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I love that Amy Winehouse record. I think that's amazing. I always find myself going back to In the Aeroplane Over the Sea by Neutral Milk Hotel, which I listen to three or four times a week every week. Of course, I love Centro-matic.
-Jason Isbell |
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The Southern Thing
"It's in the subject matter and the way I approach recording and playing music. It's just gonna be there. I didn't choose to be from the South but I'm gonna have to deal with it, one way or another. It winds up in there, and I'm proud of that," says the Greenville, Alabama native. "I think Southern rock is almost a redundancy. Even my favorite artists who aren't from the South try to sound that way sometimes. I don't necessarily think what the Truckers do is Southern rock."
Isbell & Hood :: Drive-By Truckers
2005 by Dave Vann |
Given how the Truckers frequently trot out New York poet-rocker Jim Carroll's "People Who Died" it's clear there's more to them than moonshine and chitlins.
"That should let people know you're not Molly Hatchet [laughs]. I think what the Truckers were doing, and are still doing, is exploring the more interesting, darker stories from the South that don't usually end up in Southern rock," comments Isbell. "That's what Southern Rock Opera is all about. People have a hard time understanding framework when you're making an album. They can understand it in a novel or a poem but if you're singing a song and you say 'I' or 'me' people think it's you. That's kind of hard to come to terms with as a writer. If you grew up listening to Randy Newman and things like that then you know the narrator isn't always trustworthy. I don't know if he emerges much in his songs. There's always a little bit about yourself in every song but I don't think you ever hear Randy Newman talk about Randy Newman."
It's this kind of observation that makes one hesitate to read too much autobiography into a Sirens gem like "Hurricanes and Hand Grenades" [the only things strong enough to get a woman off the narrator's mind]. If this were a vinyl release "Hurricanes" would kick off a killer "Side B" of a very complete, thoughtfully sequenced album, despite the four year journey it took to completion.
"CDs don't really work that way anymore. It was the one time when the stoned guy on the couch is gonna have to get up and go over to the record player, so you better give him something worth getting up for [laughs]. Consistency is not something that's as valued as it used to be. People are looking for singles more than entire records made of quality. Even some of my favorite artists are guilty of that. There's a lot of filler on records today," laments Isbell.
Jason Isbell |
Another thing one picks up on with Sirens is all the new places Isbell goes as a vocalist, showing a range his Truckers work only hinted at, and happily recalling swamp master Tony Joe White in places.
"That's definitely something I was going for, most obviously on 'Down In A Hole,' but there's lots of places I was trying to get [White's] familiarity between the artist and the audience," he says. "One of the drummers on the record, Mike Dillon [Les Claypool, GoGo Jungle], was doing a session with Tony Joe around the same time we were doing [Sirens]. Mike was in an isolated booth behind glass and Tony Joe was in the main room playing guitar and singing. And Mike was doing an upstroke thing on the snare drum that kind of echoed what Tony Joe was doing on the guitar. They went through a couple passes and Tony Joe turned around, slid the glass door open, and said, 'Hey, that ain't right. That ain't ever right.' [laughs]."
Besides a little sonic overlap, Isbell shares White's indestructibly sturdy craftsmanship, a solidity and truthfulness that gives his music long legs. Though only just getting to his first album under his own name, Isbell strikes one as a musical lifer who has the best interest of our ears at heart.
"You've got to be honest with the people listening to your music" says Isbell, "because they'll figure it out if you're not."
JamBase | Deep South
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