The New Yorker Radio Hour - Jason Isbell on Songwriting While Sober

Episode Date: July 26, 2022

Jason Isbell got into the music business early; he had a publishing deal when he was twenty-one. But he really came into his own as a songwriter around ten years ago, as he was getting sober from years of alcohol and drug use. His record “Southeastern,” which comes in the tradition of musicians like Guy Clark, swept the Americana Music Awards in 2014. Isbell spoke with John Seabrook at The New Yorker Festival in 2016, shortly after his record “Something More than Free” was released, and he played a live set of songs including “Different Days,” “How to Forget,” and “Speed Trap Town.”   This segment first aired December 30, 2016. New Yorker Radio Hour listeners, we want to hear from you.  We have a few questions about the show and how you listen to it. The survey takes about twenty minutes, and your feedback will help us make our podcast better.  Take the survey here.

This is The New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. Jason Nisbill got into the music business pretty early, so early that he had a music publishing deal by the time he was 21. At the same time, he joined the band Drive-By Truckers. But he really came into his own as a songwriter around 10 years ago as he was getting sober from years of alcohol and drugs. The record was called Southeastern,

and it swept the Americana Music Awards in 2014. Those songs have got it all. Great lyrics, great melodies, great stories, and more acclaimed records have followed. His bell's most recent is called Georgia Blue. It fulfilled a promise he made that if Joe Biden won the state in 2020, he'd make an album for charity of cover songs by Georgia artists. One of Isbell's great admirers is the New Yorker's John Seabrook,

and John sat down with Jason Isbell at the New Yorker Festival in 2016, when the record something more than free had just come out. And a little later in the program, we'll also hear some of Jason Isbell's music. Thank you. All right. How you doing? I'm doing well. Thank you. You got your baby back in the hotel?

The baby's in the hotel. She's not alone. That's good. You were telling me earlier that when you guys, Jason and his wife are both artists and they're often on the road together and when you guys are on the road together, you usually have the baby. Yeah. If Amanda's out on her tour and I'm out on my tour, I take the baby most of the time.

because I have a safer vehicle for touring. And it's true, you know. When we can, we all go out together, but she just put a record out a couple weeks ago. And she's in a small theater in Louisiana tonight, and she's in a van with a bunch of dudes. So she sends the baby with me, because I'm in a bus with a nanny. I've got some songs here that I want to have a very sort of college-y songwriting seminar with you. Because, you know, Jason is such a good writer I thought would be actually worthwhile going over some of the words. And I feel like these days it's hard to find songs where the lyrics are really as rich and complex as Jason. But before I do that, I wanted to just sort of go back and set the scene in terms of you becoming a songwriter in terms of where you came from.

You come from a very musically rich place and how early experiences that you have. might have shaped you as a songwriter or determined the fact that you would become a songwriter. I started out playing different musical instruments with family members. My dad's dad and my dad's brother and my mom's brother and my mom's dad. All my aunts and uncles on both sides really either played or sang. And my granddad on my dad's side was a Pentecostal preacher. And every Sunday, you know, we would go and eat dinner at the same. their house and then maybe one Sunday a month, maybe two Sundays a month, his extended family

would come. So his brothers and sisters would come. And they all brought instruments. And, you know, that was just how we passed the time as a family was sitting around playing mostly gospel music and old traditional country songs. They were very religious, very like my grandmother had, you know, the long skirts, never wore pants in her life. You know, never took any kind of medication until she was almost dead. She took some ibuprofen, you know. She blew it. She didn't cut her hair. She didn't wear makeup. They were very, very religious holiness, which is a version of Pentecostal that's, that's not quite snake handling, but, you know, it was serious business. It was a very serious, very, very serious holy business. And I started out learning those songs, and it was like a

child care thing. My parents both worked. And so when I, my grandparents lived right next to the high school where I went from kindergarten through 12th grade. And so I would walk to their house until my parents got home. And then in the summers, I would stay at their house pretty much every day while my parents worked. And to keep me occupied and, you know, also because he just really liked my company for whatever reason, my granddad taught me to play different instruments. And the majority of that was the guitar because he played banjo, he played fiddle, mandolin, and he called those lead instruments, and then there had to be a rhythm instrument, so I had to play rhythm guitar. It was like a musical boot camp situation because this started when I was, you know, seven years old or so.

