, I never got up the nerve
to go across the street and talk to him. So like I say, I learned this
song off of a Bob Dylan record.
(song) * Baby Let Me Follow You Down *
Q
Steve, I've been spending the last few days with the new album, "Jerusalem".
And I thought you were going to come out here and tell us about conspiracy
theories and "Jerusalem" and all the heaviness of that record.
And you came out singing folk songs.
A Well, those are folk
songs.
Q Yeah, that's
true.
A Yeah, I mean, there's
actually -- I'm going to do a couple of songs from that record. But
there's really only two that acoustic versions exist at this point.
And I'm going to play some other stuff, too.
Q Yeah, 'cause
this record, the production is different. I mean, you stretched in a
lot of different ways with the backing vocals and the sounds and --
A Well, Conspiracy Theory
itself is a little different from the rest of the record. It sort of
arrived at, you know, completely the opposite of the way I normally
make records. It was a -- you know, I hooked up a loop and then I put
a bass part down. And then I started writing lyrics, which is not the
way I normally do it.
Normally, you know, what we do is we've got some guys that can play
and some good microphones and we plug the microphones into a tape machine
and we turn it on. And that's pretty much it. And the rest of the record
was basically made that way. I didn't pay much attention to the way
this record sounded, really. It was pretty much totally idea-driven.
And it was just sort of same gear we've always used. New studio, because
we moved room and board into a newer -- a better room.
But it was just sort of -- like "Transcendental Blues" was
-- I was -- you know, it was mostly chick songs. And I was sort of fascinated
with texture and melody. And so there were a lot of overdubs. You know,
a lot of time went into what we were going to -- what weird instrument
we were going to pull off the wall and put on it. And it was musically
driven. And this is idea-driven. So it really got to more we'd bash
it out and then we'd listen to it and it'd be, "oh, we'll just
put a tambourine on it and mix it." And it was pretty straight
ahead, pretty quick process.
Q
Not that you wouldn't have addressed the subjects that you address on
this record, but I heard that, in an unusual statement, your record
label president actually asked you to make an overtly political record?
A Well, actually, Danny
Goldberg asked me to make an overtly political record before September
11th, and I wasn't really that keen on the idea. I mean, because I thought
it would be boring. And I'm sort of dedicated to writing more chick
songs as I get older, because it prevents my audience from becoming
exponentially hairier and uglier as time goes on. (Laughter). Because
I've got to look at y'all, too. And I play small places, so I can see
you.
But it was -- I don't know what other record I would have written. And
I basically -- September 11th did happen and I suddenly found myself
writing that record that I thought I'd never write.
Q I was mentioning
earlier, you're here to play for the people on the airwaves, the listeners
that are here. Are you going to do a conventional tour around this record?
But you've got a lot of other stuff happening at the same time.
A Yeah, the tour starts
November 15th in Knoxville, Tennessee. And we're going to work the eastern
part of the United States back as far west as Chicago. Just mainly hitting
the big cities in the East, like between now and Christmas. And then
shut down for Christmas and we'll start again in January, which is probably
going to bring us to Texas sometime in January. Probably late January,
because we're going to start about the middle of the month. And yeah,
we'll be out all next year with this. At least.
Q Because
I know you're working on a play, right?
A Yeah, the play is finished.
It's in production. It's -- we're in rehearsals right now. So that's
what I'm doing right now. I'm running out and doing the promotion that
I need to do and that they want me to do and trying to -- and then --
I mean, I flew to Toronto and did press night before last -- I mean,
day before yesterday flew back and was in rehearsal all day yesterday
and got on a plane about 9:00 last night to come down here.
