Interview: Justin Townes Earle – “Time has passed. Shit has happened. You don’t like it – go f**k yourself”

In just a couple of weeks, Justin Townes Earle will return to New Zealand for a 3-date tour.

This is especially exciting as it comes on the back of the release of The Saint Of Lost Causes, JTE’s latest, and in our opinion, best, album yet.

With that in mind, The 13th Floor’s Marty Duda spoke to Justin Townes Earle and found the Nashville-based artist with plenty on his mind. He has some strong opinions about what’s happening in his country and he’s not afraid to share them.

Click here to listen to the interview with Justin Townes Earle:

Or, read a transcription of the interview here:

MD It’s been a couple of years since you’ve been in Auckland, in New Zealand. So, I’m looking forward…

JTE Yeah, it probably has. Unfortunately, I had to cancel the last tour that was going to bring me over there. So yeah, it’s probably been exactly about three years.

MD Yeah. I have to say congratulations on the last album, The Saint of Lost Causes, because I’ve been enjoying it immensely.

JTE Thank you

MD In fact, I just went out and bought the vinyl. It’s on three sides of the record. I love it.

JTE. I’m proud of this record. I didn’t know how it was going to be received. But so far, it’s being received better than any other record I’ve ever done.

MD Why do you think that is?

JTE I don’t know. I think maybe, finally… I don’t think we’re going to impress a record label by our sales in New Zealand or our sales in Australia. But, I think a good majority of Americans are waking the fuck up and realising that we can never make up for what we did in the past to Black Americans. We can’t make up for what we did in the past to native Americans. We cannot make up for what we did in the past to Mexican Americans. And what we’re still doing to all of them. But I do think we’re getting better about it. But I just wish… it’s an insane idea because we’re so ingrained – and all people are ingrained like this – I wish we could just be Americans, regardless of race, religion, you know, sex.

MD Looking from if from outside, it looks rather bleak over there. The shootings and the police brutality and all that stuff…

JTE It’s pretty bad, it is. But I think as Americans, number one, it’s kind of never been any different really. Like in the wild, wild west, you never knew who was going to pull out a pistol. Everyone had one on their hip and could shoot you up. The only problem I have with it is that this is all being said by the evangelical ultra right-wing fascist fuck that we have as a president. And I am appalled by how much it’s ramped up. We used to have mass shootings, but it was like an angry kid, some kid who was mistreated. Now it’s like some red-neck from somewhere in Ohio that walks into a Walmart in Detroit and blows 20 people to pieces. So, we’ve empowered the wrong people. And do think that as Americans, in order to be American, you have take…I didn’t vote for the cocksucker. But we did that. We fucked up because we didn’t take the right measures to not let it happen.

MD So when you’re playing these songs which kind of address these issues in a more personal, intimate way – and you’re out there playing them for your fellow Americans, what is the reaction?

JTE Well, it varies, but I’ve never backed down from it. I told the crowd in… where was it, somewhere outside of Boseman, Montana not too long ago, you’ve got to stop acting like ‘White is Right’. You’re a cracker. And you have caused… I mean, white people have caused almost every major catastrophe in the history of the world. I tell them when I play Saint of Lost Causes, I tell them, what is the deal – this song – you have nothing to add to this? I like to have songs that leave space for people to have their moment, you know.

My girl may have brown hair, your girl may have brown hair, but you don’t tell them she’s got blue eyes – so they can have that there. But with Saint of Lost Causes, I felt like there’s no room for interpretation here. If you marginalise any human being for their race, religion, sex, sexual orientation – they’re going to eventually lash back at you and you’re not going to like it. And when they do, if you’re one of those people that marginalised them, you fucking deserve it.

MD Yeah. And how do these songs play overseas? I think you recently performed in Manchester among other places.

JTE They do good. But one thing I like to be is well up on the country that I’m in. So, playing in Wales, I speak to the Welsh, the rooted Welsh. When I’m in Australia I speak about the indigenous, especially since my good friend Frank Yamma is really dear to my heart. And when I’m in Auckland I’m speaking to all the white people about the Maori. But it’s definitely, definitely not the same as what’s going on in America.

MD So the type of song-writing that you’re doing on this record is definitely different than what you’ve done in the past. Was there a point when you realised you wanted to write this type of song and change the way you are looking out…

JTE I always know what I want out of a record before I start writing it. I don’t just start writing songs and put them together. It’s absolutely a cohesive, streamlined idea. But I don’t really know where or exactly when – and I didn’t even realise that I was doing it until I was halfway through – that I was looking more outward than inward for the first time in my life. But at the same time, I’m still looking inward. That’s American. I’ve love being an American. I love being a southern American. But that doesn’t mean I don’t have a serious problem with what’s going on and what’s been done.