And he had these huge, the guitars that I play now, big dreadnought, you know, named after the largest boat. It's a big guitar. I couldn't hardly reach around the guitar. And, you know, he would give me a hard time, like you're getting lazy. You know, you're getting lazy. But there was always a reward at the end of it. If I would go through hours of playing rhythm on these gospel and country songs with him, he would play blues songs for him. You put the guitar in his lap, and he would play slide guitar and open tunings.

And I always begged him to do that. But before he would do it, I would have to play the Jesus stuff for a couple hours. He even, he took me when I was probably 10 or 11 years old. He took me to the local record store and bought. me the complete Robert Johnson recordings when that came out altogether. But then we get back to the house and he's got a little cassette player that dubs from one cassette to the other. And so he records all the songs onto a blank cassette that aren't particularly vulgar. You know, all the squeeze my lemon stuff.

So he gives me the cassettes of the songs that don't have that stuff on it. And then when I'm like 15, he gives me the original box set. I think you're old enough to handle these songs now. It's from the 20s. It's not that racy. And this is 1990. You know, I was already into Nirvana at this point. He wasn't, I guess.

That's funny. You got a scholarship to the University of Memphis. I did, yeah. And while there, you studied creative writing. Yes. Fiction writing. And you, because I think one can see the influence of, And we can go to this in a second, but I feel like in your songs, you can see someone that has clearly thought about point of view and narrative and how to tell stories and all this.

Would it be fair to say that what you learned from fiction writing actually did make a big difference in your songwriting? Yeah, very much. Not just what I learned from writing it, but just from the habits of reading that I developed. Okay. You know, early on and then got really intense about while I was in college. And I knew I wanted to write better lyrics, so I thought, well, if I study fiction, then I'll be able to write fiction, whether it rhymes or not. And I didn't want to study poetry because thankfully I knew at that point that a poet is not just a really good songwriter. It's a completely different thing.

It's so different than microscope is at a completely different diameter at that point. But I knew that if I read a whole lot and was forced to write a whole lot, then it would make me better with words. So that's why I studied creative writing. Okay, well now I just want to jump ahead to one of the songs that you wrote on the album, Northeastern, which came out in 2013. Sorry. We're in the north. I know. It's a windy. It's a windy. Northeastern. Okay. Sorry. I know this. I know it's called Southeastern. I just made a little mistake.

And it's very stressful being up here, you know. Anyway, so I'm going to read the first verse. I'm just going to read the first verse. I'm just going to read, I'm not going to sing, and maybe Jason will sing this song later, but this is a song called Different Days. It's so weird when somebody reads the lyrics and doesn't sing them. Do you want to say? No, no, no, no.

I would rather you do that. I don't mean it's weird for me. No, it's a... I'm not going to sing. When I did the NPR interview, Terry Gross did it, and you're like wearing headphones because you're at a remote location, and it was that moment where like, Terry Gross

is whispering my lyrics to me right now. This is like smoking on a plane and made it. Anyway, okay, different days. This is the first verse of different days. Staring at the pictures of the runways on the wall seems like these days you couldn't run away at all. And even if you did what you got to runaway to, just another drunk daddy with a white man's point of view.

So now, staring at the pictures of the runaways on the wall, what's happening in the beginning of this song? I was, let's see, when I started that song. What's your impulse to write this? How's this song starts? I'm standing at the grocery store. I think it was Walmart. Yeah, I lived in Alabama at the time.

And I didn't go grocery shopping before 2 a.m. At that point in my life. So I'm like, they have this big board of missing and runaway children as you come in and out the door. Before you get to the door, Grater, you pass. the runaway children. And so I'm standing there staring at it and it just occurs to me like how is it possible that you could even run away? Like how could, it seems like anybody could keep up with you, especially if you're a teenage kid who's probably extremely active on social media. Like how could, and I know this is probably kind of insensitive, but if I'm like a 16 year old

and I'm running away, I'm making it three days before I'm on Instagram. You know what I'm saying? Like somebody's going to find me. I'm going to drop a pin accidentally. Mike's. But, you know, I'm thinking that. Like, how is it possible? And then most of the kids who do, you know, they have this idea of, I have to get away from these abusive parents or these parents who don't believe the way that I believe. And in my mind, I'm thinking they probably wound up with something much worse or something

just like what they were running away from, you know, and that's the ones who really got very lucky and didn't just get picked up and murdered, you know. So that was, and the songs, there's a, they're, they're, They're heavier than I am, probably. How do you know that's a song? How do you know when you... Are you standing there saying, because I thought it was insightful, you know?

