Shooter Jennings
Country Weekly, February 13, 2007
This one’s a little different. Here’s why::
First, Shooter Jennings and began our interview on his tour bus, not in some record label’s Nashville office. We were in Manhattan, idling curbside near the Ed Sullivan Theater. Also, much of this transcript was captured backstage before Shooter and his band taped their spot on The Late Show with David Letterman – in a stairwell outside their dressing room, as I recall. Having written Shooter’s PR bio for his 2005 album Put the O Back in Country, we were comfortable with each other. That, too, helps explain why some of it reads more like a casual conversation than your traditional sit-down Q&A.
But always, this feeling of being relaxed whenever we did hang together was tempered by a smidgen of awe on my part, due entirely to Shooter’s lineage. Way back in the early Seventies, while attending UT Austin, I heard his dad, Waylon Jennings, perform at the old Armadillo World Headquarters. Willie Nelson came out for a few songs too, but for me Waylon was the star. He didn’t move around much, but as he stood behind the mic he held his customized black-and-white customized Telecaster just right, with the neck pointing down, which somehow looked much cooler than the upward slant preferred by most eager young rock wannabes.
Like that guitar, Waylon was encased in black leather. It could be nearly 100 degrees, as it was when I caught his set at Willie’s Fourth of July Picnic in College Station, and he’d still wrap himself up in it, like a holstered gun. His groove, that bass plodding or popping on the first and third beats, was distinctive. His voice, a rugged baritone that may or may not squarely hit each note of a melody, might bring his former roommate Johnny Cash to mind, but over time the differences grew more apparent. Even now, I prefer Waylon. I can’t imagine anyone else singing “This Time,” “Good Hearted Woman,” “Are You Sure Hank Done It This Way,” “Luckenbach, Texas (Back to the Basics of Love)” or especially “Dreaming My Dreams With You” and “Amanda,” on which his rugged yet romantic sound can best be appreciated.
Luckily, Shooter has no problem growing up in the shadow of his dad, not to mention his mother, the beloved country vocalist Jessi Colter. He can perfectly emulate Waylon’s voice, whether speaking or singing. More crucially, he developed his own identity, a turbulent blend of country, punk and raw rock & roll. At the time he was dating the glamorous Drea De Matteo, who was famous in her own right as Adriana in The Sopranos. He seemed more of a fit in Hollywood’s Viper Room than in the Texas Hill Country, but his true home, as he told me, was his tour bus. So after pulling up next to Irving Plaza for his gig that evening, he was clearly distressed when informed that neighborhood zoning regulations required that the bus had power down. The prospect of spending a night in a hotel rather than on the road, as he confided in whispered conversation with his mother, was more intimidating than any audience he’d ever faced.
Mostly, though, Shooter seemed exhilarated by his Letterman debut. And when we closed the night at a pre-show party, with Miami Steve Van Zandt joining the party, all seemed well. I expect he and Drea slept well as they rolled out of New York and on to the next show..
Shooter was in mid-sentence when I began recording.
****
… It was 7:30. I went to be early for the first time in years, like ever [laughs]. But I read David Lee Roth’s biography, so I had questions. He said the most women he’d ever been with was four … in Nashville! And I said, “I just want to make sure I don’t know any of them.” He said, “It could be your bass player’s mom.” He was so cool, man. I wanted to ask him about Jim Dandy, because Jim Dandy came to our show the other night. He was the original David Lee Roth [unintelligible]. Then I asked him about this poem he wrote, “Catch the Cat,” which I ripped out of his book and posted on my buddy’s refrigerator in Nashville. I’m such a fan, and the way he wrote his book, and he’s so smart and everything, I figured I’d ask him about the four-women thing. So I said, “I heard you had four women in Nashville.” And he said, “There were actually five women, but I only made it through four.” And I went, “David Lee Roth!” I would rather have seen his show than anything else. I was so excited just to meet him.
How long were you in the studio?
I was there for fifteen or twenty minutes. He played a bunch of cuts off the record. He was a really cool guy.
What happened after the show?
I slept until 1:30, woke up and had a couple of “wake-up” beers, and then came over here to do this thing.
Is this the first time you’ve done Letterman?
Yes. I’m very excited. He and Paul Shaffer were friends of my dad. [To someone in his retinue:] Is Paul Shaffer going to play piano with us?
