May 19, 2020 • 36 mins
Jason Isbell is one of the most important Southern voices in music today. He started writing and releasing his own songs in 2007, after a stint with the Drive By Truckers. Since then has slowly built a catalogue of songs and a resume—which includes a key songwriting contribution to Bradley Cooper's version of A Star Is Born—that should put him on anyone's short list of the best songwriters currently working. Isbell and Rick Rubin met for the first time just before this conversation where they discuss Isbell's recovery from addiction, his song writing process and his deep Southern roots.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:08):
Pushkin. Rolling Stone recently called Jason Isabel arguably the most
revered roots rock singer songwriter of his generation. Jason was
born in rural Alabama to a close knit family of musicians.
He played gospel and old hillbilly songs on the mandolin
and guitar before discovering the blues. When he was twenty two,
(00:30):
Isabel joined southern rock band that Drive By Truckers, who
just had on The Show recently, and after six years
with them, started out on a successful solo career. He's
released six albums, won four Grammys, and wrote the song
maybe It's Time for Bradley Cooper's version of a Star
is Born, a pivotal song in the movie's plot. He's
(00:51):
just released his newest album called Reunions, accompanied by his
band The four hundred Unit, and is building a solid
body of evidence that he is, in fact, one of
the most gifted songwriters working today. Jason and Rick Rubin
met for the first time just before the interview You're
about to hear. They talked about his Southern roots, his
approach to songwriting, and he cracks out a song called
(01:13):
Overseas from his new album that at the time no
one aside from his manager, had ever heard this is
broken record liner notes for the digital age. I'm justin Richmond.
Here's Rick Rubin talking to Jason Isabel. Rick dives right
(01:34):
into Jason's thoughts on the spiritual value of making music.
What did I ask about, do you find a spiritual
relationship to music? Yes? A short answer is yes, I do.
You know, for all the reasons that are probably cliched
by now, but it's one of these things where whatever's
(01:57):
happened to me throughout my wife, be able to make
music has been ultimate goal. And I think anything when
you find that one purpose for yourself and you give
yourself over to the process of that purpose rather than
the goal of that purpose, it becomes a spiritual thing.
(02:17):
So for me, you know, I never wanted to be
a musician. I just wanted to make music, and every
wanted to be a songwriter. I just wanted to write songs,
or I needed to write songs. Some days I didn't
want to, but I needed to, you know. And I
think that from my personal experience, I don't know of
anything more spiritual than that, you know, And that's not
(02:37):
even really discussing the connection that's on a personal level,
you know, an inspect of the ritual aspect of it totally. Yeah, yeah.
And I think when when ritual sort of evolves on
its own, you know, rather than you begin with the
ritual and then try to find what's holy about it,
(02:57):
you know, I think there's something that's more honest to
me about that interesting. You know. I never felt like
I had to practice. I never sat down and thought
I need to work on my guitar playing today. It's
just what I did when I didn't have to do
anything else. Did the writing did it start with the right?
Was the initial idea more focused on the writing or
(03:18):
more focused on the playing? The playing, definitely, you wanted
to be in a band or or be a I
just wanted to play all the time. And did you
see yourself as a singer? Always? No, No, not at all.
It took a long time for that to happen. Uh, yeah,
it took a long I think something about amplification, you know,
(03:40):
made it possible for me to enjoy singing. You know,
when I started singing into a microphone in the studio
or on stage, the hugeness of that and the things
that I could do was mic technique, and you know,
manipulating the situation. I think attracted me to singing more
than it had in the past, you know. But for
(04:01):
the first ten years of my musical development, all I
wanted to do was play the guitar. That was all
I wanted to do, you know, And I didn't think,
you know, I pictured myself playing guitar in front of people,
but that was as far as it went. And did
you grow up playing guitar with records? Is that how
you learned to play? Yeah, My grandfather and my uncle,
(04:21):
my dad's little brother, they both played. My grandfather was
a preacher, Pentecostal preacher in Alabama, and Pentecostal church was
really kind of the most rock and roll church, you know.
So they had bass and drums and electric guitars and
stuff like that, and he played all kinds of instruments.
