Steve Earle proud to be an American

By GRAHAM REID

[To read the full interview of Steve Earle, click on the link at the end of this story.]

The recently released DVD documentary Just an American Boy about singer-songwriter Steve Earle is bookended by a striking image, the American flag. It may seem an unusual choice for someone who has been branded unpatriotic for his stance against his country's engagement in Iraq and was on the New York Post's list of traitors after he wrote a song from the perspective of John Walker Lindh, the young American picked up by US troops and who had been fighting with the Taleban.

But for a liberal like 49-year-old Earle, it has been important to reclaim his flag from moral conservatives, right-wingers and war mongers who use it as symbol of superior morality and patriotism.

"I saw exactly the same thing in the Vietnam War. I got kicked out of school for sewing an American flag upside down on my jacket. But that's the international distress signal, you run the colours upside down, and I felt like we were in trouble," he says, emphasising the understatement.

Earle says he has taken up painting recently ("I'm so bad at it there's no pressure on me") and is working on a self-portrait which includes the American flag with a peace symbol on it of the kind he saw during anti-Vietnam protests.

"It's funny, I see a lot of symbols that were important to me when I was 14 years old [that] are becoming increasingly important to me today.

"But I think we can stop this war - and music can help stop this war. I know music helped stop the Vietnam War, I was there and I saw that. I'm optimistic for the first time that we can actually beat this guy [Bush]. Then I can go back to writing chick songs again," he laughs.

The two years since the release of his heavily political Jerusalem album have been volatile for Earle, and that's saying something given he crashed into country music in 1986 with his classic, rockin' country album Guitar Town then spun through a drug-fuelled downward spiral which earned him a prison term in the early 90s. He emerged a stronger man, vocal advocate of free speech, persuasively arguing against the death penalty, and a more mature musician who had some real stories to tell.

Earle's career has been one of the most extraordinary in American music. He has written poetry and a play (Karla, about the first female Death Row inmate since the Civil War), and acted. These days - after a series of albums which pushed musical boundaries and took his loyal following on a wayward but rewarding journey - he can play straight-ahead rock (as befits a man who grew up loving Hendrix and the Beatles), but he is also a singer-songwriter in the same league as Bob Dylan and his mentor Townes Van Zandt, and a much respected bluegrass player.

While his fans know him for his edgy and emotionally affecting music it has been his outspoken political opinions which gained him headlines, a namecheck on the conservative New York Post's list of traitors ("the only review I've ever framed was when I got a one-star review for Jerusalem in the New York Post") and earned him the wrath of the country music establishment. John Walker's Blues was banned by many radio stations.

Earle has ridden the controversy with dignity and clarity, and in the documentary repeats his position: "It is never, ever unpatriotic or un-American to question anything in a democracy, no matter what anybody else says what an insult it is. I just wasn't raised as an artist to believe that you censor yourself because of being afraid of offending someone."

But many of his peers have been afraid to speak out about the nature of their government, issues like the Patriot Act which curtail aspects of democracy, and the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.

"They are terrified about the effect [speaking out] would have on their careers. They are also genuinely worried about hurting people's feelings, like family members' feelings of people who died on September 11. And the government has capitalised on that."

He says the same principle applies to speaking out against the death penalty, you get accused of being disrespectful to the victims' families. His line is the death penalty - with its years of necessary appeals - is disrespectful to victims' families. If a life sentence is passed then they can get on with the healing immediately.

"The same mentality applies here. On September 11 everyone became a victim's family member and we all took it really personally. But people are starting to come out of the fog and are asking questions again. It feels much more democratic than it did when I was writing Jerusalem."

Earle says the struggle between Democratic candidates in the recent primaries meant issues such as the invasion of Iraq which hadn't been aired, largely out of fear of being unpatriotic, now came out for discussion.

He says there is now a discernable difference between Democrats and Republicans: "Barely," he laughs, "but it is there and you can see it."

"I think we really have a chance to beat [Bush] because people have figured out they got lied to, and people don't like to be made fools of. I think they are starting to react to it.

"The economy does matter, too, and the truth is that jobs have gone away by the millions since he's been in office - and that 600 body bags have come back home. It's not regular army either, some of those people who have been killed are Reservists and National Guardsmen, people that probably wouldn't have been in the Reserves or the National Guard if they didn't need the extra money.

"They didn't join to go off and fight a war. They joined to put on soldier suits and go out on training weekends to get a little extra money. The vast majority of people who have died have been members of units like that."

Earle's articulate and hard-nosed opposition to the war and the death penalty make him a combative character, but he also laughs readily at himself. He concedes he is very different from most Americans and had the advantage of seeing his country from the outside.

"Americans are unique in that we're arguably the most insular country in the world and the vast majority of Americans never leave the country. Even our President didn't have a passport before he was President. That's frightening.

" You [in New Zealand] are dealing with a lot of distance but you don't think of it like that.

"Americans are content to stay in their own hometown for their whole lives and that's okay. But I see things differently from most. I'm very proud of being American and am very embarrassed by the Administration currently in power."

Again he sees in that isolationism an analogy with his opposition to the death penalty: "Most of the governments in the world have figured out it's not a good idea to give the government the power of life or death. Period. One of the first things the European Union did was do away with the death penalty in the few places it still existed. "

And so Steve Earle arrives as an uber-patriot, but of a different cloth. After shows here - with a few days of fly-fishing - he and the band head back to Nashville to start a new album. He says he'll be writing while in Australia and New Zealand - he wrote the song Jerusalem in Melbourne two years ago - and hopes the album can come out before the American election. He'll do some solo shows maybe, the bluegrass band will appear at festivals around the States, then come September he'll be back on the road.

"It all goes on."

Transcript: Graham Reid talks with Steve Earle

Steve Earle and the Dukes
Starlight Ballroom, Wellington, Friday April 16
St James, Auckland, Saturday April 17