Tue 5/16 @ 8PM
After a decade of producing his own unique blend of Americana, singer-songwriter Justin Townes Earle is on the move.
For his seventh studio album Kids in the Street, which is due out later this month, the singer-songwriter — and son of iconoclast Steve Earle — decided to leave behind Nashville’s Music Row and record with producer Mike Mogis (Bright Eyes, Rilo Kiley). The result is a slightly reinvented and incredibly confident release that finds Earle tackling themes such as gentrification and inner city strife.
CoolCleveland talked to Earle, who is scheduled to perform Tue 5/16 at the Kent Stage, about his Cleveland memories, why the time was right to leave the Music City and how his music has been imbued his maturity (or a lack of idiocy).
CoolCleveland: Justin, we’re excited about your return to Northeast Ohio. What are your memories of the Rock Hall City?
Justin Townes Earle: One great show that I’ll always remember was with Lucero at the Grog Shop. My guess is it was 2004 or 2005. It was mania. There’s no other way to explain it. It was the most lively nonviolent crowd I’ve ever seen in my life. Just a super energetic crowd that was kind of hanging on every line and just never seemed to stop moving.
CC: It is safe to say odds are these days your audiences, while enthusiastic, are a bit more subdued?
JTE: A bit more, yeah. It’s one of my favorite things because you will see as time goes by a clean-cut couple sitting there next to a couple with tattoos on their throats. It’s interesting.
CC: Congratulations on your new album Kids in the Street. By title alone, it would seem as though the new effort is tied to your previous releases, 2014’s Single Mothers and 2015’s Absent Fathers.
JTE: No, not really. I tend to write for where I am and how I feel, but there’s no direct intentional connections. I think they come from different points of view of the same (idea), but I’m definitely looking from a different place on this record as a writer.
CC: The new album was your first project not recorded in Nashville. What was the decision behind working with Mike Mogis (Bright Eyes, Rilo Kiley) in Nebraska?
JTE: It was really interesting because typically recording in Nashville, if there was a certain thing I wanted, like a James Brown “Say it Loud — I’m Black and I’m Proud” kind of stomp, that works with pretty much any of the players. It was kind of like I got the idea of what would getting an Ernest Tubb lick be like from somebody who wasn’t actually familiar with Earnest Tubb? I would get something very different. So, something along the same lines, but these guys don’t speak and articulate music the way you’re taught to in Nashville.
CC: Carrying on that thought, what song on the new album epitomizes that mindset?
JTE: I think “Champagne Corolla” right off has whole lot of stuff going on with a lot of instruments. There’s a kind of strange place with background singers. I probably would have gone more for meat and potatoes, stripped-down blues. I would have tried to record it on my own, and Mike definitely likes to play with things. He likes to add and see what he can build. And so it was interesting cutting a basic track with guitar, vocals, drums and bass. And here come the background singers and the organs and the multiple guitars. That song sticks with those kinds of roots that I like – blues, traditional rock ’n’ roll. There’s this kind of different edge to it.
CC: That tune, which kicks off the album, definitely has a Justin Townes Earle is not in Kansas anymore feel.
JTE: Yeah. It’s just being more explorative. You have to realize when you deal with people who are staunch traditionalists, you’re only going to get staunch tradition, and it’s hard to get anything else out of them.
CC: Kids in the Street delves into a topic that so many people are dealing with nowadays with gentrification. How did you approach the material?
JTE: I didn’t want it to be angry because I am angry about what’s happening where I grew up. It’s a song I wanted to write for a while, but I knew you can’t articulate something when you’re angry. And you also have to realize no matter what, change comes. It’s like everything is going to change. I had the idea for years to write that song, but I wanted it be a little more growing up. I need a little bit more education before that song was written, otherwise it would have just been this kind of fiery rhetoric. I just didn’t want it to be me spitting fire onto people because that doesn’t do any good. We have enough people to set fire.
CC: Is it fair to suggest a certain level of maturity is defining your current music?
JTE: I think that’s definitely fair. Every five years I think that everybody looks back and says, “Oh, I was an idiot.” I’ve constantly did that my whole life.
Tickets for Justin Townes Earle with The Sadies in Kent are $25.
Kent, OH 44240