MD One thing I love about the record is, yes, you’re writing about serious issues and there’s some pretty heavy stuff going on, but there are some tracks there that are just flat-out great rock & roll songs as well. I mean, like Flint Michigan, Flint City Shake It, it’s a serious issue, but I mean, you can just groove to that.

JTE That’s what I want to do. When I got the idea for that song, it started off as a ballad.

MD Oh really?

JTE It wasn’t going to be “Shake-It” but it was going to be something about Flint. I worked with it for a couple weeks and realised, whoa – these people have had enough, they don’t need me crying in their Kool-Aid. They need something to show they’re still there. It’s still their city. It’s their home. And they needed something with a bit of boogie to shake you out. Not make you cry. Cos I’m sure,like after Katrina, all those people who wrote those sappy fucking horseshit songs about floods and shit… people don’t really want that. No one wants your pity. They want you to know they’ve still got backbones.

MD Still kicking! And of course, the Appalachian Nightmare tune is one that really stands out on the record. How was that to write? Did you have to put yourself in a place… in a mindset that is kind of different than normal for you?

JTE No, not for that one.  Those are people that I know. They’re my family, my mom and dad, growing up there. I lived in the Eastern states. Appalachia is definitely a strange study because, not that they have the same grievances, but Appalachians – they’re mostly white, but there’s some black people there… Coal miners are the only people in America that can even come close to knowing how being marginalised as much as the black population. They’re treated like hell, die of black-lung at 42 years old. They lose their life and get no benefit. It’s dirt poor. It’s crazy. I mean it’s crazy.

MD But this whole record was like that.

JTE Over Alameda, that’s based in South Central Los Angeles and that’s a kid talking about growing up in the Jordan-Downs Housing Project in South Central Los Angeles. Ahi Esta Mi Nina that’s a Puerto Rican man getting off the bus at Clinton Correctional Facility and walking at Bowery, walking down 1st Street and recognising his daughter who he hasn’t seen since she was a baby. And so this is once again… because we’re American – why can’t we get along? I mean, what is it?

MD Well I think you kind of put your finger on it when you refer to the president and the things he is saying which are very divisive and it’s like turning these people on each other rather than looking at the problems that need to be addressed.

JTE He has a thing about that there. All Right – Nixon was the very first person who kind of turned elections racial. What he called his ‘Silent Majority’ he was talking stupid fucking white people. Bill Clinton was the one who created mandatory minimum and three strikes you’re out. Let’s go to Reagan who worked with the CIA and Oliver North and flooded South Central Los Angeles with crack cocaine. And then when that kicked off, it gets going and we get the first Bush, who was a peon and didn’t have time to really screw things up. Then Clinton comes along and creates this mandatory minimum and three strikes you’re out, which guaranteed that an entire generation of mostly Black Americans and Mexican Americans, and a little bit of white trash, would grow up without fathers. They wouldn’t have fathers. Maybe they wouldn’t have mothers, but most likely not fathers. And then we wonder what’s wrong? You can’t get locked up for dope like that tin England or Australia or New Zealand.

MD No.

JTE It’s not going to happen. You can literally, in America it still exists. You get caught three times with a ten dollar bag of cocaine – you go to jail for life.

MD It’s insane.

JTE It’s fucking beyond insane.

MD For some reason the Democrats seem to be the ones that have to prove that they’re tough on crime, so when Clinton comes along it’s like we have to show…

JTE At least Clinton, Clinton wasn’t a democrat. I always refer to him as Liberal-Lite.

MD Right.

JTE He’s like a diet Coke. He wasn’t really there… There’s no way the governor of Arkansas is a true liberal Democrat.

MD Right.

JTE But now kids, like my brother’s age people, are doing all this…shit and they’re screwing it up in a different way. They’re making us look like assholes. I don’t care what party you’re from. If you’ve got good ideas that’s going to help America, I’m down.

MD So how do these songs sit with the older material when performing. I assume you mix it up a bit.

JTE Yeah, I mix it up a bit. I don’t really care about that, how they sit with it. My shows have always been my songs. Every record has kind of been all over the place as far as style of song and genre of song. That’s really not a concern of mine. I have my past – and of course you’re coming to a show and want to hear songs from the past, but I’m grown up. I’m older. Time has passed. Shit has happened. You don’t like it – go fuck yourself as far as I’m concerned.

MD Well, I’m sure it’s going to be fantastic. I’ve seen you several times already so I feel kind of know what to expect. And like I said, the new album, I agree with those who say it’s probably your best one yet because it blew me away the first time I heard it.

JTE Thank you.

Justin Townes Earle 2019 New Zealand tour dates:

• Friday 23 August – Tuning Fork, Auckland
• Saturday 24 August – Blue Smoke, Christchurch
• Sunday 25 August – San Fran, Wellington

Click here for tickets.