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Outlaw country singer-songwriter Elizabeth Cook has been doing great things in Nashville with songs funny and profound. Very soon she'll be making her first trip to Australia. Unpaved's Les Thomas spoke to her about her unusual upbringing, playing with exMidnight Oil bassist Bones Hillman and unfashionable haircuts of the Mullet variety.

Elizabeth Cook interview by Les Thomas

Interview: Justin Townes Earle

Justin Townes Earle has made a point of coming to Australia often over the last six years and fans can look forward to seeing him very soon with a string of February shows. Unpaved's Les Thomas asked him about his latest escapades, including recording and producing Wanda Jackson's latest album, interpreting Woody Guthrie. Justin also opens up about his relationship to Townes Van Zandt and his father Steve Earle. It's been an undeniably bumpy road, but it sounds like more great things are in the works.

LT: I saw on your most recent Twitter entry, you’re looking for a dentist who could help you out with a gold tooth. 

JTE: Yes, for years I’ve wanted a gold tooth. I’m 31 years old and I’ve wanted one since I was about 14 and I still want it. I’m probably not going to regret it, so . . .

LT: Is there available real estate for a gold tooth at present? Have you lost a tooth? 

JTE: No. I haven’t lost a tooth. I was just going to have one prepared for it. They usually just file a little off the tip. 

LT: You’re very familiar by now with visiting Australia. Does it feel like a place you’re at home in? 

JTE: I find myself very comfortable in Australia. It’s definitely my favourite place to tour and one of my favourite places on earth. It’s just such and amazing, vast country. Way more vast than most people on this side of the world even imagine it is. And I just like the spirit of the people. I’m kind of starting to worry that I’m down there too much, that people will get sick of my ass. (Laughs)

LT: I don’t think that’s any risk. We ran a readers poll last year and you were way ahead of any other international visiting artists. 

JTE: The Australian fans have reacted to me better. It’s definitely the best reaction I’ve had off the bat in any country, ever. And steadily, it’s just been growing. I have a really good time over there. For the past four years, I’ve made more money over there than I do anywhere else, so I’ve been able to tour a little more leisurely in Australia and not do six shows in a row. I can do four shows in a row and then have a day off and then do another three and have two days off. I love that because I get to see places and enjoy the people and the city I’m in. 

LT: Are there any particular memories . . . things you’ve experienced [here] that you just don’t forget?

JTE: There’s many of them. I’ve become very good friends with Elvis and Ben at Portegna (they also own Bordega) in Sydney. It’s one of the best restaurants I’ve ever eaten at in my life. It’s absolutely incredible and every time I eat with those boys, it’s a new amazing memory.

My first time at the Bryon Bay Festival . . . we were staying aways from the festival grounds out of Byron up the river. I was drinking there and very hung-over. And I was sitting on the front patio. There was a picnic table and a little bit of concrete and about two feet of grass and then it dropped off into this little pool that somebody had dug out to keep their boat in off the side of the river. I was sitting there and all of a sudden a dolphin shot up about 12-feet in the air out of the water. I’d never seen a dolphin before in my life! I didn’t expect it. Especially being on a river. It swam up river and just decided that he was going to fuck with me a little bit, I think. (Laughs)

LT: One of the major subjects you’ve talked about in recent interviews is entering your thirties, looking back on that earlier, more tumultuous decade. Clearly you’re in a different phase [now], producing albums with Wanda Jackson. Where do you feel your head’s at now compared to three or four years ago?

JTE: I’d definitely feel like I’m a little more thoughtful as an artist these days. I used to be a very spur of the moment kind of artist. I’d be walking and something would pop into my head and I didn’t stop. I just pulled up a notepad and wrote it down and kept on walking. I find myself needing to say a little bit more and be a little bit more precise these days.

I think working with somebody like Wanda . . . It was the first record I’ve ever produced. I learned a lot. I managed to keep Wanda Jackson from getting nervous the whole time, which I’ve been told is a problem in the studio for her. She didn’t drink any wine at all during my recording sessions.