Someone else: They’ve already put his piano in my monitor. You know who’s sitting in tonight? Billy Gibbons.
Shooter: Shut up! With our band?
Someone else: No, with Paul Shaffer.
Shooter: Yeah!! Dude, he knows us. Dude, I’m wearing his peso pin. He made a pick out of a peso, and somebody had it cast into a silver ball. Where is he? Let’s get him to sit in! It’s like, “Hey, can you play triangle on a song [laughs]?”
Where did you meet him?
He came to a Starrgun show years ago. Then I met him backstage at the House of Blues one time and again on Howard Stern, last time I was here. He knows who we are, so maybe he’ll sit in or something. I’m a big fan of that guy. I mean, dude, Eliminator? I have some buddies who went to jail over that record.
Is this a fairly typical day when you’re out on tour?
This is a more complicated day. Doing the Letterman thing complicated the day a lot. Usually, on a day for a show, I’ll get up and Mark or somebody will take me to a radio station or two or three. We’ll come back, do sound check, find a place to shower. If I have time, I’ll do my radio show. Then I’ll come back, do a meet-and-greet, and then play. That’s my day.
“I hate napping. It only makes me get in a bad mood.”
And maybe you catch a nap in the middle of that.
I hate napping. It only makes me get in a bad mood. So I don’t nap. I just try and make sure I get enough time to sleep. Basically, all I do is hope that they schedule my shit around my sleep schedule. If they don’t, I get cranky, and they have to put up with it [laughs].
You don’t rehearse on the road.
We do it in sound checks. We worked out most of our new record in sound checks. Only the first three songs – “Hair of the Dog,” “Little White Lines,” and “Electric Rodeo” – were rehearsed in a rehearsal hall. Everything else was done in a studio or sound check.
How different is it, from growing up on the road with your parents, to lead your own band on the road?
You know, I ask myself that question and reflect on it. It’s different because the other way I didn’t have to worry about anything. Now there’s more that I need to pay attention to, that I don’t pay attention to, that I have to keep reminding myself to pay attention to. There’s a lot more responsibility now. Otherwise, it’s just as much fun.
One develops habits as a way of coping with things, and obviously your habit is to find some sense of home by going back to the bus. And when the power is off …
“Even if the band is sleeping in a hotel, I’ll sleep in the bus. It’s the only safe place we’ve got.”
I want to stay in it. I never leave it. I’m notorious for that. Even if the band is sleeping in a hotel, I’ll sleep in the bus. It’s the only safe place we’ve got. I can go there and unwind. The gigs on which we don’t have our bus are detrimental to my sanity. Not having a place to go after a show … There’d be a lot of [sounds like: toady] gigs where the bus would leave and the band would stay and fly out the next day. Even having a hotel room just doesn’t feel right. The minute we get on the bus, we smell it.
The driver’s performance is important.
The driver is the most important guy on the bus. My dad was very heavy about that and I am too. They’ve got a bunch of people’s lives in their hands. Being able to sleep at night and know that you’re going to be safe is more important than anything else.
How much of the year do you tour?
We did about 145 dates last year. This year we’re going to beat that by quite a bit. I don’t think we can get 200 this year, but we’re trying. Dierks Bentley said he could, so we said we could too.
Is it hard to unwind back in L.A.?
It depends. It’s a life adjustment. Last time we were here, last time we had three nights off, we spent that entire time in the studio. That’s what I like: We were able to keep working, keep moving, and never feel like time is getting an edge on you. We have enough material now to carry us through the middle of next year, so we’re happy about that.
Lonesome Travels
Where your parents traveled together as a couple, you’re traveling as a single guy, with Drea back in L.A.?
Balancing your life is tough, but you learn lessons about it. Electric Rodeo is kind of what that’s about; at least the first five songs are about our experience and how this has affected us, because we’ve never been used to this. Everybody is tremendously affected by traveling on the road – the whole band, me, Brian, Ted, and Leroy. We’re like four brothers who’ve been thrown into this situation and we’re figuring out ways to cope with it.
But is traveling an issue between you and Drea?
