Jason Isbell joins The Kelleigh Bannen Show for an in-depth look at his new album ‘Weathervanes.’ Isbell, again, challenges listeners and himself to confront uncomfortable truths about humanity and life in America, while shedding light on those left behind by society with kindness and compassion. He shares about his writing process, self-producing his music for the first time, and the preciousness and fragility of hope.
Tune in and listen to the episode in-full anytime on-demand at apple.co/_KelleighBannen and read our review of ‘Weathervanes’ right here.
Jason Isbell Tells Apple Music About His Songwriting Rule
I have a rule where if I write a line and I think, “I don’t know if I want people to know that,” then I’m like, “Ah, crap. I’m stuck with it now. Now I have to keep it,” so I have to make it work. And that has served me well, especially as I’ve gotten older because I’m not so… I think when you’re younger and you write songs, sometimes you can have this desire to startle people, shock people, and that tempers as you get older.
So you find ways to present those secrets that might, in the long run, make people more comfortable with their own image and their own identity… It’s a way of normalizing those things because at least I have felt that too. We never would’ve gotten there, though, if I had stayed vague and broad and told people things that I only felt comfortable with because those things are on the surface.
Jason Isbell Tells Apple Music About Being Careful with Who He Writes Songs About
You want to be careful about who you talk about in these songs because some people didn’t sign up for that, and especially when it’s people who knew me [back] then. If it’s somebody who knows me now, I think they should probably understand that this might come back up because they know this is what I do. But in those days, I was just a kid and I wanted to be this, but who knows what’s going to happen. Most of the time people who want to write songs for a living don’t eventually get to do it. So you want to be careful about that, but my way of handling that is really just to try to get the facts straight, try to tell the truth and try to tell it from my perspective.
Jason Isbell Tells Apple Music About ‘Whiter Beretta‘
On a song like “White Beretta,” there are things that I regret. I regret that I wasn’t able to be as supportive as I could have been to somebody that I cared about who was having a really difficult time, and that’s really what that song is, among other things, what it’s about. I hate to say what a song is about because it’s in there… but it deals with that feeling, as you get older, of, “I could have done a better job of this.” That was really tough. That was a tough one to write.
Jason Isbell Tells Apple Music About ‘Cast Iron Skillet’
‘Cast Iron Skillet’ was a tough one to write because there’s two separate stories in that song. The first one deals with some kids that I grew up with that wound up killing somebody and going to prison for it. And then the second one deals with somebody that I was related to who had a boyfriend who was not the same race as her, and she was disowned by some of her family for that.
Both of those things really happened to people that I really knew and people that I was really close to growing up. And it was hard to talk about not just what had happened, but how it had affected me and how it affects me still, that idea that hope is fragile and you have to work to protect it.
Jason Isbell Tells Apple Music About Having a Different Job as a Songwriter Than the Average Country Music Star
I don’t feel like I have the same job as a country music star… It’s just not the same job. My day is not the same. My goal is not the same, and I don’t know enough about that job really to say, “They’re doing something wrong.” I don’t feel that way. I think that some people are out there trying to sell records and some people have a super positive message and they use nostalgia to widen their audience, and then once they get everybody in a room, they tell them something really important and special and awesome. You know what I mean?… And I think that’s great, but that is not what I do.
What I try to do is look at the truth of things and find the details that paint the clearest picture of the way things really, truly are. This is not always a happy job, and it’s not always the kind of job that brings in the vast numbers of people, but the ones who do come are attached and connected to what we’re doing because they feel the weight of it and they feel like it’s something that there’s a purpose to it. It’s not just commerce.
Jason Isbell Tells Apple Music About ‘King of Oklahoma‘
The character in that song, the main character, has fallen victim to something that a lot of people in our country have fallen victim to over the past decade, which is this idea of, “I work hard. I do what I’m supposed to do. I take care of my family. One day, something happens and I’m a drug addict.”
This has happened so many times. And of course, I’m not saying that he deserves more leeway than somebody buying drugs off the sidewalk, off the street, because they have their own set of issues, but sometimes a song is me saying, “Will you take a minute to just listen to this perspective, this person’s story, before you judge, before you view them as a disposable character that’s just a blight on all the rest of us in our little community? Take a second to understand why they made the choices that they made.” Maybe they weren’t good choices, but they were pressured to make those. This guy hurts himself, goes to the doctor, doctor gives him pain medicine, and it doesn’t take very long to get addicted.
Jason Isbell Tells Apple Music About ‘Save the World’ and School Shootings
When I was in school, we had tornado drills… But I remember going to school and being so worried about what we were going to have for lunch, or if I was prepared enough for a test or some kind of audition or some kind of bully or some kind of girl, or all these things that you’re supposed to be worried about at that age and now you got all that, and then somewhere in the back of your mind, you’ve got shooting drills in the classroom and the idea that that is a vulnerable place.
Also, the play-acting of trying to make it look safer. “Let’s put cops… Let’s give the teachers guns, let’s do this.” The idea of there’s this one thing that we’re not going to do. We’re not going to approach it. We’re not even going to consider doing it, so we will do all these other things to make you feel this false sense of security, and then you’re dealing with the symptom. You’re not dealing with the issue. I don’t know. It’s a lot to ask of a child to grow up under those circumstances. It was already hard to grow up
