Zitat des Tages von Jason Isbell:
I spend a lot of time wondering how to best support the people that I love, because I think sometimes that means getting out of the way. When should I leave them alone to have their own life?
Good sounds, they just make you feel good.
I think I'm a common man for the most part, but I don't work as hard as most people that I know.
When somebody asks me what a song or a line is about, I feel like I'm not done writing it yet.
The world changes fast, and a lot of the old country folks have a hard time keeping up with it, and it makes them sad.
I went to school for creative writing in college, and I wound up about six hours short of my degree.
It's nice to feel like you have more in common with people rather than more differences.
I don't care what 'Pitchfork' says. They write from a place that's a little too self-aware for me to really give a damn about what they're talking about.
I've spent a lot of time in a rock n' roll band trying to fight off the fact that I was old enough to rent a car. And it's all sort of rushed in at once now. And I like it.
People love to be listened to and represented, and they love it when they feel like you have some of the same problems that they do. Everybody deals with things like romantic difficulties in relationships and death and cancer and abuse.
As you get up in your thirties, the van touring is not a possibility anymore. We can't all be Mike Watt.
The fact that I have a Southern accent and write about a lot of rural things leads people to put me in the country category.
What having a child - and especially a daughter - has done is lifted more of the veil for me: allowed me to see things on another level compared to how I used to see them.
Sleeping on people's floors when you're 22 is fine. But when you get your life in order and have a family you want to keep and a certain level of health, touring bigger means you can keep going for longer.
The good thing about songwriting is you don't have to delineate between what's true and what's fiction; records aren't put on the shelf that way. Books are, movies are, but records aren't.
I know people who have written big hit country songs that are really kind of terrible songs, but for the rest of their life, they're the guy who wrote that. You've got to be careful; if you don't want that to happen, don't write those songs.
Physical labor, manual labor - if you can stay close to those folks, there's always plenty to write about, 'cause their issues are real issues.
I have modes, mental modes that I get in, and when I'm on the road, I focus very much on doing the work. On playing the show, on being good every night. And part of me just gets switched off. The part that's very private and very personal and very intimate. That especially, that part of me gets shut off.
At the end of the day, I'm just trying to write a song that I like, that I'm not afraid to turn loose on the world. I do read a lot. I know a lot of people who read more, but I do try to keep a book in my hand most of the time, and I think that informs any kind of output that I'm going to have.
My wife and I both grew up with parents who were very young. Her mom was, I think, 17 or 18 when she was born; my mom was 15 when I was born. So, as we got older, we started thinking a lot about that - about the time that those people missed because we came along when we did and because they devoted so much of their lives to taking care of us.
The more you read, the better you are at writing, no matter what you're writing. A lot of songwriters miss that and don't see the connection there, and I've always felt like you're more able to communicate if you have a bigger toolbox to work with.
I like those kinds of songs that have details that you remember and that have stories that mean something and that open up into different levels philosophically. I like those kinds of movies, and I like those kinds of books.
A great story poorly told doesn't do anybody any good at all, and nobody wants to hear it, and nobody wants to read it. The craft of it is really more important than the subject matter.
Every time I'd get a job, they'd say: 'You'll be good at loading trucks.' I couldn't explain that there was more to me than carrying things.
Rehab is like a divorce.
When I was playing with the Truckers, a lot of really good things happened. And we had a good trajectory for a long time. For that kind of a band, for the kind of music that I've always made, we had a lot of success, I think.
Songs like 'Outfit' and 'Decoration Day' and 'Dress Blues,' those were good songs, but the output wasn't as consistent in those days.
When I joined the Truckers, I was 21 and riding in the van with guys who were a generation older than me.
I always think that's neat, when you can hear a story told from different points of view, different perspectives.
Democracy can tie your hands in a rock 'n' roll band, you know? It can be a great thing, but if you've got a certain amount of vision and you write a lot of songs, it's sometimes better to have your own band and make your own decisions.
When I hear somebody like Hayes Carll write a song that's touching and poignant and sad and funny all at the same time, it motivates me to step my game up and try to figure out a way to get more different emotions into one line or one song.
Sometimes a song becomes rhetoric, but you have to really empathise. You also have to leave room for both sides of the argument: even if you're not telling the other side, you have to put that part in parentheses and make sure it's understood.
It's not easy to sit down and open yourself up and say, 'This is how much I love you,' you know? It's scary to do that.
I think politics are a very personal thing.
I write pretty much year-round, but I definitely do more when a deadline is looming.
I think sometimes I write to impress my influences. Whether they're actually acquaintances of mine, people that I think will hear the record or not, I still write - not to imitate my influences - but to write something that would live up to their standards.