In the past, you would stay up three or four nights in a row, because you were so full of songs. Even at sixty, you’re still brimming with songs.
Billy Joe: It’s so easy, I’m so full of songs. It’s like a hobby for me. I’m not really doing it for any other reason, except perhaps because it’s the cheapest psychiatrist there is. And God knows I still need one.
Eddy: And with him the unexpected is the expected.
Some say you haven’t gained a wider audience because you have simply made far fewer records than most country artists, and they have been quite different from each other.
Billy Joe: But we’ve self-destructed a lot, too, and stepped on a lot of people’s toes and gotten into trouble.
Eddy: We’re happy to be at a point where we can go to good-sized rock clubs but also still play smaller, more homey places and have full crowds. That’s a great deal for us.
Billy Joe: Some people in Nashville pay producers all kinds of money and even produce videos but don’t pull the same size crowds as us and don’t sell the same amount of records.
When New Country took over and kicked out the older generation, it left a lot of people stranded, especially older musicians. Do you think Nashville is ageist in this way?
Billy Joe: It’s true.
Eddy: But as Brendan said, we’re really the only power trio out there with a great country singer—there’s nothing else like it in the country.
Billy Joe: The closest thing is probably Joe Ely.
Eddy: Right. And we’re not playing huge places, but we’re happy, because we’re in that same cool niche as him, and that’s where we want to be anyway. I can go out and play my style of guitar to the crowds, and they understand it. Last year, we were playing venues with five to six hundred people all the time and really rocked it up, almost too much. We were going like crazy and burned some players out.
Billy Joe: Not me. But it ran some of the younger guys out. They couldn’t keep up [laughs].
Eddy: You spend twelve or fifteen hours getting to a place where you play for an hour and a half, and only have an hour in your hotel room between the sound check and the set, day in and day out.
Billy Joe: And we do it all in the van because we’re so broke.
Eddy: But that way, without buses and stuff, you come back with a little money.
When you knew that Eddy wanted to play music, did it thrill you or scare you?
Billy Joe: I was happy about it. Dickey Betts saw it more than I did. He gave Eddy two guitars when he was thirteen or fourteen, one that belonged to Duane Allman and the Strat he stills plays today. Eddy slept with them for two years! He fell in love with them, and Dickey said, “This guy is gonna be good.”
Is part of your success and productivity these past years due to your collaboration with Eddy?
Billy Joe: Yeah. And we draw to us world-class players. I mean, guys who play with me will go on the road for a long time and not get paid as much, just because they want to play with me, and they want to say that they played with me. Some of them stay for just a little while and go and get a real job. Eddy sometimes jokes that we should have called our band the Stepping Stones.
You’re a good reference?
Billy Joe: Yeah, we train them, and they always go and get themselves really great jobs.
Eddy, what made you commit to your dad?
Eddy: The music finally really came around to where I wanted it. We have tracks like “Hottest Thing in Town” that are great, driving tracks that are totally live, and you can tell they are three-piece songs—there’s no rhythm on the solos, you can tell I drop out and come back in for the rhythm part. This, in part, was the sound I was looking for, so I was happy.
Billy Joe: He started with me when he was about fourteen. I could have gone with what they call traditional music, but you know my songs are as country as they can be, and traditional just means you stick a fiddle or steel guitar in there and call it traditional. But we didn’t want to, because it didn’t feel right.
I loved The Apostle, with you and Robert Duvall.
Billy Joe: It was fun. He’s really easy to get along with, and he’s a fan, too, on top of that. It was my first movie and probably my last. First time I met him, at Antone’s in Austin, he was doing Lonesome Dove and brought a bunch of people to see us and I met him briefly. He’s a big fan of Waylon Jennings, who put out Honky Tonk Heroes in the early seventies. I wrote ten out of the eleven songs on that record.
He said he loved my work, and I thanked him and said what great work Waylon Jennings was doing, but he told me, “You’re the man.” About eight years later, he sent word to me to try out for the part. I went to the reading and sure enough, I got the part. The first thing he told me was, “Billy, every chance you get, don’t act.” Part of me was that character. As a director, he had the right character already, so I didn’t have to work too hard, I could just be myself. Role casting, I believe they call it.
Do you ever feel pressure, from the record companies or the public, to put out THE record?
Billy Joe: That’s when I walk away.
What’s the most important thing that happens when you make a record?
Billy Joe: Well, it all has to happen so fast because we always get such cheap budgets, we don’t get another swipe at it, so I have to make sure to do my part correct.
Do those limitations make it a better or worse record?
Billy Joe: In a way, I think it helps, because when you first write a song, it’s strong. And after you play it awhile, it’s not as exciting as it was. Jerry Lee Lewis, who’s done a few of my songs, if he doesn’t get it by the second take, he usually just says, “Next.” There’s something about that. And me, sometimes I get real upset with engineers, because I think I’m doing a take, and they haven’t begun to roll the tape. I give them everything I got the first time. I try to get it right the first time.
You’ve said that one of the greatest things for you is to hear others do your songs.
Billy Joe: I love it.