It’s not an issue. I mean, I’ve learned how to do it. I’ve got a little bit of a scope on how to deal with personal life ahead of time. I feel lucky I’ve had that. You just make your way. This is a job, it’s work, and we make every chance we can to see each other. More than that, it’s dealing with your day-to-day the best way you can, being responsible with your time. Don’t party too much or whatever. The last time we spoke, I was much more wide-eyed about the situation. But in the way each season of The Soprano deals with a different thing, and this year it’s all business, figuring out how to do the best they can, that’s kind of how we feel. Our first season was about family, and this one is about us being the best live band we can be.
Did you ever get leaked advance news about what’s coming up on The Sopranos?
Not really, because the actors didn’t even know until it was shot. They only get parts of the episode.
It must be rough to find out you’ve been written off the show.
They’re taken in, they talk to them, but it’s all for the sake of the story. Only one person has been written off that show because they didn’t like him. [Note: And why didn’t I ask which one that was? Argh.]
His Father’s Son
How will your life change over the course of this year?
I want to make music every minute I can. I want to squeeze all the juice out of the lemon. I hope that my life continues to be this, and if it’s not this I hope to be continuing to work in the studio. I’ve got a lot of plans. I want to do a record with my mom. I want to do a couple more records with other people. I want us to put out a third record next year. All I think about is music. I’m a little bit worried about that. Even when I’m sitting here, talking to you, right now “Hold On, I’m Coming” is playing [in sound check] and I’m thinking about Jerry Lee Lewis because my mind goes to his version of this. It’s the shit, man. I’m an ADD kid. I’m always thinking of ways to progress what we do. Everybody else in the band is doing that too. That’s what makes us successful, in my opinion: Everyone in the band is thinking about making their slice of the pie better. Everybody cares about that more than anything else.
Any offspring of an established artist bears certain advantages and disadvantages. On the new album, you obviously pay tribute to your father …
I actually do that more on this record than the last one. We quote from “This Time.” In “Little White Lines” I say “once in a while [unintelligible]. And in “Going to Carolina” I ripped off “Clyde” [?] by J. J. Cale; at the end I say, “Come on, Clyde, we got things to do.”
What about the last track?
“It Ain’t Easy.” That’s about him. But the record you’ve got didn’t have that. It had “Living Proof,” right? The last one on the advance is different from the store record. The last one on yours is the Hank Williams Junior song, “The Living Room.” The last one on the record is a song I wrote where I’m saying something about my dad: “It Ain’t Easy.”
You have your own evolving sound, but any time you want, you can evoke your dad’s sound too, which you do sometimes in a playful way.
That’s cool that you say it that way; I never thought about it.
So you’re not stuck in one direction or the other.
I almost feel that I’m really nervous about our third record, only because when we started writing the second one, the first one hadn’t come out yet. So we had no pressure at all. I’m not nervous, but it’s going to be the first record we’ve cut where we’ve made an impression first. That’s what I love about Electric Rodeo: It doesn’t stick with the message of the first record at all. It took the sound of the band to another place, before they were able to get their thumb on us. With the first one they thought we were going to come out with another record and talk about country music or drinking or whatever, but this record is much deeper and darker. The sound is more defined, as a style, than the first one. There’s more country and more rock to it.
You’re not just using some studio guys; it’s your band.
I don’t understand that way of thinking because I’ve never operated that way. I didn’t get into it for my voice; if I did, I wouldn’t go very far.
In that sense, you are your father’s son.
It was the same operation: He met people, they played, and that was how it worked. And all of a sudden they threw him in the pool with all the rest of the people. He was like, “Then come into the pool with me.” They said, “No.” And he said, “Well, this sucks. I don’t want to hang out with these guys. I want to hang out with my friends.” “Well, you’re friends aren’t allowed.” “Fuck that – then I ain’t coming to the party.”
When Holly Williams and Hank III do their records, you’d never guess they were related to Hank.
You never would. Holly has a great voice. And she makes just one reference to her grandfather … on that one song [unintelligible].
“I have no beef with Hank III. He has a beef with me.”
You’re in the middle of all that: You have your own sound coming together, but you’re neither afraid nor reluctant to go back and pay tribute.
