Q&A: The Music That Moves Steve Earle

Have you sort of apprenticed any aspiring Steve Earles?
I had the benefit of a real, live, hands-on apprenticeship, so I know the value of that. Even more with Guy [Clark] than Townes. With Guy, I could ask him a question, he could answer it. He could show me how he did something. With Townes it was more like he'd give me a copy of War and Peace, and then I'd find out later, after I'd read it, that he never fuckin' read War and Peace. They were both hugely influential but they approached it differently. There's been a lot of people I've run into over the years that are younger than I was, and because I benefited from that type of learning environment I try to provide it for other people.

You're in Nashville now, but you're also recording some of this album in New York?
To tell you the truth I still haven't found a pool of players [in New York] anywhere close to what I have here. This record, 75 percent of it was recorded in New York, but all the stuff with musicians has been done here, 'cause I overdubbed all the bass and I overdubbed all the drums and then I'm doing these three tracks live with the bluegrass band. So, this record's really kind of a hybrid. I have a novel I need to finish anyway, and I've wanted to do this Townes record for a long time. I'll do it now and I can record it and deliver it, and then I can spend the winter finishing my novel.

You're recording a track with Tom Morello, though, who doesn't exactly suck.
Morello's one of the few real guitar gods that his generation produced. He's one of the few guys who did something else that nobody else had ever done on electric guitar before. In a long time. And of course we're both pinkos so we get along just fine. The track is a song called "Lungs," which is a really great Townes song. Lyle Lovett recorded it several years ago on the record of covers he did. It's one of the scariest songs ever written. Towne's always said that it should be screamed rather than sung.

Were there any records that you've been listening to this year that have caught your ear?
I love the Kings of Leon's record and I'm really glad to see them grow up as a band. And they're local and I've been bumping into them as long as I can remember. My tendency is to pull for them. You're listening to one of the best singers that rock & roll's ever produced I think.

That's high praise. Have you worked with them or are you going to try to work with them at any point?
No. Oh, I'd kill to work with them. I have to accept the fact that I'm 53 years old and my audience is getting older too and its one of those things. Sometime in my 40s I had a new girlfriend that saw me make the bluegrass record and she thought that's what I did I guess. Then we were put in a rock band together and making transcendental blues and the first gig we played at for not playing together for a year and a half was farm aid and it was a Crazy Horse year for Neil and we were really ridiculously loud and she goes, "Why do you play that loud?" and I go, "Because it makes my dick hard." And I still have that in me. I'm a lot of times too loud for my own audience.