Woody Guthrie once said that your “ballads will be lots better and sound plainer and clear when you stop all kinds of hiding, hiding from your people, hiding from your own self.” When you first started, did you have a natural tendency to hide, and as you got older, the songs got a little more daring and you became more honest, or have you always been that way?
That’s the thing [laughs]. That’s a tough question. That is a really tough question because some songs are like riddles, and I throw stuff in there just to, well, maybe little messages to maybe one person. I like that secretiveness of it. At the same time, when I try to write a song that would be somewhat expressive of my real feelings, I try to strip them down as raw as I can get them to make sure I am telling the truth.
I ran into a song recently on a Greg Brown record. He’s doing a sort of stream-of-consciousness thing, and it’s so funny because he gets to this point where he’s talking about all these images he’s seeing while climbing up this mountain or something, then all of a sudden, and it’s so great because he writes it into the song, it just sounds like this point of frustration, and he says, “What am I trying to say?” Then he says, I guess it’s this, you know. Right in the song, it follows the melody line, follows the cadence of the lyrics, and he doesn’t overdub it and shout it out. He just says it in the lyrics: What am I trying to say? And you do feel that while he is going along, you feel like, yeah, you’re saying something, now get to the point.
Then he says, “What am I trying to say?” and you’re like, that’s so good! That’s what you are—you’re digging for things, and you’re like, what am I trying to say here? There’s a certain amount of building things in a song, where you’re just throwing in images and putting together little plotlines, little characters together, then you go, “What I am trying to say?” at that point. That’s when you say to yourself, look, it’s either got to be really, really interesting, or it can be really honest.
Does the song ever come to you as a whole, or does it take shape as you go?
Mine definitely takes shape. I start with a general idea or a picture and then I start describing it and things take shape and where I end may be way off from where I started, but. . . . My feeling is, or the writers that I like I feel do let things take shape. The ones that are extremely seasoned are able to let things take shape then go back and edit and move things around to where they have this great sense of clarity and foreshadowing and things like that. Those are the really great writers. Those are the ones that their first draft is just the beginning, it’s just a start, it’s just scratching the surface, and maybe they go ten drafts into it before they are finished.
How important is the first line of a song to you? Does it set the tone, pace, and attitude of a song?
I’m not real bold or hit them over the head with that first line stuff. I kind of slide into it. And I think that’s a function of the process because I kind of slide into the idea at the same time. I kind of hurtle and drone some sort of vague idea, and as you said before, it takes shape, and generally I don’t go back and re-create that first line to catch your attention, because I think particularly in a song process, catching one’s attention has to do with drawing people in with little sparkles of bait that draw your attention and bring you in. [You can be] tapping your foot and hearing the lyrics and listening to the sound of the voice or guitar, then you go, ah, there’s some meaning here as well.
Lyrically, you might pull from the same river, but in terms of production, you have pushed the envelope, especially with albums like Picnic.
I’ve gotten to where I am somewhat self-indulgent in the studio and I like to hear things in a new way, and certainly every time I go in to make a new record it has a whole different feel in terms of memory as well as in walking through the front door. It’s a different feel, and I have become even more sensitive to it as time goes by. I’m thinking that I’m making this kind of a record now. Now, this is the antiquated idea that I may be shackled to, but, I think in terms of writing, or having an entire record, it doesn’t have to have a certain thing, but it has to have a certain feel, and sometimes the whole feel has to do with the music you are surrounding it with. If it’s a lyrical theme, then maybe you could do something where you are just playing an acoustic guitar and singing the song and do twelve songs and that would work. In general, I am doing a mixture of both, so I go in and start making these songs.
Like with Farm Fresh Onions, I was thinking very consciously, I have a real limited sort of scope [laughs] musically, and I am going to get out of this four-note range I have been messing with for the last nine records. I am actually going to use six notes this time and do something fun and get out of it. That’s part of it, so if I lose fans, and I don’t want to lose fans, but at the same time it would grind to a screeching halt if I did just the same thing over and over again.
Is the West consciously a point of reference in your music?
It’s more than just a point of reference. It’s in my dreams. It’s where, if I think, well, if I could imagine myself in the world, anywhere in the world—whether it would be nice to be there or maybe things are just so funky that I want to get away from something—and I could just transport myself, my picture of that place is always this vast, desert-like landscape with some really bright full moon shining down and the sky almost being an indigo color. Rocks are sparkling like gemstones. That’s an image that’s in my head. All the time. So, am I supposed to be in the West? Yeah. Am I a twang master? No.
You’re like Beatrice from Dante’s Inferno, but instead of hell, you’re guiding us through the trailer parks and dusty roads of the West, not overwrought, like you putting on a fake southern twang and leading people through all the clichés of the West, but the real West.
