Steve Earle gets more political as he gets older, but his songwriting is still a gift from God, he tells Tony Clayton-Lea
Sawn-off shotguns, heroin, crack, six marriages, calling Shania Twain the highest-paid lap dancer in Nashville, describing his exercise regime in the bad old days as little more than fits of coughing - my, but Steve Earle has lived the life. The country/roots singer is still a firebrand after all these years. That liquid stuff coursing through his veins? It isn't blood anymore - it's a scorching mixture of piss and vinegar, and as he gets older and even more politicised he continues to undermine the theory that besets artists of a certain age and lifestyle: that as they become more and more set in their ways - creatively as much as anything else - they become less and less relevant.
Earle attributes his vituperative frame of mind to being without a partner again. "I had my first mid-life crisis when I was 27, and this is my third. I'm single and kinda trying to stay that way for a while. Plus, there's a lot going on in the world."
Born in Virginia in January 1955, Earle started off singing and writing songs in his teens, moving to Nashville, hanging out with the likes of Townes Van Zandt - "a real bad role model" - performing for tips, working the nine-to-five routine while simultaneously fighting against such conformity. He's been fighting ever since - the demons inside him, gnawing away, coming out to cause trouble regularly.
There was a time in the late 1980s and the early part of the 1990s where it seemed as if he would end up as little more than a fondly recalled and renowned figure of country rock rebellion. Earle, however, wasn't for dyin' just yet. He cleaned up his life, his act, put a rocket under his music and set about putting the world to rights. He became mouth almighty, blending articulacy with vociferous comment on subjects ranging from the death penalty to Farm Aid. Like his blue-collar colleague, Bruce Springsteen, Earle's propensity to politicise has become even more urgent and energised.
"I just don't know any better! I started out playing music in coffee houses simply because I was too young to play venues that served alcohol. The Vietnam war was going on at that time, so it was a pretty politically-charged atmosphere, and I have never separated my music from my politics. Most of my music is of politics from a human angle - Copperhead Road is quite a political song, although I'm not sure that many people appreciate that. The idea that musicians aren't qualified to comment on the world around them in political terms is a relatively new idea. The country music I love comes from Irish and Scottish music more than it does from anywhere else, and music in Ireland is very much tied to politics - you just can't separate the two. There are parts of music that are written in code - just listen to Róisín Dubh, man! So the idea that music and politics don't go together is a new idea that comes from the music business becoming more inane and playing it safe."
Playing it safe is something that Earle has never engaged in. From saying no to jingle work - "it isn't art, is it?" - to saying yes to too many drugs (according to his former wife, Lou-Anne, he was at one point little more than a zombie), he has constantly walked a thin line between life and death.
What has got him through it all, he says, is his tenacious personality.
"I like to think it's a fairly good-natured tenacity," he avers. "I've always felt really lucky to be doing what I'm doing, even when I wasn't making any money at it. I didn't start making money until I was in my early 30s, and it took a long time but I never considered quitting and doing anything else. I always thought I was lucky making any kind of living, and it was a bonus I was doing that through what I loved. That makes it easy to hang in there; I really have a faith that things will work out the way they're supposed if I do what I'm supposed to do.
"The only time in my life when things got really bad was, I think, a direct result of me abusing my gifts as a songwriter. I genuinely think I have a gift; I was warned several times but I didn't listen and finally God took my gift away from me. I couldn't write a song for almost five years, ended up in jail and so on. When I stopped abusing that gift the bad shit stopped happening to me. I really believe that if you hang in there and do what you're supposed to do then it'll be fine. It isn't hard to figure that out."
With regard to his personal relationships, he says, his self-centredness has been his worst enemy. "It's not that I don't care about people - in fact, I very much care a lot about other people, but I get caught up in my own stuff, which makes me very hard to live with. When you've been married as many times as I have you kinda figure out that maybe it's your fault." He's gone from the place he calls home all the time, he points out. It seems he's allergic to staying in city limits for longer than one month. "If I don't travel a lot I would break out, and the truth of the matter is I've told women for years that this is what I do. I can't help it - I just make records and do these other things I do. It all comes back to the records, though. I'm really the luckiest guy in the world. I have a career on my terms and the audience I have is very loyal - they buy every record I put out and every once in a while I reach new people." He reaches, protests and provokes in equal measure, it would appear. For the past few years he's had a bee in his bonnet and it's called Bush.
His most recent insurgent country/roots albums - Jerusalem, and his latest, The Revolution Starts . . . Now - have upped the ante somewhat in terms of protest music. Politics in music working, implies Earle, is the same reason as why love songs in music do their job - it's about empathy, about people hearing words that make them feel they're not alone.
Empathy, states Earle, is the main reason thorn-in-side film-maker Michael Moore is so successful. "He's not an elitist sitting around talking about lofty political theory. He's a real working-class guy, and regular working-class people understand him. And that scares the living shit out of some people, which is why they're going out of their way to vilify him. What's more important is that people are buying those Michael Moore books - and people are buying those millions of tickets to Fahrenheit 9/11, which means the Bush administration is in trouble."
Which is good news for Earle. He didn't think Bush could do so much damage in four years, but he admits he was wrong. "He's managed to isolate America," he says. "We had the sympathy of the entire world after September 11th and he squandered that in nine months." Earle is viewing the upcoming US presidential election with a mixture of elation and caution. He thinks it's going to be a close run between Bush and Kerry. Ultimately, though, he is bullish about the outcome.
"The day after the election, when Kerry is elected, is when the real work starts," he maintains. "The reason I'm voting for Kerry is that I truly believe he will start to rebuild a relationship with the rest of the world. He says that and I believe him. Until we get that we're in real serious trouble. "I can't imagine what kind of a US is going to be left for my grandchildren if we don't head in another direction - fast. And speaking of direction, I gotta go - another dental appointment!"
Steve Earle's The Revolution Starts . . . Now, is on Artemis/ Rykodisc. Steve Earle and The Dukes perform at Ulster Hall, Belfast, November 12th; UCH, Limerick, November 14th; and the Olympia Theatre, Dublin, November 15th