Americana/roots musician Justin Townes Earle died on 23 August 2020, aged 38. Earle is survived by his father, musician Steve Earl, wife Jenn Marie Maynard and their 3-year-old daughter Etta St. James.
A year ago he was in New Zealand to perform when he spoke about fatherhood, guns and the POTUS with RNZ Music's Kirsten Johnstone.
Photo: Joshua Black Wilkins
The eldest son of outlaw country artist Steve Earle probably hates comparisons to his father, but the apple never falls too far from the tree.
Like his dad, Justin Townes Earle left home in his mid-teens for a life of music on the road, stumbling on addiction, arrests, and eventual rehab.
His last three album titles suggest his upbringing: Single Mothers, Absent Fathers, and Kids On The Street.
Like Steve Earle, Justin’s politics are firmly to the left, and he’s outspoken on many issues, including immigration: “Anybody wants to come to America, for a better life ... I welcome you with open arms,” he tells me.
His songs are stories of rogues, desperadoes, ramblers and renegades. There’s a string of broken hearts and failed relationships through his albums, (including a woman from Christchurch who stands him up).
Justin has been clean for years now. He got married in 2013, and had a daughter in 2017.
Becoming a father forced him to look outward, to the world that his daughter was inheriting.
The resulting album, The Saint Of Lost Causes tackles environmental disaster, economic downturn, mandatory minimum sentences, displacement of Black Americans, and addiction. It's told through the eyes of marginalised and outcast characters.
The album questions what it is to be American.
When I get Justin Townes Earle on the phone, the first thing I hear when asking how he is, is a thick Southern drawl, replying dryly: “I'm pretty fucking peachy.”
Kirsten: I read an interview with you recently about how your daughter's birth affected your latest album. And you said, "I bought her a nine mm handgun the day she was born, because I'm frightened like hell for her." That seems like a statement that might come out of a war zone, you know?
Justin: Well, it's not necessarily as bad as a war zone. But I mean, we got people walking into Walmart and shooting 20 people. We have mass shootings on the constant, and we have an ignorant peon for a president.
And he's empowered this whole right wing, fascist, racist, faction. And then on top of that, you keep hearing about these girls getting date raped, boys getting off with it.
I was raised with guns. I don't think that everybody should be able to own one, I don't think it should be a right. But if you're taught responsibly, how to use them.
I have had my nose broken in a bar fight with a pistol in my pocket. I didn't pull my gun.
I knew the difference between my life, and getting my ass kicked. But my grandfather taught me that. I'm gonna do the same thing for my daughter.
But we do live in a much different society. Our society is dangerous. I mean, I've been in Adelaide so many nights, I've been in Wellington so many nights where I've seen these brutal bar fights. Shit talking people.
We don't have that here. Because nobody is going to pipe up and act like a dickhead, because the other guy might have a gun.
Do you buy the whole 'mental illness pulls the trigger' argument?
Well, I think in some cases I do. Like I think a lot of our police in America are ex military. I think that cops are responsible for some of the most mentally ill shootings I've heard of in America. We're scared of our cops.
If you've done military service, if you've served and actually been in combat, I believe that you should have to go through a rigorous, serious mental evaluation before you are allowed to put on the uniform and carry a firearm.
I mean, when I was a kid, I was a knucklehead. Cops used to jump out of the car on us, we'd be sitting on the corner smoking weed. And they'd get out and they pull out their little nightstick [baton], they'd pat 'em in their hands. Like ‘what's going on boys?’ Nowadays a cop pulls up on you he comes out with his gun out.
Nobody stuck a damn gun in my face when I was a kid. Now they do it all the time.
Because I mean, soldiers, if you take somebody from the military, they’ve been taught that everyone is your enemy when you're in a combat zone. Putting them in a police cruiser is just like putting them on a Humvee. They treat us all like we're the enemy.
Photo: Joshua Black Wilkins
And you're a white guy.
I'm a white guy with gold teeth and tattoos and a bad attitude. And then when they run my tags on my car, they look at my driver's licence. And they can look at my criminal record. Which is extensive.”
Yeah, I wondered about that, about the fact that you can still tour internationally with a criminal record that includes things like assault and drug convictions.
It takes a lot I mean, you know, I gotta pay, I gotta get multiple visas. I mean, it's a lot. If I didn't do so good in Australia and New Zealand then no, nobody would let me in.
Where are you living right now?
Nowhere right now. It's not something I want to get into.
So, you're nomadic?
I always have been and I think that's the problem with people like me who start touring when you're 15 years old and you've been on the road your whole life. We have a different definition of the term motion sickness. It comes to people like me when we're stationary for too long.
What does home mean to you though? the concept of home?
The only way that I can answer that is: my daughter. I've never had a sense of home. I've always been bounced around, and then bounced around hotels, and by 15 I was on the road. And have been ever since. So the idea that I'm going to be here and I gotta stay here, it's actually horrifying.
Justin Townes Earle NZ Tour:
- Friday 23rd August - Tuning Fork, Auckland
- Saturday 24th August - Blue Smoke, Christchurch
- Sunday 25th August - San Fran, Wellington
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