Him and all his siblings grew up playing gospel music,
(04:42):
and a couple of them were professional musicians, but for
the most part they were hobbyists or religious musicians. So
my parents were super young when I was born, and
they both worked, and I would stay with my grandparents,
and my grandfather started teaching me how to play guitar,
and he would say, you know, you play the rhythm guitar,
I'll play a lead instrument. He would play claw hammer,
(05:04):
banjo or mandolin or fiddle, and we would learn these,
you know, he would teach me these hillbilly songs. He
liked old country songs. The more humorous the better for him,
you know. He liked Grandpa Jones and the Opry Stars
and you know, the Heehaw Gang and all that stuff.
And then somehow I got interested in the blues when
(05:28):
I was eight or nine years old, and he would
reward me if I would play like rhythm guitar for
a couple of hours. He would take his guitar and
tune in to an open tuning and play with his
pocket knife on his lap. And that was like my
reward for that, you know. And then at one point
he took me to the record store and bought when
(05:49):
the Robert Johnson Complete Recordings Box came out, he bought
me that on cassette. But him being a preacher and
me being ten or eleven years old, he overdubbed all
the songs onto a blank casset, except for like like
Traveling Riverside, the ones that had anything that he considered
to be obscene. He took those out, you know, so
(06:09):
like to squeeze my limon. Stuff didn't make it in.
Then when I was about fifteen, he gave me the
original box which I already had on my own, but
I wasn't going to tell him that, you know, but
he was like, I think you're old enough for this now,
so he gave me the original box set. So yeah,
that was is huge for me, and that was kind
(06:30):
of I mean, this was the eighties in Alabama, so
it wasn't like, you know, the music was popular anymore really,
but for me it was as though it was having
its heyday because that's what was the music that was
going on when you were growing up, Country music mostly,
you know, that's what my friends listened to. And who
would have been the artist, just so I could picture
(06:50):
of the era, probably early Garth Brooks, Like I remember
ninety ninety one, I saw Garth at the State Fair
for a dollar right before the pop Belly pig Ray
and I think Friends in Low Places came out like
a week later, so it was you know, he was
He probably never played in the Daylight again after that,
but but yeah, so that that was really big. And
(07:11):
then my uncle had a cover band. It's great, by
the way, Like, was it a great experience seeing Garth? Then?
It was, but I didn't know, like looking back on it,
you know, back then, I thought, this guy's working really hard.
He's got a microphone on his head. You know, it's
kind of cool. But it was like the fair in Lawrenceburg, Tennessee,
and I kind of wanted to get on to riding
(07:32):
fair rides, you know. But it was in hindsight, it
was a very I mean, they were hungry and they
were working really really hard, and that probably wasn't their
only show that day, and they still definitely brought it,
you know. But it wasn't like I looked at him
and thought, this guy's about to change country music significantly.
I just thought, Wow, this guy's working really hard at
(07:55):
four o'clock in the afternoon and Lawrenceburg, Tennessee. You know.
But then I really liked what was on the radio
in those days. I mean I loved Prince and Crowded
House and Till Tuesday and all these really great pop songs.
So there was this strange combination of that and then
(08:15):
the arena rock and southern rock that my dad was
listening to. Dad was in diseasy type and skinnered and
these big rock bands and playing guitar. That became a
big deal for me, that kind of stuff. You know.
My uncle played in a cover band. They would practice
in the garage and my dad and my mom would
go over there and drink Margarita's and fall asleep on
(08:38):
the weight bench and they would My uncle had like
a broken cry baby wah pedal and they would cover
like a hurricane and the wah pedal would do that
you know, when the pot breaks when it does that,
like yeah, yeah, And I remember that from probably seven
or eight years old, and they would play it for
like twenty five minutes, so I don't think I could
stay awake for all of like a herring came. So
(09:01):
it really helped. Coming from the family that you came
from really helped form your world of music. Yeah, yeah,
it was huge. I got very lucky, Yeah, very lucky,
because it was just like it was second nature for
them to support what I was doing. They didn't realize
(09:22):
they were supporting me. They just thought this is how
we all spend time together, you know. Um. And it
didn't occur to me until much later on when some
of those folks weren't around anymore that you know. They
gave me a gift that most people never get. You know,
I knew what I wanted to do from There's no astronaut,
no fireman, no nothing like that. I just wanted to
play the guitar for the rest of them. Do you
(09:44):
think it was more seeing them doing it or hearing
what was being played in the house? Do you know
what I'm saying it was? Would the same have happened
if it was just hearing recordings? Or do you think
seeing people played a role in it? Oh? Seeing them
do it definitely did the community of it, you know,
(10:05):
because we would get together every Sunday night. My grandparents
would have friends and family over to their house after
both church services were over, and they would bring something
to eat and they would sit around and play. And
it was to me it was like, I don't even
want to use the word accessible, because it was just natural.
