Only three years ago Justin Townes Earle played to a packed out Forum Theatre in Melbourne. Shaking the sweat from his singlet he complained about the lack of good cocaine in town, to which some audience members laughed and others called out locations to score. Everyone wanted to party with Earle. An eager audience awaited him from show to show on recent Australian tours, as he complained about migraines and took no audience requests, with no shortage of women dancing right up front.
It was amusing to say the least then to pick up the phone to talk to Earle about his upcoming tour and fifth studio album Single Mothers and hear him talk about his recent re-visit to sobriety. For good this time and he is a newlywed to boot. “It’s definitely the best decision that I’ve made in my life. I waited til I was 32 to get married and that was the best decision too. The person I was two years ago probably couldn’t have handled the situation” says Earle after politely accepting congratulations.
It was an easy connection to make then between his current state and the general mood of the new album, which marks a return to more sentimental song writing and less material about the incidents and places that earned him his fast-living image. “(Marriage) provided me a light at the end of the tunnel. I’m not wandering aimlessly anymore. Life for me has been long and the previous tone was that there was more life behind me then there was in front of me” Earle admits.
More tellingly, Earle is absent from his recent album cover, opting instead to put a young lookalike fan in his place. “I’d been doing the me-and-a-girl thing for so long, it was time for a small departure from it” Earle laughs, “When I think about my inner child, I mean I watch cartoons all day. I think thinking of him is one of the things that has pulled me through the entire thing,” which leads the conversation finally to the awkward topic which was Earle’s early life and career.
Filled with drink and drugs, rehab visits and public feuds with his musician father, Steve Earle, the musician has always been honest on-stage about his life, with stories of drug deals gone wrong and drunken brawls earning him the rapt attention of every venue he played. “There’s a lot from the past that is not going to be processed in one year of marriage. It’s an amazing experience but you can’t get married expecting it to change who you are and what you are. It’s not going to do that” explains Earle with a deadpan self-assuredness.
“I think that my set of values is the same. I was brought up to believe that if anybody crosses you that you bust their ass and I still believe that very thoroughly. I grew up though and I learnt the difference of who to knock out. I think a bit of that street mentality that I grew up with, and what I got from my street life as an adult eventually goes away” he finishes. It is clear no matter the circumstances of his life, he has always lived it on his terms.
It is lucky then that Earle has always had the song writing skills to fall back on without needing something grandiose to pepper his live performance. It was inevitable, considering his lineage that he would always end up singing country, but with such melancholy lyrics and modern influences as The Replacements, even a country born and bred Earle audibly scratches his head over talk of his music mainly being tagged ‘Contemporary Americana.’
“Americana means American. It just means American things” Earle starts to explain, “Maybe handmade, but all things go through stages and changes. I think I’ve stayed in Americana as well as I’ve used to because the term has become so broad. It is losing definition though, I do believe that. It’s become ‘anything with a banjo is Americana’ and I don’t think that’s a clear line between what is what. Blues and Jazz had a clear line, rock and roll and blues have a clear line between ‘em. So I just think Americana’s definition has been interpreted many, many, many ways. The way I see it, Jay-Z fits just as well in the Americana awards as I do” Earle reasons with a dry laugh.
While Earle is spot-on pointing out the laziness in music critics who just want to peg a musician into the easiest category. He avoids pointing out what has obviously set him apart from other artists, both relations and colleagues of the country and contemporary genres. Perhaps sentimentality is an acquired taste, but Earle has always tread the line perfectly between poetic story-telling and quick finger melodies that puts the listener both in his shoes, and feeling as though they are observing a private moment at the same time. Talking about new song ‘White Gardenias’ is an example of Earle’s gentility as a songwriter, taking a quote from Billie Holiday as inspiration for the track.
“She always wore white gardenias in her hair, or a white dress and white shoes. After she got popular she used to say, ‘I wore the white dress and the white shoes and every night they brought me the white gardenias,’ and that just kept playing over in my head” Earle recalls. Though true to Earle’s songwriting prowess, he has processed the image through a blend of his personal experience, until he has painted his own picture.
Continuing after a pause, “I enjoy the poetic, sometimes ludicrous, style of life. It’s a very interesting thing. If you get bored with life, then I don’t know what’s wrong with you. You’ll keep doing the same shit over and over, but if you just keep your eyes and ears open you’ll still see and hear better things every day.”
Sadly, talking about Billie Holiday can’t be the topic for the remainder of the conversation. And while Earle is definitely on the right, but still winding road it is easy for him to default into that melancholic state of mind, “I think that we lose more than we win. Anybody who thinks otherwise is a liar. We lose more than we win. I think though that you’ve got to be kind of delicate with that, and remind people that that’s not how it has got to be. You don’t have to focus on that stuff, and you also have to embrace the darkness, and the darker side of life. It doesn’t mean you gotta die face first. You’ve just got to understand it.”
It is that attempt to articulate the catch-22’s of life that will keep Earle’s fans loyal to him until his past is just folklore. Though, maybe as a side effect of all his long nights, he can’t remember upcoming tour dates or venues. Laughing it off he maintains, “I have, the worst memory on earth. I never pay attention to any of that. I learn that as I go along, it’s another thing that keeps life exciting.”
Justin Townes Earle 2014 Australian Tour Dates
Saturday, 11th October The Astor Theatre, Perth, WA
Sunday, 12th October The Gov, Adelaide, SA
Wednesday, 15th October The Metro, Sydney, NSW
Thursday, 16th October The Corner Hotel, Melbourne, VIC
Saturday, 18th October Out On The Weekend, VIC Tickets: Sunday, 19th October Meeniyan Town Hall, Meeniyan, VIC Tickets:
Wednesday, 22nd October The Tivoli, Brisbane, QLD