I feel comfortable where I am now. I feel comfortable when I go to Lordsburg, New Mexico, which people say is a hellhole. When I flunked out of college at A&M for the second time, I got out on the highway in the middle of the night and I was hitchhiking to El Paso and I had never been to El Paso. I just wanted to go there. But I never made it. When people ask me why I wanted to go there, I’d say, I don’t know. It just seemed like the place to go. Since now I have been there, I love it. I don’t know what they would call it, but I’m sure there’s a word for it—it’s an island in the middle of land. I mean, there’s nothing around it, nothing for miles around. It’s just this place, and you could be surrounded by water as easily as surrounded by desert. It’s also like those border towns, where they are the last vestige of civilization before you eat dust and dirt. I don’t know why I like it. I couldn’t tell you why I like it. I just like it a hell of a lot better than any pine tree.
You’ve said, “I’m not good at navigating the major label waters very well. I’ve accidentally stepped on some toes.” How did you step on people’s toes and how have you not navigated those waters well?
The standard line is, oh, corporate America, corporate music sucks, and all that Nirvana stuff, and I’m not sure that’s really it. I just got into a place with different groups of people and found out in the major label world there is such a focus on deadlines and marketing and what is radio-friendly that I feel that they don’t hear a record as it is. For instance, with Gravitational Forces, the record I turned into Lost Highway, I told them when I walked in there and played it for them, I said, look, this is kind of a sleepy record. I think these are really good songs, but this is not like, “Hey, how are ya doin’, this is Robert Earl and the party boys record,” this is like some really good lyrics, some really nice, cool, smooth production, but it’s not like a hit-you-in-the-head-with-a-hammer kind of record.
They had promised you full artistic control over the record . . .
And they did, and I had full artistic control, but once I handed it over to them, they didn’t know what to do with it, so they hit me up for, “Can we put the ‘Road Goes on Forever’ on the record?” And I was totally against it. Here’s my job as an artist: I feel my job is always to keep creat
ing, no matter what. Even if it’s lame. Instead of going back and redoing songs and re-cutting, I like to move on to the next stuff. I like to move on into different phases of my life. If I get stuck on doing the same songs over and over again, to me I’m committing career and artistic suicide. So, I’m trying to get things going. They came back to me and said, “We’d really like you to re-cut the ‘Road Goes on Forever.’” Well, I was of two minds. First of all, I want to get along with these guys; I want to go, yeah, alright, fine, so I go okay, I want you guys to pay attention to me, and I don’t want to be the hard-ass, ridiculously prima donna–oriented artist. I want to say, hey, we can make this work, and at the same time I was like, this is a mistake, and everything in me said this was a mistake.
At the time, you told reporters that you wanted to do it because you had only recorded a live version on No. 2 Live Diner and an early version on West Textures. Were you toeing the company’s line?
That was my own rationalization. That was my own bullshit. I mean, that was me talking me into something. Ultimately, it’s kind of like the whole Mike Dukakis thing. Mike Dukakis put me in that tank; well, Robert Earl put that song on the record. So, I take responsibility in the end, but the fact is, there was that whole pressure, and I felt sad that I was under that pressure because I felt like basically what somebody said is, I listened to this whole record and it doesn’t work.
Was it a reminder or echo of what you felt those few early years you spent in Nashville, when you were cutting demos that both you and the record companies were not happy with?
Well, it definitely did echo that same sentiment, although I felt like I had learned so much that I was smarter about it. It was . . . I don’t know. It’s hard to say. It was the same kind of party, but just a different group of partiers. I didn’t realize it, you know.
At the time you were making Gravitational Forces, you thought you were making a country record, even said, “It’s as country as it’s ever going to get.” Yet, it’s not at all a country record. Did you really believe that?
I started out believing that and I started out with that intention, but you know, I tell you what, one of the reasons, and I think the whole good and bad in my artistry, is that my filter is so weird and off that when I try and do something . . . well, I’ll give you an example. One time I tried to write a song like, well, when Bruce Springsteen was the man, the boss, whatever, I just tried to write a Bruce Springsteen song. I’ll never tell anybody, but never in a million years could anybody guess what song I came up with that I thought was like Springsteen, and it’s so off that you couldn’t even guess. There’s no way you could guess. It’s so weird. It’s like my wife says sometimes, “Oh now, don’t start any of that Robert Earl Keen oddball thinking,” and I am like, okay.
But isn’t the track “Gravitational Forces” an example of just that?
I was having fun, man.
But then to title the record that?
Because I liked it.
But it was like commercial suicide.
I know, but I liked it. I really liked it. I wanted to put it as the first track. I love that. I just thought it was really fun, and we had a lot of fun tracking it.
But it’s not fun like “Five Pound Bass” or “Merry Christmas from the Family.”
No, it wasn’t that at all. It was just fun for me.
But is it reasonable a record company would hear a track like that and then look at you and say, why aren’t you doing something like the songs on Picnic?
I don’t know. I felt like . . . well, in some ways, I really just don’t have an answer. I was really just trying to make a record. I am always trying to make something interesting or creative, you know. To me, it’s sleepy and kind of odd.
You’ve said before, “I used to think I was this dysfunctional hero, particularly for college kids. That’s why I try not to think about what I’m putting on my records because if I played just to that audience, I think I would just wear out and put out yee-haw songs.” So were you basically just asking for trouble or dismissal?