But do you feel neglected when Willie plays a 10,000-seater and does your songs?
Billy Joe: That’s just the way the cards are dealt.
What’s the most important thing you’re leaving behind, the idea of your life or your songs?
Billy Joe: I’ll never be as big as those songs. When I first came to Nashville in ’66, I knew they were bigger than I was.
How early did you start writing?
Billy Joe: I was just a kid when I started poetry and stuff, but you couldn’t let anybody know you did that ’cause they’d call you sissy and stuff. Even playing guitar and singing was considered sissy here in Texas.
But Texas was a hotbed for music, like Bobby Fuller and Buddy Holly.
Billy Joe: Not in my neighborhood.
How young were you when you knew you would be doing this?
Billy Joe: When I first started talking, I guess. When I was about five.
Was your grandmother, who raised you, supportive?
Billy Joe: She didn’t get in my way. I just sang what I knew. We didn’t have a radio for a long time, just heard the people across the track [the black settlement]. I just listened to them and sang what I knew without instruments. Everybody got a kick out of it. I used to sing and sell papers on the corner in Corsicana, Texas. I thought I would make it by singing. And then the songs started coming.
Has anything changed about the way you write songs in the past thirty years?
Billy Joe: No, not really. I always believe that simplicity don’t need to be greased. I stick with that because I know my limitations. I wouldn’t say I’m limited, but I stay in the simple thing that the most common person can understand. It’s real hard to do. It’s not easy to keep it simple.
Do you think that some people come to the shows and are uncomfortable about how important religion is to you?
Billy Joe: All I know is it’s just the deal I made. When you accept Jesus Christ you have to tell people about it. It’s akin t
o someone having really good dope: You don’t want to sit there and smoke it by yourself. That’s where it is with me; he’s the one that made us all number two. And I have to share that, but I ain’t gonna knock nobody around about it. I just lay it out there, and if they want it, fine. If they don’t, they can just move on.
What songs really stand out for you and never get old?
Billy Joe: Lyrically, I would say “Old Five and Dimers” is very close to Plato for me.
What about “Georgia on a Fast Train”?
Billy Joe: It’s fun. It’s a favorite of mine. I always thought it would be a big hit, but it never was. Tom Petty does it at live shows but hasn’t recorded it. And Bob Dylan did a really different version of “Old Five and Dimers.”
Did you ever meet Elvis, who also covered one of your songs?
Billy Joe: When I was seventeen, I met him on my birthday, and he ended up doing my song. He even died on my birthday, August 16. It was kinda strange. I wish I would’ve gone and seen him, it was always an open invitation. I knew I could, but I put it off.
Any more film work?
Billy Joe: I don’t know. Robert called me the other night and told me he had some stuff lined up. It would be fun working with him. But I don’t know if I could work with anyone but him, because he’s so down to earth and good at it. When I first got my role in The Apostle, it wasn’t that big, it just developed that way.
Who were your country heroes back in the late sixties?
Billy Joe: I loved Waylon Jennings.
What about Merle Haggard?
Billy Joe: Oh yeah. I’ve met him three times, but he never remembers who I am!
When you first went off to Nashville, had you recorded at all? Did you know anybody?
Billy Joe: I knew I was good with words and wrote poems and stuff. I left Houston with ten dollars in my pocket and tried to hitch a ride to L.A., but I couldn’t get one. Finally, I walked over to the other side of the road and caught a ride to Memphis.
You could’ve been a rock ’n’ roll star instead!
Billy Joe: Well, I don’t know about a star. The guy pulled around the city, because he knew it was too far to walk, and set me down in the direction of Nashville and gave me ten dollars. I said, “Man, you can’t do that, I don’t know if I could ever pay you back.” He said, “Pass it on,” which I have many times. I caught a lift on a truck loaded with cantaloupe and smelled like ’em for a day or two. But I got to Nashville, where I sang for drunks at a few bars and made some bills. I did that for a while, then went home to Texas and my wife.
Jason Ringenberg: Jason and the Scorchers
Published in Left of the Dial, no. 1, 2000.
Jason and the Scorchers were the new music hurricane that upset all the old norms of Nashville, when lounge country sung by men in sparkly suits was still the norm. By combining outlaw country with the renegade spirit of punk momentum and mayhem, they were able to offer something fierce and fresh. By doing so, combat boots crowds could mingle with ma and pa porch singers. “White Lies” might have been their groundbreaking opus, but each of their albums still retains a potent musical craft, led by the aw-shucks sincerity of Ringenberg, an unlikely hero.
Professionally, you’re comfortable, like Jimmie Dale Gilmore or Steve Earle?
Except they make more money. I just feel that in spite of the fact that I haven’t had any serious commercial success, I have a strong, loyal following. Plus, you make new fans by just being out there and doing stuff. I’m just happy to be playing music, and I have a chance to do it. There are a lot of people who can’t do what I’m doing. I feel very fortunate.
You feel both disappointed and grateful?
I feel a mix of both. I do wish of course that we would have had a big ol’ hit song somewhere in that twenty-year run, but it didn’t happen, so you have to accept things as they are. On the other hand, there’s such a strong reputation around the band that I have to be thankful for that.