We've got a family thing going on in Lubbock. My brother manages the
airport there and he's got this museum that he's helped put together,
this glider pilot's museum at the Lubbock airport that they're dedicating
tomorrow. So Patrick and I are going to that tomorrow and then back
in rehearsals on Monday. And the play goes up October 25th. And it's
called "Karla." And it's about Karla Faye Tucker. And it's
really not strictly an historical piece, because it begins with Karla's
execution. And it's turned out to be something bigger than I think all
of us involved in it... and -- which is -- you know, I knew a lot of
people -- I knew a lot of guys on death row in Texas. And the women
are in a different place. And there in Mountain View, which used to
be Gatesville Boys Reformatory. When I was growing up, that's what they
used to scare the hell out of me with was, you'll end up in Gatesville.
Instead I ended up in Nashville, which might be worse. But it's -- it
goes up the 25th. And we're going to -- it's about a two-week run in
Nashville. And then I start rehearsals for the tour.
Q
Well, let's talk a little bit more, but let's hear a little bit more.
A Thanks. Well, let's get
this out of the way. This is not the only song on this record, although
you would have thought it was two weeks before the record came out and
before a lot of people had actually even heard it. But I'm not one for
explaining myself very much. But I will say that I think I saw something
different than a lot of people saw when I saw John Walker Lindh on television
duct taped to a board. I saw an underfed, 20-year-old kid. And I've
got a 20-year-old kid. And he always looks underfed, even when I feed
him. And the first thing that occurred to me was that he has parents
and that they must be sick. And there were enough people vilifying him.
And I think anybody, when we judge people, they have a right to be judged
as a human being and not as a poster child for, you know, whatever we're
afraid of at the moment.
This is called John Walker's Blues.
(song) * John Walker's Blues *
A Thanks.
I think what that song is, is me telling a story in someone else's words
and trying to get inside someone else's head. I mean, I don't condone
what John Walker Lindh did in the sense that he took up arms. I have
a problem with anybody that takes up arms against anybody for any reason.
And I get more like that the older I get. And I don't know how to explain
it. I don't even hunt anymore. I finally, one day, looked down the barrel
of a rifle and couldn't shoot the deer. And that was after killing 17
of them. Don't have any problem with people that do, but I can't do
it anymore. I occasionally humiliate a fish before I put it back in
the water. (Laughter). That's as violent as I get.
But I've done that before. And I've -- you know, it's something I've
done as long as I've been writing. I just find it interesting, because
when you write in the first person, you have to try to assume that character.
Tim Robbins called me and sent me this movie a few years back that he
was working on, called "Dead Man Walking." And I was already
familiar with Sister Helen's book. And he called me and he said, "I
just want you to watch it and see if it inspires anything," which
was sort of like, you know, I think everybody that -- the record, if
you've ever heard the record, there's a lot of really inspired work
on that. I think it affected everybody the same way.
And this has a Texas connotation. Ellis Unit One doesn't exist as death
row anymore. And I bet you most people in Texas don't even know that.
They moved the guys to a different facility. And it's more modern and
they're even more -- they're less likely to die of heat exhaustion in
their cells, which has happened, especially on the third tier. But they
are -- it's a much easier place to keep them alive until we're ready
to kill them. But it's -- on the other hand, it's more dehumanizing.
It's a pod-type prison, if you've ever looked into that. And the way
pod -- they separate the inmates even more from each other.
But for a long time, death row in Texas was called Ellis Unit One. And
this is -- the person telling the story is a correctional officer.
(song) * Ellis Unit One *
Q
A couple of songs written from the perspective of characters. When -
in -- I don't know how to phrase this. People used to write protest
songs because they thought they could change things. And I wouldn't
really characterize those as protest songs. They're almost like chapters
from your book "Doghouse Roses." They tell stories. When you're
writin' a song like that, are you motivated to try and bring about a
dialogue, to change people's minds, to express yourself?
A Yeah, change people's
hearts and minds. I mean, you know, yeah. I think music can do that.
