It’s a really, really fuckin’ good band and the way we tour is hardcore – four shows in a row then a night off at best.” Only one other band member is clean, he says, and the others tend not to socialise with Earle because they find him so dull now he’s sober. “I think everybody’s proud of being in this band. Anyway, he loves being with his band, the Dukes. But he can’t because that’s how he makes his money. Sparkle and shine … Earle onstage with Allison Moorer in 2011. “I know why I get up in the morning now: to figure out a way to make sure he’s going to be alright when I’m gone. He says that John Henry has given him a renewed sense of purpose. As for recovery, that is a daily battle – yoga and gym every day, the 12-step programme wherever he is in the world.
The memoir-writing is boring, he says – he prefers writing when he doesn’t know what is going to happen. He is writing his autobiography so he is having to revisit the darkest days. You don’t care whether you get a shot or a banana peel, you just want something to happen to change the way you feel.” In 1994 he was sentenced to a year in jail for weapons and drugs possession, serving 60 days.Įarle says all this seems far away in one way. I hate cocaine, I prefer heroin and opiates, but it was like being a monkey and you just conditioned yourself to push the button. “In the end I just gave up on heroin because I wasn’t getting that high so I went on the methadone programme and started smoking cocaine. He was spending between $500 and $1,000 a day on drugs. “I was homeless essentially for two years, living on the street.”
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I guess it’s because I couldn’t figure out how to put it in the car and take it to the pawn shop.” But the house had no electricity and was uninhabitable. The house in Tennessee I still own, though I don’t know how. Bikes, cars, guitars, jewellery – they all went to feed his habit. During that time, he lost virtually everything. After the success of early albums such as Guitar Town and Copperhead Road in the late 1980s, he did not write a song for four years. In the early 90s he looked as if he was on his way out. It is astonishing that Earle is still alive, never mind producing such great music. She traded me in for a younger, skinnier, less talented singer-songwriter.” I just don’t want John Henry to leave New York.”ĭid his son’s autism contribute to their split? “I think it was the straw that broke the camel’s back, but I think she was going to leave me anyway. She wants to leave New York and thinks I’m trying to control her life. He says it has been a source of conflict with Moorer. They have stayed there because Earle believes that is where John Henry will receive the best schooling. He and Moorer moved to New York soon after they got together. I’m lonely sometimes, but I’m on the road half the time and that’s pretty lonely anyway.” In The Wire I played a redneck recovering addict. Being single in New York City doesn’t suck. If I go to a baseball game I can stay for the whole thing.” You’re enjoying being single? “I actually am. But I like sitting where I want to in the movies and when you go to the theatre at the last minute you can get a really good seat if you’re looking for a single. Is he planning on an eighth marriage, and seventh Mrs Earle? He shakes his head. This record is more about coming to terms with loss.” And I’ve left people too, which has its own set of lows and guilts.
This isn’t the first time I’ve gotten dumped. I ask if the songs on the new album are about her. He would introduce her on stage with the love song he wrote for her, Sparkle and Shine (“My baby sparkle and shine / And I can’t believe she’s mine”). They lived and toured and gigged together. He was with Moorer for eight years – his longest marriage.
Nor have I met somebody with so many stories. Syllables merge into one and consonants are dispensed with entirely, so the word “centre” becomes “sinner”. Three years on from their divorce, you sense he is still coming to terms with separating from Moorer.Įarle looks like an ageing Hells Angel – long straggly grey beard, waistcoat, T-shirt, jeans, tattoos. Its message might be bleak, but the song is uplifting. This Is How it Ends is a duet with country star Miranda Lambert, reminiscent of Dolly Parton and Porter Wagoner in their prime. It is about love and loss and another form of recovery. Despite the bravado of its title, Earle’s new album, So You Wanna Be an Outlaw, is one of his most tender yet.
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