I try to do that any time I can. And I want to set the record straight for Country Weekly: I have no beef with Hank III. He has a beef with me, but I have no beef with him. I’ve not even touched it. I love his music. His new record is great. I like some of the material on the last one better, but on the new attitude he forged the attitude of the heavy music with the sound of his great band for the first time. It’s modern. The last record sounded retro; this one sounds kind of retro, but it sounds new. That really impressed me. He’s just bullying me or something, but I hope that one day he ends up liking me and my friends. I’m a fan of his, but somehow he got mad at me over something.
****
As Shooter and his musicians did their soundcheck, which also involved fan-boying around Billy Gibbons, I took advantage of the opportunity to speak with Jessi in a room a few steps away from the stage.
You’re here just for this one Shooter concert, but you were saying earlier that you knew all along that this would be his life.
Absolutely, since he was thirteen was in music. He just had to find the outlet.
That’s actually a little late.
Oh, he played drums from eighteen months. Don’t get me wrong. He played drums and messed around with the instrument. I didn’t even realize how much he was messing around with it until he said, “I want to take it on the road.” I said, “Well, why don’t you leave it here?” I didn’t know, because [tape malfunction] playing drums.
But he had other interests too. He just got around to deciding to do this when he was around twelve or thirteen.
Well, he and his father bought a studio board, and once he bought the studio board he said, “Let’s go in together on the studio,” which was outside the house. He transferred a lot of his time and his attention from the computer and graphic arts, things like that, to the making of music, which is different from the playing. He was already playing rhythm and all that stuff. He actually started writing [tape malfunction].
Shooter grew up on the road. How does it feel to you, as his mother, to see that his daily life continues that precedent of living on the bus?
I went through that [tape malfunction] “shift on the fly,” as my friend said, because it was nostalgic. It [tape malfunction; sounds like “killed” or “thrilled”] me at first, and then I began to fall and understand his rhythm and went on the road with him, traveled on the bus. And it was so natural. It was where I’d been too, most of my life.
“He doesn’t talk a lot about what he’s going to do. He just does it.”
Did you sing at his shows?
Well, he would never let me know what he expected ahead of time, but when called me out, when he was breaking his first album, he made me get up and sing with him. When I didn’t do my part right, he gave me the stink-eye [laughs]. It was like, “This is on AOL; forty million people are listening to this being broadcast.” He’s like his dad in some ways, but he’s very much his own man. That last-minute thing, and not talking a whole lot … He doesn’t talk a lot about what he’s going to do. He just does it. He calls me out, and I think he just wants me there as his mother.
Do you worry about things he may have to deal with on the road?
I went through a major adjustment. He felt very far away, in a way, because he took flight, so to speak. You raise your children to excel, and then they do, and you have to adjust to that. Of course, I believe greatly in the power of prayer. There’s much prayer that goes out for him. I trust God with his life. And I trust him with his life. I’ve seen his choices, and he’s always the man. He takes his responsibility very seriously about what he does. He’s very good to people. And he has much favor upon him. It’s something he’s won, so I’m very proud.
Did you and Waylon ever talk with him about the business?
The only thing I remember Waylon telling him early on was, “Don’t ever look to an entertainer as a role model.” Shooter wasn’t a huge fan of Nirvana, but when Kurt Cobain died, it hurt him. He was an early teenager. And Waylon said, “Don’t look to him. Look to the people around you.” Of course, I know Shooter valued his father so much. They had a very close relationship. Waylon was very honest and open about what was happening, so if Shooter learned anything, he learned it by example. Waylon didn’t talk a lot, unless you asked him his reasons for something. Shooter’s the same way.
So you see signs in Shooter of a replay of what you saw in Waylon.
Oh, definitely, and at first it bolted [sic] me. It happened so fast. He cut the album, and the next thing I know it’s all happening. I had to almost go, “Where am I?” Then I saw it was such a natural progression. And it was time for something to happen. You have to adjust as a parent. I’ve never controlled Shooter. I’ve loved watching Shooter grow up with it.
So this feels familiar to you as a typical day on the road for an artist.
I feel totally at home here, backstage, walking up the dark stairs, seeing what the hospitality has provided, listening to them bang the drums at soundcheck, trying to figure out when you can eat, and then doing the show.
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I seem to recall Shooter and Hank III eventually burying the hatchet.
Great interview. Thanks for the Raleigh pic. I honestly can't remember if I was at that show or not. Thank goodness I quit drinking in 2012!