I think it always has been able to do that. I think -- you know, the
real interesting social phenomena in this country, I think, in the long
run, if sociologists are smart, they'll pay really close attention to
what's happened in this country in the '60s and '70s. And that is, the
Vietnam War snuck up on us. It had been going on for a while. And people
weren't real up front about it. I mean, people didn't even know where
Vietnam was. I literally grew up with that war on television. And then
it went on for so long that I had to register for the draft and was
eligible for the draft in that war. I mean, I don't remember it not
being on TV. And I registered for the draft in that war.
And I think a lot of things that we do, good and bad, now are based
on our determination for that to not happen again. But I think understanding
for it to really not happen, we have to understand what happened in
the first place and how we reacted to it and how we stopped it. And
one is, in music, all of a sudden, rock and roll was something that
major labels dabbled in. And then in 1969, they saw 400,000 people.
And the people that run record labels, they saw a market. And then there
were other people trying to get there. There were other people that
were turned away because the New York thruway was closed. And God knows
how many people would have been at Woodstock if they hadn't have had
to shut the roads down. If the roads and the infrastructure could have
handled it.
But for the first time, you know, the corporate music business went,
oh, I get it. But the thing is, they didn't know anything about all
this music that they were hearing. And so there was this short period
of time where the only thing that they could do to cash in on it was
to give budgets to people…to just give it to the bands and let
them make records and say anything that they wanted to say. And I think
that -- I remember my father -- I saw Woodstock for the first time with
my father at the drive-in in San Antonio. And it was on the first anniversary.
They got that film out really fast. And all over, I think, the country,
in the South where there were drive-ins a lot of them probably were
in drive-ins. They were showing that movie on the first anniversary
of the festival, that whole weekend.
And my father saw Joan Baez. And as much as he wanted to not dig, you
know, what he was seeing and a lot of the stuff he was hearing, I think
he was genuinely moved. And the Vietnam War ended, not because I opposed
it, because my father eventually came to oppose it.
So music does change people's hearts and minds. Don't ever underestimate
it. All art can. And I think I am trying to change people's minds. I
have had people come up to me and told me -- and it's -- now, it's gotten
up to probably I can -- you know, I can remember 20, at least, instances
where people came up to me at an in-store or something where they could
actually talk to me and said, "You changed my mind about the death
penalty." And so we -- you know, it does work.
You're going to see a lot more topical music if we keep going the way
we're going. Because, you know, this is not going to be -- we're dangerously
close to declaring war on a whole belief system. And if we do that,
that's not going to be a war where we go and drop some bombs and it's
going to be over with. And what I -- the other thing I saw similar is,
in this atmosphere, it was suggested by the Attorney General of the
United States that anyone that questions the authority of our government
in the time of crisis is being unpatriotic. And I submit that there
is nothing unpatriotic about asking questions, ever. That's the whole
point of a democracy. And we especially need to ask questions now, 'cause
they're hard questions. And they're not -- there aren't any simple answers.
And so it's really important now. (Applause).
Q
And since you're a sensitive man and it means something to you when
people come up to you and say that you've changed their minds, what
about when people disagree with you from the heart? I'm not talking
about the knee-jerk conservative commentators who had something to say
about the John Walker song. They were just, you know, makin' show. But
what about when a listener comes up to you at an in-store or a someone
comes up to you and says, "You know, I just don't agree with you
on this or that"? I'm sure it happens on occasion.
A It happens on occasion.
It hasn't happened lately, and…
Q You don't
want to just preach to the converted.
A No, I mean, you don't.
But obviously, those people that came up to me and said I changed their
mind, didn't agree with me about the death penalty in the beginning.
And the thing is, I'm really lucky. I have an audience. You know, I
don't sell millions of records. I sell hundreds of thousands of records.
But my audience is pretty smart and allows -- you know, they allow for
us to have that dialogue.
And John Walker's Blues created a dialogue. Believe me, the plea
bargaining agreement was about us not talking about John Walker Lindh
anymore. That's part of the reason that the government agreed to it.