You know. I didn't know everybody's family didn't do that.
(10:26):
I thought everybody was doing the same stuff. You know.
My parents didn't play, but they were always there and they,
you know, were always listening to music or somehow around
people who were playing music in the room, and yeah,
I remember, I don't ever remember thinking that looks difficult.
You know, I just wanted to participate. You know. I
(10:48):
didn't have a whole lot of friends in school because
I just wasn't really redneck enough in North Alabama to
fall in with any of those groups. So at one
point I realized, Oh, everybody thinks this is cool that
I play the guitar, So I'm going to do that
in front of everybody, and they'll be nice to me,
you know. And that's still I'm still working. I'm still
(11:11):
going on that principle to this day. Do you do
you keep a diary? I take a lot of notes
for songs, A whole lot of notes. Has it always
been the case? Have you? When did you start taking
notes for songs? Oh? Yeah, that's a good question. Um,
probably when twenty years ago. I guess when. I when
(11:34):
I first got serious about writing songs, when I was
in college and and I thought, you know, I might
I might be able to do this and write some
songs that need to be written rather than just copies
of things that I've heard other people do. The first
set of songs that I wrote, I didn't really I
went to college in Memphis at University in Memphis and
(11:55):
used to be Memphis State, and I didn't really get
out and play live or you know. I saw a
lot of shows and saw a lot of people perform.
And then I was working at a restaurant and one
of the guys that worked there at the restaurant with
me had had a show booked and he asked me
if I wanted to open for him at this coffee
shop downtown, and I said, yeah, I'll do that, And
(12:17):
I didn't have any songs written. I thought, well, I
don't want to just play cover songs. So I wrote
like forty minutes worth of songs like overnight pretty much,
you know, just flipping back and forth between different songs,
and I wrote enough material timed it out so I
could go do my opening set, you know, and that
those songs got I got my first publishing deal off
(12:39):
of those, and you know, I wound up demoing them
and it got me a lot of attention, you know, locally.
I was able to take a draw and quit working
regular jobs and all that kind of stuff from that batch.
Do the meanings of the songs change for you over
time or do they tend to stay the same The
(13:00):
meanings don't change for me, but the significance of them
changes and everything around them changes. You know. It's like
an object in a room. Like if you were to
watch a scene in a movie where somebody filmed, say
an ashtray sitting in the middle of a room, but
they you know, they did it like time lapse, where
(13:22):
you saw it over the course of twenty years. The
ash tray would be the same, but the significance of
the ash tray in the room would be very different.
The context keep context keeps changing. Yeah, And I think
for me that's the best way for it to work,
for me to be able to deliver songs from fifteen
or twenty years ago, because you know, I got sober
(13:43):
about seven and a half years ago, and my work changed.
And how did that happen? What was the motivation to
get sober? I knew that I needed to. Um. I'd
been drinking a lot for a long time and doing
various drugs, and I fell in love with my wife,
my current wife, who was not my wife at the time.
(14:03):
I say current wife because she wasn't my wife at
the time, not because I have plans on her not
being in the future. UM, Amanda. I knew she wasn't
gonna put up with that shit, you know, And and
I think everybody I'd been with in the past would
put up with it, and she wouldn't. And I thought, well,
I'm gonna have to do something, or she tell you
that you just felt it. Um, Well, they all tell
(14:27):
you that, I don't think. I don't know. I haven't
had that experience. Well okay for me, they all told
me that, but this time I believed it, you know,
and you know I can't. I came to her one
night when we were just dating and we were on
the road together. She's a musician also and a songwriter,
and I told her I needed to quit drinking. I
(14:48):
didn't think I could do it on my own, and
she said, well, if you're sure about that, then you know,
we'll do what we need to do to make sure
you quit. And I repeated it again a couple days later,
and she said, all right, that's it, you know. So
she called Tracy, my manager, and my mom and a
few other friends who she didn't really know very well
(15:11):
at all, in the middle of the night and said
he needs to go to treatment. And Tracy made the
arrangements and you know, the accountability of my family and
my friends. Knowing that I was serious about it caused
me to fulfill my end of the bargain. And I
went in, you know, thirty six hours later and haven't
(15:32):
had a drink since. That's great, and it sounds like
you wanted it to happen, So yeah, that's a big
piece of it. It is. And I got lucky because
you know, I don't have it genetically, and I know
a lot of people struggle. You know, a lot of
people go to rehab multiple times and they fight and
they fight and they just can't get a handle on it.