I’ll tell you this. I thought the record was a little disjointed. I think it sounded pretty good. Sonically, it was good. Lyrically, it was disjointed a bit, but I didn’t feel it was as much then as I do now. I actually thought there was enough to sink your teeth into to let me slide by the shit I really wanted to do. Evidently, I was just wrong.
After the record, you mentioned to reporters that you might go on sabbatical for a few years and play some acoustic shows by yourself.
Where did I say that? My God. We get to where we play 120 shows a year, and sometimes you feel that you are getting repetitive. There’s always a certain amount of freedom that you have as a solo artist. When I first started playing, that’s what I was, and I really, really enjoyed it, and I had a lot of fun. Then when I got more popular I needed a band, and we needed to put out a lot more sounds because of the places that we were playing. In the end, I really like the band thing, and I do really well. Sometimes I miss the freedom of being a solo artist, and that was an option for me, but I am not really considering it right now.
Joe Ely does it every once in a while. You’ve been in situations with twenty thousand people in the audience and you’ve actually felt like unplugging so the crowd would concentrate on the music. You even got into a stir with Emmylou Harris because your crowd kept chanting right into her set. So, now she won’t even let you open up with an acoustic set. Do you ever feel boxed in?
Yes, it’s the “tail wagging the dog” thing, and I have never been one to feel like something else is in control of me, so when I feel like the whole audience is in control I tend to go in a bowl. Well, it became a problem. I’ve gotten to where I am just grateful for any audience. It was after the 9/11 tragedy. I mean, the whole world changed, everybody’s world changed, but the world of entertainment really changed. It got weird and scary. Gravitational Forces came out on that date. I got to where I thought, well, I certainly don’t want this to go away. Sometimes I felt like it was swallowing me and that I was out of control and I didn’t know how to handle some of the, well, audience overpowering the show, but I’ve got to where I can deal with it, whatever’s happening is happening. In general, we haven’t had much trouble like that anymore. We have great shows, and somehow it got a bit quieter. I don’t know what the deal is.
In terms of your own career, there might not be as big an audience for your softer songs if you had never written the “Road Goes on Forever.” Do you feel that your quiet songs are overshadowed?
Absolutely, but here’s the thing. At the root of it all, I want to entertain people, so I wrote those songs for the whole deal about, you know, I know how to have fun, I know we’ll all have fun together. I enjoy doing these on stage, and all that. There are times where artistically and lyrically I have a pretty broad palette, and I want people to hear it. It just becomes frustrating at that point; however, it’s best if you feel like, well, you just take the good with the bad. Here’s the deal. So, I grab a bunch of party people who are screaming and yelling “The Five Pound Bass” and “The Road Goes on Forever” and stuff like that, and they’ve got friends who say, well, I just don’t get it. But they listen to it enough that all of a sudden they are the ones who actually start going, “I don’t like much, but I like this.” For instance, I was saying how when Gravitational Forces came out I was like, listen, there are some really cool songs here.
The placement of these songs is not my business, but I am just trying to give you the best way I can do it. Then a few months after I put that out, Shawn Colvin sang “Not a Drop of Rain” on one of the KGSR compilations, the radio station here in Austin’s deal, and they put it out on their sampler record. So, for my money, that’s a really great song, one of the best songs I have written in five years or something. To me, it’s like I hear the song. If you want to listen to the song, it’s there. It’s really quiet, and to go play it live, it just doesn’t work at all. People don’t want to hear it. It just backs down to
nothing almost. It’s so lyrically driven that you’ve got to be paying attention. You can’t have somebody go, “Hey, you want a beer?” and boom, you missed the song. But the people who do listen do get it, and that’s nice, and you are right. That’s exactly what is happening—you draw them in with a certain thing, but you grab a lot of other people with the other stuff.
When people think of Texas songwriters, especially West Texas songwriters like Joe Ely, Wayne Hancock, Jimmie Dale Gilmore, they think of the big sky, dust, and flatness in all directions, but you grew up in Sharpstown, a suburb in southwest Houston. When I hear your songs, they don’t seem to signify that experience. Where did you pull in the idea of the people and place of your songs, like College Station?
As a matter of fact, something like College Station, that doesn’t have as much visual beauty or much to offer recreationally, is a really great place to think about songwriting. It’s like the classic story of the kid that became a cartoonist, or the famous book writer who was kind of stuck in a little dank environment with nothing happening. That allows your fantasy to blossom. College Station definitely was a big part of my growth in terms of writing and thinking about being an artist.
One of your teachers liked a little bit of Roger Miller, and there was some John Prine here and there, but were you aware of ZZ Top and AM/FM radio in general?
I listened to country AM radio when I was a kid. When I kind of got with the program I just listened to a lot of bluegrass, and of course I listened to Willie Nelson when I got into college, those classic Texas singer-songwriters, but in general, I was just a regular everyday guy. I never was a musicophile. I heard whatever was on the radio, the Beatles, Cream, Marvin Gaye. Everything everybody else liked.
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