Like, I stood there and I thought, well, it seems like you couldn't even run away at all. And then I thought that rhymes with wall. And I'm looking at a wall. That's all it takes? Yes. Oh! That's all that part of it.

it takes. It really takes a lot of riding around and killing time. But the songwriting part, yeah, you just have to pay attention and you have to stop and go, I'm thinking of a song right now. I didn't realize it until just now. Like traveling alone. I was literally traveling alone. I was sitting in an airport and I thought, man, I'm tired of traveling alone. And then I thought, why don't I say that 12 times in a row? And so I'm singing into my cell phone, and there's a guy sitting next to me at the gate, and I, like, don't want him to know I'm singing into my cell phone, so I'm like doing this. And then I get home, and I listen to the memo, and it's...

And I have to figure out that's the bulk of my work, is trying to figure out what the hell I was saying into my phone. Let me just go to the next verse. So, because I think the point of view changes a little bit, which is another thing you do in your songs. I can see you in my mind's eye, cashing light, sleep beside the river if we make it out of town tonight.

You can strip in Portland from the day you turn 16. You got one thing to sell and benzodiazepine. Yes. Now, rhyming on benzodiazepine is a feat. Well, thank you. Good for you. That's what we call the Loretaleen rhyme when you stumble on one that's just,

how do these work drown? This is unbelievable. But it's the right drug. You got day you turn 16 and benzodiazepine. It falls in there pretty well. I think the day you turn was probably the that's probably the part that had to be manipulated a little bit to get the meter to land just right, you know, because it would have been more direct to say from 16 or from the age of 16, you know, but when you say the day you turn, it drops the meter correct. And then you also think, well, then this person must be eager to make your own income, even though it may not be the, you know, you start thinking more things about it. You get deeper into it and think more about the character.

But it's the right drug. I mean, that's the miracle of it. It's like, that's what this person would be using. Yeah. And that's not what she has to sell. And I've had people that mistook that. You know, they think I'm saying you have one thing to sell. And that spins her das, but that's not it.

That's not the one thing she has to sell. We all know what she has to sell, but the drugs are so she can live with selling it. But what's happened now in these two verses is you've gone from someone who was looking at this poster on the wall in a Walmart to thinking of yourself as another younger person who might have been a Confederate and run away with this person. There's a shifting narrator that sort of becomes a little bit less trustworthy as it moves along. But that's what I like about songs. as opposed to other kinds of writing. The rules, you can ignore the rules.

There's certain rules you can't ignore, but rules of time, rules of tense, rules of point of view, they're just out the window. And what's true and what's fiction is also out the window. It doesn't matter. They don't put them on the shelves that way. They put books on the shelves that way, Barnes & Noble, but they don't do that

what used to be called record stores. That's true, there's no non-fiction or fiction songs. No, there's no non-fiction section for songwriters. Right, right. So, but we, but I think we as listeners often think that you are telling the truth about your mic and your soul. And people don't think Schwarzenegger's The Terminator, but they think that I am always talking about myself. Well, part of it is, you know, it's drinking, that we know that your story or life story involves stopping drinking and that this was a big thing for your, not only for you, but for your songwriting and your last two albums have, Had a lot of songs that seem to be about that.

And I would say this song, different days, is also about it. Most certainly, yeah. It's also about that. Do you find that being public about not drinking, first of all, it kind of cuts out a lot of country songs for you? Yeah. You're not going to be sending a lot of songs in bars, probably. Yeah, no, not a lot. Not a lot.

I mean, do you feel that that was a choice that actually might have alienated some of your fans? or do you feel like you don't care? No, I don't. I wouldn't have cared. But no, it didn't. There are people, when I sing cover me up, and I sing the line about swearing off that stuff, meaning alcohol, people throw their damn drinks up in the air.