But well, for whatever reason, you know, knock on wood,
(15:53):
I haven't really had that much desire. There are moments,
but they pass, you know, and I've learned to be
grateful enough to talk myself out of those those moments.
You know, count the things that have happened since the end,
and pretty soon you're like, yeah, I don't really need
(16:14):
a drink right now. Maybe I just need to go home.
We'll be right back with more of Rick's conversation with
Jason Isabel after the break. We're back with more from
Jason Isabel. Would you say that your writing is more
of an intellectual process or is it something else. Yeah,
(16:35):
it's more intellectual for me. I mean, you know, the
inspiration Like I've used this quote before, but Chuck Close said,
inspiration is for amateurs. The rest of us just show
up and get to work. And I love that because
if you're not inspired, then you're not an artist. You're
not paying attention, you don't have the level of awareness
(16:57):
that you need to have to create. Eight. Um, So
that's a constant you know. Inspiration is like like heart rate,
it's always running, it's always there, and all the things
that I consider to be sort of magical and mystical
about the process are constant. You know. That's that's I
think part of the character of being a creative person
(17:21):
that I think I walk to the grocery store with
the same level of mysticism as I write a song.
You know. Um, it's all process. It's it's a way
of being in the world exactly. It's yeah. So I
don't you know, I don't think about creating as a
(17:41):
supernatural or preternatural or um as an experience that that's
disconnected from the mathematics of creating. You know, Creating for
me is solving puzzles. Now, there are when you when
you solve the puzzle, you do feel rewarded, you know,
by something great than yourself. I think there's something when
(18:02):
you hit it just right. Yeah, you know, and you've
hit it just right many many times, and you probably
have that feeling where it's like, whoever to just help
me with that? Thank you? You know, absolutely, because you
feel at that moment like something's happening that you didn't
necessarily do all by yourself. Always, yeah, all of it.
I mean my experience is that we have little to
(18:24):
do with it. Yeah. Yeah, you show up and pay
close attention and our patient because that's a big part
of it, is the patients involved. But a lot of
it feels like to me, feels like it comes from elsewhere. Yeah. Yeah,
I can go with that for sure. But I think
(18:45):
to find it, you know, you have to sometimes you
have to turn every rock over. Absolutely, You've got to
be the person that's willing to look in most places.
And that's I guess goes along with the patients. Yeah,
in the in the right process. Do you ever think
of the audience? I try not to. Uh, yeah, I
(19:08):
think I think I do my best work when I'm
not doing that, but I'll allow myself to think of
the audience if it's in the service of challenging them
or helping in some way. Not I don't. I don't
think about pleasing them or about meeting their you know,
requirements or expectations. But I do think about pushing them,
(19:33):
you know, or maybe presenting things to them in a
way because like on the last album, I had a
song called white Man's World that was about privilege and
about you know, realizing who I am and what opportunities
I have that some people don't just simply by the
fact that I'm white and male in America and especially
(19:57):
in the South, which the song talks about that too.
M So I was thinking about my audience when I
wrote that song, but I was thinking about it in
a way that like, I want to push your buttons
a little bit, you know, I want to make you
consider that you know now that you hold me in
a certain esteem, you're willing to pay fifty or seventy
(20:18):
five bucks to come stand and listen to me do
this for whatever reason. Now, I would like to use
that to kind of square up on you a little bit.
Would you play it for me now? Yeah, sure, beautiful,
thank you beautiful. How did it start that song? I
think with the groove, And then I thought, this, the
(20:39):
groove is a little funky, so I have to be
careful with it, you know, because I really enjoy music
that used to be called black music. But I'm also
very careful about making it because I'm not I don't
feel qualified to make it, you know, not in that way.
(20:59):
So I think, if I'm gonna make a song that
has that kind of groove, there needs to be a
purpose to it, you know, So I need to make
something that is aware. And it was around the time
of the presidential election when I was writing this song.