And we're still having the conversation. And I think we needed to have
it, because it's gonna -- you know, it's not over yet. He's 20 years
old and he's doing 20 years. And he's going to do at least 17 years
of it, the way he was sentenced, you know, as part of the agreement.
And probably why he accepted that agreement is he was -- they couldn't
threaten him with the death penalty because he isn't guilty. And no
one's ever -- believe me, if they thought they could find him guilty
of treason, they would have charged him with treason.
But they can't put him in the population. They basically -- his deal
is probably -- although we'll never know the details, it's probably
about where he'll be housed for the time that he's in prison, because
he'll last about 30 seconds in general population. Because I've been
in jail, and believe me, everybody in jail wants to think they're better
than somebody else. And John Walker Lindh would be in serious, serious
trouble in the general population of any prison.
Q You can't really de-politicize
a conversation, but what I'm thinking is, you come back to Texas and
you're obviously doing something with your family. But what do you look
forward to when you get here? I mean, barbecue?
A Yeah, Mexican food, people
that aren't afraid to barbecue a cow. (Laughter).
Q See how
we went right into a de-politicized conversation?
A Yeah.
Q It was
beautiful.
A It's probably political
to cows and pigs.
Q Very much
so.
A Pete Seeger said that
all songs are political because even lullabies are political to babies.
A baby has an agenda. He either wants to go to sleep or he doesn't.
Q
Well, I'm going to leave it up to you where you want to leave us with
the last song.
A Thanks. The biggest revelation
in writing the songs for "Jerusalem" -- and I think it's really
important that this record -- I write records to be records. And by
that I mean, I still call them records. I don't call them CDs because
I feel very Wall Street when I say CD. And I object to that term. I
don't have any of the other kind of CDs. And it is a record -- you know,
for me, I write albums to be albums. And this was -- John Walker's
Blues is -- and Conspiracy Theory are, you know, only a part
of a record of how I was feeling. And I was just afraid of different
things, I think. I'm just as afraid as anybody else is, but I just think
I'm statistically more likely to suffer damage to my civil liberties
in this atmosphere than I am personally to be attacked by terrorists.
And so it's perfectly natural to be more afraid of the thing you think
is more likely to happen to you.
I learned -- the big revelation for me was how ignorant I am of Islam.
And how dangerous it is to be ignorant of Islam in the times that we're
living in. I didn't know that all devout Muslims, when they say, "Jesus,"
say, "Peace be upon him," because he was the last prophet
before Mohammed, according to Islam. And I bet you can't find one in
several million Americans that know that. I didn't. I'm pretty smart
and I read a lot.
I didn't know that Muslims worship the same God that Christians and
Jews do. It's not a similar God. It's not just monotheism in common.
It's the same God. It's the God of Abraham. The very same God. And I
didn't know that the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and the Dome of the
Rock and the Western Wall, three of the holiest sites in these three
major belief systems that are really incredibly closely related and
came out of the same part of the world are on one piece of real estate,
smaller than most shopping malls in a city called Jerusalem.
And the optimism I found in this record went into this one song. And
it comes out of a situation that a lot of people considered to be hopeless.
But I don't, because I believe that we're being pointed back at Jerusalem
over and over and over again over a couple of thousand years for a reason,
because I'm a recovering addict. And a recovering addicts do not believe
in accidents. There's something that we've been missing and that we're
supposed to -- we're being returned back to Jerusalem because there's
something left undone. And, if we can get it right there, everything
else is gravy. Everything else will be easy. And my experience is that
the things that are most worth doing are hard. And they're hard for
a reason.
This
is called Jerusalem.
(song) * Jerusalem *
A Thank you.
Thanks for listening. Thank you very much.
Q Steve Earle.
Jerusalem is the final song on his new album. It's also the name
of the new album. And it leaves us with a note of hope, not only today,
but when you hear the CD. And I do encourage you to hear it. As Steve
said, a couple of songs translate acoustically, but a lot of the stuff
…
(End of interview.)