And I love it. I love the irony of it. I love that it's not lost on them, you know. They just have to, they have to do that. They have to like, you know, roll tide however they can. They have to do it, you know, however they can get that out, even if that means spilling their beer in the name of sobriety on the person standing next to them. And that's the thing.

You can't aim. You can't aim songs, you know, you can't aim art, really. If you're trying to make sense, my wife says I have to say I'm an artist, so I have to say I'm an artist. But I just don't want to say it enough, really? I just don't want to say it because, you know, I'm kind of from the school like James McMurtry where he says, you know, I used to think I was an artist. Turns out I'm a beer salesman. There's a lot of things James McMurtry says that are brilliant.

But, yeah, he's one of the best. He's one of the best. Yeah, he is. Anytime I'm talking to anybody about drinking and songs, I always bring up that. that line where he says, I don't want another drink, I just want that last one again. I think that is the fucking cellar door of alcohol songwriting. It's perfect, you know? It's perfect.

That's the whole problem. You can never have that second or third drink over and over and over and over and over. And the seventh drink is not just a repeat of the second or third drink. And he made all that go into a line that rhymes and sounds beautiful. He's a genius. Plus he says the sweetest things and he can't open his mouth all the way. So it sounds like he hates your fucking guts when he's talking to you. You know, if you come off stage and say, that was a beautiful sit.

I was really moved by those songs. And he never parts his teeth. Do you think that your songs, your songwriter and your music changed from when you're drinking to when you were not drinking? Can you see differences in your music? It got a lot better when I quit drinking. Right. A lot better. Because before I would sit down, I would start, you know, I'd get up in the morning,

well, not in the morning, I would get up in the afternoon, and I would be hungover, so I would drink like a pot of coffee, and if I was particularly hungover, I'd take a swig out of the bottle, maybe a couple swigs, maybe more than that. And then I would sit down and start to write a song. So you're looking at probably 2.30 before I actually have a, a pen in my hand, you know, and I'm sitting down, I'm writing this song. And so from 230 to 4.30, you know, I'm dealing with my hangover and I'm trying to come up with good lyrics. And then it's 6 o'clock. And this is the time when everybody gets off work,

and they're going to be in the bar. And, you know, I was living above a bar and pool hall in Sheffield, Alabama for a long time when I, up until I got sober, that's where I moved out of and went to rehab and then stayed with some friends and then went to Australia with Ryan Adams of all things to do when you just got sober. It turned out to be really good because he had been sober for a few years at that point and he knew how to occupy your time. How do you do that?

He's like a 15-year-old, you know. I think a lot of him went back to the person he was when he started doing drugs and drinking in the first place. So, I mean, he's renting out laser tag facilities. And, like, we're going heavy metal record shopping to find the most satanic records we can possibly find. Yes. Pinball, all the time. Pinball and cats and pinball and cats and pinball and cats.

That works. Yeah. And he had on that tour, he ordered us some kitars. And so we set up on the bus at night rather than going out to a bar, we would sit in. we would jam on keytars like we were Herbie Hancock in their minds, you know. And this is the kind of stuff he does. It's like, I don't know, it's like he's a kid and you're like, shit, I'll be, I'll be a kid with you, dude. Let's do that instead of speedballs, you know.

But yeah, by the time the sun went down, I was done riding for the day. So I would go to the bar and I would drink for 10 hours and then it would all start over. And when I quit drinking, it doesn't really. matter what you start with. As long as you've got time to edit, you know, and I'm sure you know this, as long as you put the time into it, you're going to wind it right in something good. You don't have to wait to be inspired. All that is bullshit. All that is like Chuck Close says, inspirations for amateurs, the rest of us just show up and get to work. Yeah, I like that. And so when I got sober, I just started showing up and getting to work. And then instead of going

down to the bar when the sun went down, I stayed there with my song. I kept my ass in the chair. and the songs got better. Rather than having two or three great songs and some filler on a record, I had two really, really solid records from start to finish. Absolutely. Thank you.

The New Yorker's John Seabrook. In a moment, we'll hear Jason Isbell playing a couple of those songs from a live show at the New Yorker Festival in 2016. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. Stick around. She said, and you're better than your past.