It was right after the presidential election, and I wrote
a flurry of songs, as as a lot of songwriters
(21:20):
did in that week or two and still are, but
that was one of them. And I thought, what, you know,
what can I say about who I am and what
my responsibility is that might sway people a little bit
and might also, you know, earn my keep as far
(21:43):
as playing a song with that kind of groove goes,
you know, because it's a blues really, so it's like,
if I'm going to play the blues, I better fucking
sing the blues, and I better do it for the
right reason, you know, And I think that's that's where
it came from. So I thought, well, what is one
truth and then let's write another true thing, make them rhyme.
(22:04):
But I remember writing very easily and comfortably about my
own admissions in that song about like how I wish
now that I had stood up and said something when
I was hearing racist jokes, you know, and writing about
that aspect of you know, southern that's not necessarily you know,
(22:26):
more ruralness, but I definitely there's there's a line from Dixieland,
you know, so it's like I'm talking about I'm talking
about the South right there. That part was very easy
as far as working that puzzle that one kind of
fell out, but getting to the chorus was was difficult
because you don't want it to be too flippant, you know,
(22:48):
when you're trying to motivate people to think about, you know,
something like like a racial division or like privilege, you know,
you have to look at what happened in a way
that either keeps it from being repeated or suggests that
it might not have been the most human course of action,
(23:10):
or you know, suggest that your perspective might be skewed,
not necessarily flawed, but you might not be seeing every
angle to this situation. So that was a that was
a tough balance for me to figure out how to
how to talk about race in this way from my
own perspective. You know, I knew from the onset that
(23:33):
I was going to have to reveal some things about
myself in a song like that. You got to be
more honest than you're comfortable with, or nobody's going to
give a shit, you know. Um, So that that was
the that was the hard part of writing that one.
It wasn't so much the normal puzzle that I'm used to,
you know, trying to make something meaningful and beautiful. In
(23:55):
a way, it was the idea of how do I
dwell all enough on what has happened up until now
to possibly get some people my audience to reconsider their
role in it. Do you think that that is even possible? Yeah? Yeah,
on a small scale, you know. But I choose to
(24:16):
think that that's possible because it's like I was talking
to somebody the other day and I was like, Man,
if you want to think of it this way, it's
traffic and storms. That's it. That's all that's left of humanity.
That's all we've got to look forward to. We're going
to be sitting in traffic until storm kills us. But
I would rather not, you know, I would rather think maybe,
(24:39):
maybe sometimes some eighteen year old white guy in a
fraternity in Georgia, here's that song and thinks, yeah, maybe
my way of thinking, Maybe my dad wasn't exactly right
about all that shit. You know, maybe I do have
a little bit of privilege, and then maybe that'll open
them up into thinking something. I don't think I'm gonna
move the all powerful needle, but for me to go
(25:01):
to sleep at night, I have to think that there's
some sort of a purpose, you know, motivational in some
way or another. When I think about protest songs, and
I'll call that a protest song, I don't know if
it's it's the strict definition that works. So, yeah, that's
a that's a badge of honor if we think of it.
If we think of protest songs, I tend to think
of them as speaking to like minded people more than
(25:27):
having the power to change other people. Yeah, I think
if anything, and this may not be right more often
than not, if someone didn't agree with what you were
saying in the song, they would more likely not like
the song and not maybe not like your other songs
because of it. But but I've not been to one
of my concerts those those folks. It's it's an interesting
(25:50):
it's an interesting dynamic because I'm sort of a country
singer and I'm sort of a Southern rock singer. Yes,
you know, And it's not it's not like I'm necessarily
certain that they look like me. The audience looks like me.
You know, I can't really, I can't really change that.
I mean, I've tried, but there I think are a
(26:12):
lot of and you know, I've wound up having some
pretty serious conversations with folks about that. Um, I just
think I think there's an opportunity there, even though it
could be a very small I'm talking you know, it
might be people you could count on if you change
one person, it's incredible. It is it's incredible, and it's
(26:33):
worth all the work. Yeah, and there's a lot of
people out there, I think, compared to other people who
believe the way that I believe, I think I have
a lot of open ears from the other side. And
I don't mean that from the other side like a
political divide. I mean just a lot of people that
(26:53):
might listen to what I'm saying that might not have
necessarily agreed with me before they heard that. And I
know that is fucking hubris, I know, but we all
have to be a little bit egomaniacal to do all
this crazy shit. You know. I used to think that,
like the Dixie Chicks thing, because that's still something that
comes up a lot in Nashville, especially probably in a
lot of other places. You know. I used to think
(27:15):
that that was because their audience was very different from
them as far as, you know, the things that they believed.
