A cool cowpoke gets political

Steve Earle, a new disc under his belt, talks about his tumultuous career -- a hair-raising ride that has included many wives, an ugly romance with heroin, and watching a man die.

By Mark J. Miller

Aug. 29, 2002 | Not too many record-company execs ask for overtly political albums from their artists, particularly in a time of high-intensity American boosterism. But that's exactly the directive that renegade roots rocker Steve Earle received from Artemis Records owner Danny Goldberg before Earle started his latest disc, "Jerusalem," due in stores this month.

Of course, when the artist is Earle, it is hardly necessary to ask for potentially combustible material. Since his debut in 1985 with the rough and ready, honky-tonkin' "Guitar Town" -- designated by some as the salvation of country music -- Earle has chosen to go against the flow. Instead of reveling in the cool cowpoke image that came with the release of "Guitar Town," Earle moved on to rock 'n' roll, a phase that culminated with the 1988 Top 10 rock-radio hit "Copperhead Road" from the album of the same name. He kept rocking the country cradle, creating urgent, rootsy, roadhouse tunes about lonesome losers with beat-up lives, which drew many comparisons to Bruce Springsteen's blue-collar characters.

But as he pressed into new creative territory, Earle began to tempt the fates, developing a serious heroin addiction and a habit of marrying and divorcing women with troubling frequency. By 1990, when he released the aptly named "The Hard Way," Nashville was ready for him to disappear. And he did. For four years, he didn't write any songs, instead spending his days chasing down dope. He was on the last of his five wives by then.

In 1994, Earle was arrested for drug possession and went into rehab. Since then, he's released six critically acclaimed discs in six years; started his own record label, producing albums for everyone from Lucinda Williams to Bap Kennedy; written "Doghouse Roses," a book of short stories; founded the BroadAxe Theatre, the acting company in Nashville that will premiere Earle's first play, "Karla," about Karla Faye Tucker, a born-again Christian who was executed in 1998 in Texas. In his spare time, Earle has devoted time to working for the elimination of land mines abroad, and the abolition of the death penalty at home.

His name has become synonymous with the latter cause, particularly since he befriended Jonathan Nobles, a convict on Death Row in Texas with whom he became pen pals. Earle witnessed Nobles' 1998 execution and has written a number of tunes about the death penalty, including "Over Yonder (Jonathan's Song)" for Nobles and "Ellis Unit One" for the "Dead Man Walking" soundtrack.

"Jerusalem" features a few more prison tunes as well as a rant on the dilution of baby-boomer values, and a song that's already brought Earle a barrage of criticism -- "John Walker's Blues." The song's story is told from the perspective of convicted American Taliban fighter John Walker Lindh, and contains such lyrics as "If I die, I'll rise up to the sky/ Just like Jesus" and "we came to fight the jihad and our hearts were pure and strong."

Earle, relaxing in the Manhattan offices of his record label, took a few minutes earlier this week to discuss Truman Capote, drug addiction, why poetry is like bluegrass, Bruce Springsteen, the dogs of Galway, why FarmAid works, and if there's a cure for being a Texan.

How did you become interested in politics?

I just grew up in a time when songs were pretty political. It was the '60s, early '70s; the Vietnam War was going on. I was too young to play in places that served liquor when I first started, so I played in a coffeehouse and the local underground newspaper was published upstairs. My politics were really radical when I was younger and then I moderated like everyone else does when they start having kids.

What's different for me is that I nearly died. That makes you look at things differently. That's what "Christmas in Washington" [from 1997's "El Corazón"] was about. It was about politics, but it was a very personal political song. It was about me waking up one day and realizing that maybe I was right in the first place, that maybe there isn't any reason for someone to go hungry in the richest country in the world, that maybe we need to start thinking about what our grandchildren will do when the United States isn't the most powerful country in the world.

You know, I still write more songs about girls than anything else. But I don't have it in me to go out of my way to write songs that aren't about anything. I wasn't raised to do it like that.

Have you recaptured your youthful intensity?

I think I have. I'm pretty politically active at this point in my life. I mean, I'm involved in an organization called the Justice Project, which requires me putting on a suit and going to Capitol Hill to talk to people about the death penalty.

Is that a satisfying experience?

It's not satisfying. It's frustrating, but it makes me feel like I'm not doing nothing. And I'm not comfortable with doing nothing.

How surprised were you when your label asked you to make an overtly political record?

When [Grammy-nominated] "Transcendental Blues" came out (in 2000), Danny Goldberg said to me, "I would never tell you how to make records, but ..." He was looking for a way for me to distinguish whatever my next record would be from "Transcendental." This was before Sept. 11. I thought he was crazy. I wasn't inclined to do that, but I was very, very impressed and felt very safe and very supported. Then Sept. 11 happened and I found myself writing that political album.

This is the first time I haven't had an adversarial relationship with a record company. And I've been OK with that. Artists have always had to fight. Michelangelo didn't particularly get along with the Vatican. He needed the money.

Next page: "I've witnessed an execution. It scarred me for life"