Q&A: The Music That Moves Steve Earle

Steve Earle wasn't out of his teens when he introduced himself to Townes Van Zandt. Although Van Zandt was 11 years older than Earle, he agreed to mentor the younger musician, and the two became lifelong friends. These days, on paper at least, they don't appear to have too much in common aside from a history of substance abuse. Earle is an outlaw country roots-rocker who emerged in the 1980s a rabble-rousing iconoclast. He's inched into mainstream consciousness through his music as well as acting gigs, political commentary and his fiction. Van Zandt, the drifter son of a Texas oil baron, was a songwriter's songwriter who actively eschewed the mainstream (he turned down overtures to write with Dylan, who he dismissed as too much of a celebrity). He was as comfortable with a country-folk song as he was with a driving blues stomp, and he died in 1997 at 52, a cult hero broken by addiction.

Earle was so affected by his relationship with Van Zandt that he named a son after him. Now he's putting the finishing touches on a tribute album to Van Zandt, recorded in both Nashville and New York. Rolling Stone called Earle in Nashville to discuss the album, listening to the Kings of Leon, recording with Rage Against the Machine's Tom Morello and his unique relationship with the late, great Townes Van Zandt:

So these are all Townes' songs you're doing?
The idea was to try to record these songs as close to the way that I remember Townes performing them as possible.

How was that?
It's how I learned to play; it's how I learned to perform. I arrive at it slightly differently than he did. I technically execute my guitar style differently than he did, in that he used metal finger picks and I don't, but I finger pick like he did. He was sitting right in front of me when I was really learning to play.

What do you mean he was sitting right in front of you?
This was a real live apprenticeship. I met him when I was 16. Townes was a stunning solo performer. I've only seen a handful of people that were as good as he was. Loudon Wainwright is in that class as a solo performer. It's a really rare thing. The way Townes did it, he could literally just stand there and close his eyes — sometimes not open them for an entire set — and you were mesmerized. By the time more people knew about him, his skills were somewhat diminished as a performer and as a guitar player and as a singer. I barely got there in time to see him when it wasn't.

Do you have a favorite vocal or song or lyric of his? A favorite moment or slice of a song?
My favorite record overall is probably the one they called The Nashville Sessions. The people that released it were not authorized to release it. It was his last studio record before a long break. It was made in the mid-'70s and it's got some really really, really great songs. It's got "The Spider Song" on it, and it's got "Buckskin Stallion" on it. So I like that record overall. I think my favorite songs are probably "Colorado Girl," on an album called Townes Van Zandt, 'cause nobody fucks with that at all. It's a solo vocal performance.