Winked in me and drained her blast Cross-legged on a bar stool Like nobody sits anymore Welcome back to the New Yorker Radio Hour I'm David Remnick We just heard a conversation with Jason Isbell Who's made a name for himself As one of the great Americana songwriters

Who's working today He comes in the tradition of people like Merle Haggard or Guy Clark He'll perform two songs now, Different Days, and How to Forget It seems like these days you couldn't run away at all Even if you did what you got to run away to Just another drunk daddy with a white man's point of view

I can see you in my mind's eye catching a light We'll sleep beside the river if we may get out of town tonight You can strip in Portland on the day you turn 16 you've got one thing to sell and been's old I has a pain 10 years ago I might see you dancing in a different life and offered up my help in a different way but those were different day those were different day

when we shared her a single bed She believed every word I said If she didn't believe she didn't dare give me slack Her it was baby I love you get off of my goddamn back Then time went by and I left and I left again Guess Jesus loves the sinner but the highway loves the sin And he told me I believe he told me true that the right thing's always the hardest thing to do ten years stuck around for another night

used her in a thousand different way but those were different day those were different day and the story's only mine to live and die with and the answer is only mine to come across But the ghost said I got scared and I got high. Look a little long. Ten years I thought I didn't have the right to say things that I'd all would say. Different day. Those were different days. Those were different.

Thank you. Is there a way to turn my microphone up? Can we turn my microphone up? I feel like I'm in a Sprite commercial. Can we turn my microphone up? I'll just go ahead and start, and then if it gets louder, I'll just be happier later. I'm going to try this.

This is one of those songs I usually need to warm up to sing, but let's just have low expectations. That way we won't be disappointed. Oh, that's my guitar. And it was plenty loud. That guitar is good now. Now the microphone, the other one. Hey, hey, hey, hey.

This is me. There we go. Hey, hey. Great, okay. Let's see. Give her space, give her speed, give her anything she needs. Get her out of here. Give her weed, give her wine, give her anything but time.

Get her out of here. You won't stop. story and most of them are true before I fell for you. I was straight, I was sad, didn't realize what I had, it was years ago, I was sick, I was scared, I was socially impaired, it was years ago. My passing movie, Austin fell asleep. Now I'm dreaming up the years. Giving up these creatures from the deep.

Replace the character set. Teach me a lesson. Sorry just yet. Lesson. Have a seat, have a drink. Tell the jury what you think. Was I good to you? Was it hell?

Was it fun? Did you think I was the one? Was I good to you? And now that I found someone who makes me want to live does that make my leaving harder to forgive replace the character set teach me a lesson teach me because I ain't sorry just yet teach me a lesson replace the character set teach me a lesson

just yet a song Thank you Jason Isbell performing different days and how to forget at the New Yorker Festival in 2016 He's touring the country starting in August

Next week I'll talk about the January 6th committee hearings with Congressman Jamie Raskin of Maryland I hope you'll join us for that And to close today Here's Jason Isbell With Speed Trap Town She said it's not of my business

but it breaks my heart I drop a dozen cheap roses in my shopping car made it up to the truck without breaking down I guess everybody knows you in a speed trap town it's a Thursday night

but there's a high school game I'll sneak a bottle up the bleachers and forget my name these five-A bastards run a shallow cross It's a boy's last dream of a man's first law And it never did occur

Till the night When there's no one left To ask if I'm on Sleep until I'm straight enough To drive Then decide If there's anything That can be left behind

behind. The New Yorker said Daddy wouldn't make it a year. But the holidays are older and he's The I see See the veins through the skin Like a faded tattoo. The New Yorker Radio Hour

Is a co-production of WNYC Studios And The New Yorker. Our theme music was composed and performed by Merrill Garbus of Tune Arts With additional music by Louis Mitchell. This episode was produced by Emily Boutin, Ave Corrio,

Breed of Green, Calilea, David Krasnow, Louis Mitchell, and Gauphin and Putubuele. Along with Jeffrey Masters, Willi, and Michael May. And we had assistance from Harrison Keithline and James Napoli. The New Yorker Radio Hour is supported in part by the Cherina Endowment Fund. Till tonight, when I realized he'll never be all right, sign my name and say my...