Twangville recently got a chance to talk with Jason Isbell by phone as he was resting up back home, getting ready for the release of his new record, Here We Rest (see Chip’s review here). The fruits of said conversation are below, enjoy.
Congratulations on the new record, I really think it’s the best thing you’ve done. Been stuck in my car stereo.
Well thank you, thanks a lot.
It really seems to work well as a single listening experience, very cohesive. I’ve thought that about all your records, but this one even more so. It seems very well suited to vinyl with the 10 songs and the instrumental. Is that a goal of yours when you’re recording or does it just kind of happen with songs you have?
It’s not necessarily a goal. You do want to make a record that sounds like a record. [unintelligible] And with the vinyl release, we always try to keep that in mind when we’re making the record, where well split it and what songs sound good where and that kind of thing. It wasn’t like we were trying to make a concept record or anything. Through the course of making the record a lot of the same things lyrically and musically were coming back up, it was not something that I went in and sat down and said this is the kind of record we are gonna make. I just played the songs and they sounded that way really.
This may just be me, but it sounds like there are more stories or character driven songs on this record than lets say the self-titled record. I don’t know if that’s true or it’s just me, but they’re very kind of evocative on this one. “Alabama Pines†and “Stopping By†in particular, I don’t know if I know the whole story, but it seemed like you had a specific character in mind when you were writing them.
I did. I always took a lot from writers who wrote from the untrustworthy narrator position, who wrote from the first person perspective, but didn’t write about themselves. It’s always kind of strange to me, because when a person reads a book or watches a movie they never assume that what they are watching is about the person. You don’t think that this guy is really a CIA agent in France or this guy, the author of this book, is a cowboy in Mexico in the 40s. But, when people hear a song and you use the word “I†or use that first person, a lot of times they automatically assume you are talking about yourself. In some ways you do have to put yourself into and go from your own experiences to be really empathetic to other people’s stories, but I like writing from another person’s point of view. I like writers that do that. It’s really interesting to me and it helps you get outside of that scope of yourself.
I also really liked the work you did the Justin Townes Earle on his Harlem River Blues record. What was that like and how much fun was it recording with him?
Thanks man. It was great and really easy. He records a lot of stuff live and he keeps a lot of his original vocals, which isn’t something you see a lot of people do these days. It inspired me to try do a little but more of that. There are a few songs on this record where we kept the original vocal and I’ve never done it before. It was great though, he’s an old friend and a really easy person to work with and collaborate with. We always have a good time when we’re together. But overall, I really believe in the songs. I think he writes great songs and he chose great musicians, Sky Wilson, Ben Davies, Brian Owens, really fun people to play with.
I also wanted to ask you about the Letterman experience, because I saw you played with him on that. It looked like you guys had a ball and you were all duded out with the suit and the tie. Has his “style†rubbed off on you at all?
I don’t know about for my own thing, my own performances and stuff, but yea you have to look good when you are playing with that mutt (Note: not sure if “mutt†is the correct word here). You have to be dressed up. They had all the background singers and stuff, I didn’t want to be the one guy wearing flannel and blue jeans on stage. That was a really good experience though. It was good to get together and see him for a couple a days. Dave was real friendly and everyone on the set was nice.
Do you have any other collaborations on the horizon?
I’m sure it will happen, but right now I don’t have any plans on it. We have that record coming out in a couple of weeks and that’s gonna be like having a newborn for awhile, I’m not gonna get much rest or an opportunity to do much else. But once that’s over, I’m sure I’ll come back in and do more of that. I really do enjoy it, just playing guitar and singing back up.
You do occasional covers at your shows by artists I really love, like Van Morrison, Townes Van Zandt, Tom Petty, Warren Zevon and stuff like that. What goes into picking out a song that you are gonna cover in your live show? Is it something that gets tossed around a lot or something you play during soundcheck or how does that happen?
It usually starts out as something that’s been stuck in my head for a few days. We try to do stuff that not a lot of other people cover, because people get tired of hearing the same song over and over from a different artist. But its usually just something that gets stuck in one of our heads for a few days and someone comes up at sound check and says we should do this. A lot of times we will try to do something with some kind of a Muscle Shoals connection. We will try to do a song that was recorded here or by an artist that worked here or was written by someone down here or something like that, really just to keep it interesting for us more than anything else. I don’t know how the crowd feels about it, if they’d rather just hear my stuff all night, but I get tired of them and want to hear something else.
You obviously had a pretty diverse set of influences, but what is one influence/band/record that would surprise your fans or surprise people that are in that alt. country/soul genre. Not necessarily a guilty pleasure, but it could be…..
I don’t really do guilty pleasures, if I like something I’ll just say it. But something people might not expect….maybe Crowded House, I saw them play in Australia last year. I realized at one point that I was jumping up and down, filming the show on my cell phone, and acting like a 13 year old girl at a Crowded House in 1984 would have acted. I love that band. I listened to a lot of pop radio in the 80s when I was a kid and I think a lot of that got stuck in there somewhere, Crowded House, Prince, ‘Til Tuesday, Squeeze and a lot of those bands, just really really great bands.
I heard that you got back on stage with your former band mates in the Drive-By Truckers back in January. In previous interviews, I have studiously avoided asking you about this kind of stuff, but you want to comment on that, how it happened, etc.
You know it was just out of nowhere. I knew they were playing about an hour away from here and close to home. So I went to see the show, got to hang out and talk to them backstage and decided to do a few songs. It wasn’t anything planned or anything like that, we were just having a good time and it felt great. The crowd really liked it and I had a lot of fun. I don’t know when we’ll get a chance to do that again with as busy as we both are, but it was lots of fun. I was glad that people got a chance to see that.
I recently got a chance to see the documentary, A Secret to a Happy Ending, and I remember the guy asked you what you would miss the most, and you said you wouldn’t miss the people, because you could call them anytime on the phone, but you would miss playing the songs. I saw the set list and you got to play the songs again, which must have been nice.
That was great, that was definitely great. I still go back and listen to those records occasionally and they were really great, great music. I think we did some great stuff.
Don’t think you’ll find too many people who will disagree with you.
End of Interview.
Jason’s new record is out this week, so go get it. It’s a strong contender for record of the year in my book.
Audio Download: Jason
Isbell & the 400 Unit, “Codeine” [audio:
http://twangville.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/04-Codeine.mp3]
About the author: Specializes in Dead, Drunk, and Nakedness..... Former College Radio DJ and Current Craft Beer Nerd