But then one day we were playing at the Roundhouse
in London and the first time I played there, and
I was walking around the place on the sidewalk and
it hit me, you know what happened because she's a woman.
It happened because Natalie is a woman and said those things,
(27:38):
and she was talking out of turn because she was
a woman. Because if Tim McGraw had said it, you know,
he's he's a blue dog Democrat. I don't know if
he would have said exactly the same thing, but you know,
it wouldn't It wouldn't have happened. Eric Church has said
things recently that a lot of his audience disagreed with,
but they keep on buying records and tickets, and nobody's
burning Eric Church CDs outside of records radio station, you know.
(28:01):
So that was a real eye opener for me. That
was another level of that privilege. And I think, you know,
I'm a man, and I'm not gonna get black bald
for saying what I believe quite as easily as Natalie
might have, you know. And that's another thing. Like the
responsibility to the blues music that I'm making, I have
(28:21):
a responsibility to the message itself. You know, you have
to use that privilege to try to chip away at it.
I'll say, even from the perspective that I have about
protest music, it's still even if it only is supporting
an idea that someone already believes, it still has power.
(28:45):
It still feels like we're not alone. But I think
that's the real power of protest songs is more of
a m It feels like you're part of something bigger
than yourself, and you don't feel alone. More than getting
someone else to believe what you believe. Through the song. Yeah,
(29:08):
so somebody might not give up as quickly if they
feel that way, they might not give up on the
fight that quickly as they think. Well maybe so, yeah,
maybe so. I don't even know if it has to
do with fighting or not. I think even just the
just the feeling, not alone, it's a big deal. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
(29:30):
that's that's true. That's enough and sometimes We'll be back
with more from Jason Isabel and Rick Rubin after the break.
We're back with more from Jason Isabel. I noticed in
the song that you played there's no repetition in the chorus.
So the chorus repeats in the song, but none of
(29:52):
the words in the chorus repeat. Yeah. Would you say
that that's a common in your song writing, that there's
not a lot of repetition. Yeah. Yeah, And I've tried
to write in more and not had a whole lot
of success with it. Sometimes I don't even have a chorus.
(30:12):
A lot of my songs that don't have a chorus
at all because I just feel like I've got more
to say to get the story out, you know. Yeah.
I don't repeat myself a lot. Yeah, there's something interesting
when a song I like when a phrase can be
repeated over and over in a song, yet it almost
(30:36):
feels like you're hearing different things and not hearing different things,
but it means something different as the song progresses. And
I don't know, just like that feeling. And it's so
interesting how certain phrases it's hard to find a phrase
that bears repeating. Yeah, but I'm thinking right now, like,
(31:00):
I mean, it makes perfect sense that they would say
wild horses couldn't drag me away multiple times. Yeah, and
never have I thought I wish they just said that once. No, this,
I feel like I'm getting some very valuable advice, Like
thank you first of all very much. It's well good,
(31:21):
let's do this again sometimes but no, I mean, yeah,
I appreciate that because you've already told me a few
things that I'm like filing away in my mind. But yeah,
you know, sometimes it's just not occurred to me. I've
always thought I've already said that, I don't have to
say it again. But obviously you're right. A lot of
the songs that are my favorites do that, you know,
(31:42):
And there's a reason for it. Yeah, not necessarily to
introduce new information, but no, and it's not necessarily even laziness.
Sometimes it's refrain, and I don't have refrain a lot. Yeah, yeah,
but it's interesting when both when it's satisfying to feel that,
and it's hard, you know, I know from spending time
(32:03):
working with songwriters, those phrases don't always come so easy.
And it's miraculous because that when it does come, because
it's always, or more often than not, a very ordinary phrase.
So you could have ten ordinary phrase, you could have
a hundred ordinary phrases, and you can repeat each one
(32:25):
of those phrases ten times, and ninety nine of those
it's not interesting and after the third repeat you don't
want to hear it anymore. But there's somewhere at the
end to ten you feel like, let's keep going, let's
keep saying these words over and over because it does
something else. It has some other power. Yeah, and it
(32:45):
picks up steam in a way almost like a snowball
or something or that that you start thinking and I
don't know if it has to do with what the
words mean or the what the how they sound, or
some combination if you can hit on both, and that's
probably yeah, where it like you almost start deconstructing the
(33:06):
meaning like the first time, it means what it means
on the surface, but as the repetitions go, your relationship
to the phrase changes right right, and like the second
one can almost be like sarcasm or irony. But then
after that it gets poignant. It gets like like hallelujah,
like the Leonard Cohen like he just says Hallelujah over
(33:27):
and over and a and the first time it's like,
the second time it's like, whoa hold on? Was that
second one blasphemy? You know? And the third one it's like,
oh no, it's all those things and none of those things. Yeah, yeah,
that's a good that's a good point. I never tried.
