(...Story Continued from Previous Page) It was the first
single from "Golden Road" and the first song I wrote with [frequent
collaborator] John Shanks. I had wanted to find a way to take all the
sounds -- banjo, even some loops -- and harness them in a very commercial, hooky
song, and that was really the one that did that.
I had already had a No. 1 with "But for the Grace of God," and that was
definitely a turning point, too. But when "Somebody Like You" was No. 1 for
eight weeks, suddenly there were more people at the shows, we were playing
bigger gigs, we had more buses out on the road. So it was a turning point not
just musically, but professionally.
It seemed like "Love, Pain, & the Whole Crazy Thing" was
poised to take you to even higher heights -- everything was teed up for that to
be the album that would open you up to an even bigger audience. But the
circumstances in your life around the release obviously affected the launch and
its reception. Is it hard for you to think about how that album ended up coming
out?
In light of everything, it's interesting that the record ended up succeeding
in such a different way. With an ordinary release, there's the whole radio
launch, the normal promotional way of doing things. Instead, we really didn't
start touring until six months after the record came out.
But the interesting thing was that by then, everybody knew the album tracks
-- they were singing along with tracks on the album that weren't the singles. So
instead of having it promoted by all the usual, traditional media, we've really
gotten out and done it just by playing live. So I'm very happy with that side of
it.
In the end, do you consider it a success or a letdown?
Well, the challenge is to really look back at what I need to be able to do so
that I can have a long-term career. The trajectory we were on was one thing, but
I had to get my personal life on that same kind of trajectory. I had to really
look at why that moment happened and try to get myself as fit as my career was
-- because to that point, my career was much more fit than the rest of my life
was.
I don't think there were any major disasters that resulted, so I could really
just build the foundation to be able to move the music forward. It allowed me to
look at what I'm doing, where I'm at in my life. And, meanwhile, the songs are
more than holding up live. We're doing about nine songs from the album in the
show and they're really strong.
One of the new tracks on the "Greatest Hits" album is "Romeo's Tune,"
which was a big pop hit for Steve Forbert in 1979. On
the last album, you covered "I Can't Stop Loving You," which was first recorded
by Leo Sayer. Is there a connection for
you between those songs and country music, or do you just happen to like
them?
I think the connection is more melodically than genre-ly [laughs], which
obviously is not a word. I'm such a fan of radio; I've always been obsessed with
listening to the radio since I was really young, and what really grabbed my ear
were great melodies -- I always hear that before I hear great lyrics. I'm as
guilty as anyone of singing the wrong words to songs for years before figuring
them out. A song like "Galveston" -- I sang that for years and had no idea it
was such a devastatingly sad lyric. But songs like that were pop hits because of
the draw of the melody -- they have almost a spirituality to them.
Was "Romeo's Tune" something you always wanted to record, or did you
just think of it for this project?
There's a director named Noah Baumbach, and he just directed
this film my wife is in ("Margot at the Wedding"). He has this great, really eclectic
taste, and he loves a lot of that '70s pop stuff. He sent me a compilation and
"Romeo's Tune" was the first song on that disc. I was listening to it in my car,
and I could just immediately hear a banjo on it and hear that it could fit
perfectly on one of my records. I thought it would just fit great in country --
it's definitely a quirky lyric, but there's an essence that defines what he's
singing within this more artistic imagery.
Are there any songs right now that are connecting with you that
strongly?
That new Little Big Town single, "Fine Line" -- I heard that song
driving to the studio and I had no idea who it was. I guess Dann Huff, my
producer, was listening to the same thing, because when I got there, he told me,
and that was a great discovery.
But I sometimes react to the strangest songs. The song I'm really, really
loving right now is George Strait's "How 'Bout them Cowgirls." I went on iTunes
and bought that album ("It Just Comes Natural"), and flying up here today, I played
that song eight times in a row. It pulls me right back into all the reasons I
got into country music -- it just sounds like a classic song.
I also see a lot of my wife in that song, so it really speaks to me because
of that.
Really? That's a bit of a surprise.
Well, I don't take the lyrics so literally. She's certainly not a cowgirl,
but all the traits he's singing about fit her to a T. Really just everything
about it -- that essence of strength. It's just beautiful.
We're talking a few days after the CMA awards, so it seems like a
good time to take the temperature of country music. How do things seem to you
right now, especially in terms of the pop element of the country world?
There seems to always be a fairly similar balance -- and balance does require
correction, things can tip too far one way and they need to adjust a bit. But
the first country records I heard were my dad's, and he listened to Alabama and Charley Pride and Don Williams and Ronnie Milsap. Those artists were all very
contemporary, there wasn't a hat between them. That's what I grew up on, not on
Bob Wills and Hank Williams and Ernest Tubb, the very traditional country.
So to me, it's always been a very broad genre. There were always huge,
popular songs by Glen Campbell or Kenny Rogers. It encompassed artists and songs that
appeal to an enormous amount of people.
The thing I always want has been for people to ask what I play, and when I
say country, they would say, "Oh, what kind?," instead of just saying, "I don't
like that stuff." This music is too rich and too deep to be cast aside as any
one thing.
Re: Masters is a monthly interview column dedicated to exploring a
veteran artist's body of work.
Alan Light is the former editor-in-chief of Spin, Vibe and Tracks
magazines and a former senior writer at Rolling Stone. His writing has also
appeared in the New York Times, the New Yorker, GQ and Entertainment Weekly. His
book "The Skills to Pay the Bills: The Story of the Beastie Boys" was published
in 2006. Alan is a two-time winner of the ASCAP-Deems Taylor Award for
excellence in music writing.
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