LT: It sounds like you were really attentive . . . going to the point of kneeling and looking her in the eye, giving a huge amount of reassurance. I wonder if your empathy is part of thinking about your own recording experiences and the need to calm those nerves. 

JTE: Usually the only thing I’m looking at when I’m making my own records is what’s going to be best for this song. When it came to this Wanda record, I was looking at what would be best for this voice. I felt like a really open, honest take on the vocal would be a lot better. I went back over the last 15 years of her material. She just didn’t sound comfortable. Not all the time. Not that she seemed uncomfortable in every single song in her last 13 years, but for the most part you could tell that somebody had had a heavy hand in these records. So when I was at the control board, I’d be on my knees and I was always about as tall as Wanda when she was sitting down or standing up . . . So I could just look her in the eye and be on her level and make sure I’m getting a feel for her. 

LT: Another event you organised was your “In the Spirit of Woody Guthrie” shows . . . What made you feel the need to put on that event where, I understand, people weren’t playing Woody songs, by trying to present an idea of him in the present day?

JTE: It actually all started with a call from Nora Guthrie, Woody’s daughter. She runs the Woody Guthrie Foundation. I got a call from my manager one day and he asked me at first what I thought about doing a couple of nights on Woody Guthrie in New York. I was like “Well, hell yes! I’d love to do it. Especially in New York.” Now here’s the deal. Since it’s his 100th [Centenary], there have been a billion Woody Guthrie tributes. I think Nora was afraid that people, especially New Yorkers who live a bit faster than most people (laughs), would get tired of hearing the same material . . . the same ten Woody Guthrie songs that every so-called folky plays.

I was able to bring in Joe Klein, who wrote the Woody Guthrie biography and Bill Clinton’s True Colors. He’s also a weekly columnist for Time magazine. The last night we were doing show, actually  Joe Klein had to leave after his portion of the show . . . I had him read a small portion of book because I’ve never heard anybody explain Woody like him . . . he was going that night to get on Air Force One with Obama to do a tour of bible belt states. 

At first I was like, I don’t know how this is going to work with doing the Woody Guthrie songs, but once I got people like Joe Klein interested in it, then it started to make sense a little bit more. Let them know he wasn’t just this happy-go-lucky folky. He had a lot of fucking issues. 

LT: One of the things your father has said about Woody Guthrie is that he was a writer that basically described the world around him. A lot of people tend to think of him as THE political songwriter, whereas according to your father, he was basically telling it as he saw it. It makes me wonder how songwriting would be different if it weren’t for the whole McCarthy era.

JTE: Yeah, I know. I’ve thought that same thing before. What would folk music be like if they hadn’t killed Joe Hill? There’s all kinds of wild sacrifices that have led to this . . . I do agree with my father in that it was less political as it was about people. He did say what the political problem was, but the only reason he did it was to relate it to the people and show why it was hurting people. 

He wanted to be a good guy, too. He wrote promotional songs for the government, too. He wrote The Grand Cooly Dam (sp?) for the TBA. He was a really interesting, strange, mixed up man.

LT: I saw Billy Bragg do his Woody show in Melbourne recently and I had no idea until he said it that there were 3000 Woody Guthrie songs in the attic at Mermaid Avenue, Coney Island. Have you ever considered the idea of having a go at some Woody lyrics?

JTE: There was something mentioned about me getting a notebook after I did these shows in New York. I haven’t heard anything else yet, but . . . I would drop everything I’m doing (laughs). It would consume me, I promise. I would love to be able to take Woody lyrics or notebooks that the music is just lost from and try to get them how I think Woody would have liked them. See what Woody would be thinking these days. (Laughs)

LT: Between your own life and his, the emotional struggles you’ve been on, it would probably be a really good match, to my mind. Another figure in your life, no doubt, is Townes Van Zandt. Melbourne is absolutely crazy for Townes Van Zandt. Did you ever get to meet him yourself? What are your Townes experiences?