I don't think I've ever tried it, but I will
now now that you told me to free of charge. Yeah,
(33:53):
you're taking from this whatever you I'm taking all of it,
and whatever works is great. Yeah. Do you want to
play me another song? Do you have any any new songs,
anything that's sort of fresh, but yeah, maybe hasn't even
come out yet. I do, I sure do. I would
love to play I saw I've never heard I'll play
a song hardly anybody's I think Tracy may have heard
(34:16):
it once, But beautiful thank you. When did you add it? Um?
A few months ago? Yeah, about three months ago. I
guess I've written a few cents, but I think that
one's the one that I'm probably the most attached to
right now. The new bunch that had a little bit
of the repetition that we were just talking about it,
(34:36):
and right when I got to it, I thought about that,
and it proved that point of each time he said it,
it didn't feel like, oh, he's just repeating himself. It
felt like the emotion deepened with what you were saying
and with the melody that was working with it. Yeah,
So it really it felt like satisfying, yeah, to hear that. Yeah.
(35:00):
And it also kind of maybe I let myself do
it that time, because at first it's my love want change, yes,
But by the end it's my love want change a thing.
So it's kind of like my love is steady but
also inconsequential, yes, you know, And I think maybe that's
why I let myself do it. But now that I
think about it, also though, I should probably let myself
(35:20):
do it even when there's not that that twist. Yeah,
cool man, Yeah, thanks, thank you so much, Thanks for
having me. Thanks to Jason Isabel for talking with Rick
at a live show in January. Jason called his new
album Reunions his best yet. Make sure to check it
(35:40):
out when it drives. You can hear more from Jason Isabel,
including the song he wrote for A Star Is Born
by visiting Broken Record podcast dot com. Also subscribe to
our YouTube channel for bonus content at YouTube dot com
slash broken record Podcast. Broken Record is produced help from
Jason gambrel Me LaBelle Martin Gonzalez and Lea Rose Pushkin Industries.
(36:01):
A theme music's by Kenny Beats. I'm justin Richmond. Thanks
for listening.
Pushkin. Rolling Stone recently called Jason Isabel arguably the most
revered roots rock singer songwriter of his generation. Jason was
born in rural Alabama to a close knit family of musicians.
He played gospel and old hillbilly songs on the mandolin
and guitar before discovering the blues. When he was twenty two,
(00:30):
Isabel joined southern rock band that Drive By Truckers, who
just had on The Show recently, and after six years
with them, started out on a successful solo career. He's
released six albums, won four Grammys, and wrote the song
maybe It's Time for Bradley Cooper's version of a Star
is Born, a pivotal song in the movie's plot. He's
(00:51):
just released his newest album called Reunions, accompanied by his
band The four hundred Unit, and is building a solid
body of evidence that he is, in fact, one of
the most gifted songwriters working today. Jason and Rick Rubin
met for the first time just before the interview You're
about to hear. They talked about his Southern roots, his
approach to songwriting, and he cracks out a song called
(01:13):
Overseas from his new album that at the time no
one aside from his manager, had ever heard this is
broken record liner notes for the digital age. I'm justin Richmond.
Here's Rick Rubin talking to Jason Isabel. Rick dives right
(01:34):
into Jason's thoughts on the spiritual value of making music.
What did I ask about, do you find a spiritual
relationship to music? Yes? A short answer is yes, I do.
You know, for all the reasons that are probably cliched
by now, but it's one of these things where whatever's
(01:57):
happened to me throughout my wife, be able to make
music has been ultimate goal. And I think anything when
you find that one purpose for yourself and you give
yourself over to the process of that purpose rather than
the goal of that purpose, it becomes a spiritual thing.