In 1998 at Tramps in New York City, you said, “I am a grizzled veteran of the music business, and I’ve learned one thing in my travels, that a guitar works a lot better plugged in.” So why make an acoustic record?
What a question. That’s got me floored [laughs]. That’s a very good question. This is wonderful. Well, I wish I could come up with something. I’ll never top that one. This record is a record that I’ve wanted to make for a long, long time and never had the chance because the Scorchers are such a high-energy band. And I’ve always wanted to do a folk record. It’s a folk record, essentially, and I’ve always wanted to do that. It’s the music I grew up with, and it’s pretty much what I listen to when I sit around listening to music.
Although you tackle a rather moving version of Guadalcanal’s “Trail of Tears,” I was surprised that other favorites that you have played live solo before, like R.E.M., Gram Parson, and the Beatles, weren’t on this record.
When you make a record, it’s a completely different situation than playing a show. I come from the live tradition of Grateful Dead and Bob Dylan in that they are not afraid to do covers. That’s great. There are two types of people that do covers: people that do covers because their own material isn’t very good and they’re a cover act and they don’t have their own material, or people that are showing their heritage. I felt that I just wanted to accentuate my own songwriting. I think two covers are good enough for a record. That’s as much as I want to do, unless I was going to do a cover record, which I may do sometime. [The sound of children’s voices pervades the phone call.]
Has it been difficult balancing or reconciling your reputation of Jerry Lee Rotten with the demands of fatherhood?
[Laughs] How the hell can I talk now? [Laughs] I’m supposed to come up with the glib answers, but you have the great questions. Man, that’s great, Jerry Lee Rotten. This is a different interview than I’m used to. That character on stage is just the most extreme part of my personality, it’s like amplified by 800 percent. Energy just rushes through my personality when I hit the stage, so it just comes out. You can’t really do something like that thinking about it, it just sort of happens. It’s one of the few times in life that I don’t have to think about anything. I can just be that thing. The rest of my life I am not like that. I’m a pretty laid-back guy.
Like Dave Alvin and Tom Russell, you’ve spoken a lot about the richness of history.
Tennessee is a pretty historic place, and almost all places are, really. You just have to take the time to get to know them. I grew up in Illinois with long family heritage for me.
The family farm and the prairie are becoming rare in Illinois. Was your decision to buy a chicken farm, start your own small label, and make a stripped-down folk record part of your nostalgia for a more Norman Rockwell America? You could live in downtown Nashville and make rock ’n’ roll records.
I have made the decision here the last four or five years to live that kind of life and supply that kind of life to my kids. It’s disappearing at an alarming rate. It used to be just everywhere. It’s just what America was. Particularly up in the Midwest where we’re from, now it’s not nearly like that. I am trying to do that with my family life. My wife and I started a family here three years ago. It’s a different life than Nashville, no question about it. We’re buying Addie a pony next year. We have chickens and a little pig. It’s just really big fun. It’s a nice way to grow up.
Speaking of history, people in their twenties seem to associate roots rock with Steve Earle and the Supersuckers and don’t know about the Scorchers, as if the only thing happening in the 1980s was the B-52s. After the reunion, was it hard to connect with younger people, because your fan base was a bit older?
We made a real effort in the mid-1990s. We signed with a young label, Mammoth, and we really tried. One of our goals was to make our audience younger and try to get to those people who were buying Supersuckers and Wilco records. For some reason, it never quite hit. I’m not quite sure why, ’cause it should have. It didn’t. There are mark
ets in Europe where we have a younger audience, but in the States our audience is essentially thirty to forty-five years old. You pick up a few here and there, but it’s something we just have to live with. Not getting the big credit is not something you can focus on too much. You have to focus on the credit you do get, otherwise it will really embitter you. The music business is so gigantic. You can’t expect to get everything you think you oughta get.
Most people take the easy way out and start slagging Nashville, but you don’t.
It’s got great heritage and history. It’s an ignorant thing to do, really. People come to Nashville and don’t get what they want out of it, but how many million actors have gone to Los Angeles and never made it? Does that mean L.A. doesn’t make good movies? How many rock bands went to New York in the 1970s and 1980s and didn’t get famous? Does that mean the Ramones aren’t valid? It’s a really silly way of looking at it. On the other side of the coin, you can look at what mostly comes out of Nashville in terms of the money acts, and yeah, it’s pretty sickening stuff. But there’s still great heritage and a lot of great talent.
As a seventeen-year-old cruising a small prairie town, instead of listening to Cheap Trick, Jefferson Starship, and Peter Frampton, you were hooked on Bob Dylan and Hank Williams Sr.
First, I’m lucky that I had older brothers and sisters that could play me that stuff, otherwise I probably would never have heard it. I guess it’s one of the things you can’t explain why it connected with me. It’s part of that genetic makeup. I come from a pretty artistic family, although they were all farmers. There are a lot of amateur artists in that family, just artsy-craftsy kind of folk. I guess I just got those genes.
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