JTE: My Townes experience was kind of strange. I never met him when he was really functional. By the time I was old enough to know who Townes Van Zandt was, he barely had a recognisable speaking voice. I remember Townes as this talented guy who would tell the kids a scary story and shut off the lights and say good night. (Laughs)

I think people make a lot of mistakes about people like Townes, and they’d do the same thing with my father. For a long time, people would just come up and talk their head off about my father. And the things they’d say . . . they’d say the same thing about Townes, “Townes was such a great man.” 

I’m like “No, he wasn’t. Townes was not a great man. Make no mistakes about that.” Townes didn’t need to be mistaken about that. He was not a great man. He was a miserable man. He neglected his children and wives. He was an alcoholic. He managed to stay around because he wrote these fucking beautiful songs, but every bit of good that man had went on to those pages. It did not come out in his life, really. 

I mean, he was a sweet individual. He really had a kind heart. Whatever happened . . . He was in a mental institution. He did receive shock treatment. Whatever they did to him, fucked him up.

LT: I don’t think he even remembered his childhood. Is that right?

JTE: Yeah. He doesn’t remember it, as far as I know. He forgot it all.

LT: And it’s not like a new theme, really. I guess you’ve got The Portrait of Dorian Grey story writ large in people’s lives in terms of what they produce artistically and then the darker family side, the neglect.

JTE: Yeah . . . I was on the same track, all through my twenties, especially my early twenties. I had a lot of things that needed straightening out. I’m glad I wasn’t arrogant enough at 24, like my parents were, to think I need a child. Now I’m 31 and right now the last thing I need is a child, because I still have things I need to do and want to do and it’s just not that time yet. I think the first step to . . . [indecipherable].

LT: Have you had much of a chance to talk about that early part of your life with your father, those years when he wasn’t around?

JTE: No. It’s kind of one of those things we’ve never really approached. Unfortunately I don’t think my father would want to . . . he just isn’t ready to approach the subject yet, because, number one, it’s not just me. There’s a lot of us. He’s got a whole lot to clean up and, at a certain point, I have to turn around and be . . . this is my chance to be a bigger man and kind of help make up for the damage that he did. To be around as much as I can to make sure my little brother John Henry realises what a good man should be like, you know? Be a good example for a man. 

LT:So you’ve got, obviously, a present relationship with the family in New York with Joe Henry and so on. 

JTE: Oh yeah. I talk to Alison quite a bit. She’s actually in Nashville these days because there was a school that John needed for a little while down here. He also needed out of the bustle of New York City. 

LT:Do you find one of the ways you connect with your dad is through doing things like . . . you did a version of Mr Mudd and Mr Gold (probably my favourite Townes Van Zandt song) . . . are those things one of the ways you relate?

JTE: Yeah, I think. Even though, the whole of that recording session, that was fucking war. It was the night before Christmas Eve and I’d had a car breakdown. So I’ve gotten my girlfriend back up to New York a few days before and I was trying to get back up for Christmas. We had to record that thing, and . . . we fought like cats and dogs on that session, because we both had been playing the song regularly in our separate sets and playing it very different.

LT:I see. And you do the finger-style thing and does your father flatpick that one?

Yeah, he does.

LT:Well, I’m glad it made it on there. It sounds difficult, but I’m glad it was there.  And you’ve put out five full albums so far. And you’ve had so many different ways of doing your recordings. Where do you see yourself going to next with your sixth album?

JTE: The Memphis sound is something that I’m going to experiment with for a little while longer. It’s too deep of a bucket . . . we’ve gotta get down in it. Some of my favourite recordings are Ray Charles’ Atlantic recordings, the stuff he did with The Cookies, the three female backup singers, like ‘Hit the Road Jack’ and things like that. I have three female backup singers already lined up and I’m writing background vocals . . . 
It sounds like it’s going to be big, but it’s going to be really stripped down, just like those Atlantic records. Just like Stax records. And I also want to tip my hat to JJ Cale and Leon Russell and other purveyors of fine Southern music. 


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