(02:17):
So for me, you know, I never wanted to be
a musician. I just wanted to make music, and every
wanted to be a songwriter. I just wanted to write songs,
or I needed to write songs. Some days I didn't
want to, but I needed to, you know. And I
think that from my personal experience, I don't know of
anything more spiritual than that, you know, And that's not
(02:37):
even really discussing the connection that's on a personal level,
you know, an inspect of the ritual aspect of it totally. Yeah, yeah.
And I think when when ritual sort of evolves on
its own, you know, rather than you begin with the
ritual and then try to find what's holy about it,
(02:57):
you know, I think there's something that's more honest to
me about that interesting. You know. I never felt like
I had to practice. I never sat down and thought
I need to work on my guitar playing today. It's
just what I did when I didn't have to do
anything else. Did the writing did it start with the right?
Was the initial idea more focused on the writing or
(03:18):
more focused on the playing? The playing, definitely, you wanted
to be in a band or or be a I
just wanted to play all the time. And did you
see yourself as a singer? Always? No, No, not at all.
It took a long time for that to happen. Uh, yeah,
it took a long I think something about amplification, you know,
(03:40):
made it possible for me to enjoy singing. You know,
when I started singing into a microphone in the studio
or on stage, the hugeness of that and the things
that I could do was mic technique, and you know,
manipulating the situation. I think attracted me to singing more
than it had in the past, you know. But for
(04:01):
the first ten years of my musical development, all I
wanted to do was play the guitar. That was all
I wanted to do, you know, And I didn't think,
you know, I pictured myself playing guitar in front of people,
but that was as far as it went. And did
you grow up playing guitar with records? Is that how
you learned to play? Yeah, My grandfather and my uncle,
(04:21):
my dad's little brother, they both played. My grandfather was
a preacher, Pentecostal preacher in Alabama, and Pentecostal church was
really kind of the most rock and roll church, you know.
So they had bass and drums and electric guitars and
stuff like that, and he played all kinds of instruments.
Him and all his siblings grew up playing gospel music,
(04:42):
and a couple of them were professional musicians, but for
the most part they were hobbyists or religious musicians. So
my parents were super young when I was born, and
they both worked, and I would stay with my grandparents,
and my grandfather started teaching me how to play guitar,
and he would say, you know, you play the rhythm guitar,
I'll play a lead instrument. He would play claw hammer,
(05:04):
banjo or mandolin or fiddle, and we would learn these,
you know, he would teach me these hillbilly songs. He
liked old country songs. The more humorous the better for him,
you know. He liked Grandpa Jones and the Opry Stars
and you know, the Heehaw Gang and all that stuff.
And then somehow I got interested in the blues when
(05:28):
I was eight or nine years old, and he would
reward me if I would play like rhythm guitar for
a couple of hours. He would take his guitar and
tune in to an open tuning and play with his
pocket knife on his lap. And that was like my
reward for that, you know. And then at one point
he took me to the record store and bought when
(05:49):
the Robert Johnson Complete Recordings Box came out, he bought
me that on cassette. But him being a preacher and
me being ten or eleven years old, he overdubbed all
the songs onto a blank casset, except for like like
Traveling Riverside, the ones that had anything that he considered
to be obscene. He took those out, you know, so
(06:09):
like to squeeze my limon. Stuff didn't make it in.
Then when I was about fifteen, he gave me the
original box which I already had on my own, but
I wasn't going to tell him that, you know, but
he was like, I think you're old enough for this now,
so he gave me the original box set. So yeah,
that was is huge for me, and that was kind
(06:30):
of I mean, this was the eighties in Alabama, so
it wasn't like, you know, the music was popular anymore really,
but for me it was as though it was having
its heyday because that's what was the music that was
going on when you were growing up, Country music mostly,
you know, that's what my friends listened to. And who
would have been the artist, just so I could picture
(06:50):
of the era, probably early Garth Brooks, Like I remember
ninety ninety one, I saw Garth at the State Fair
for a dollar right before the pop Belly pig Ray
and I think Friends in Low Places came out like
a week later, so it was you know, he was
He probably never played in the Daylight again after that,
but but yeah, so that that was really big. And
(07:11):
then my uncle had a cover band. It's great, by
the way, Like, was it a great experience seeing Garth? Then?
It was, but I didn't know, like looking back on it,
you know, back then, I thought, this guy's working really hard.
He's got a microphone on his head. You know, it's
kind of cool. But it was like the fair in Lawrenceburg, Tennessee,
and I kind of wanted to get on to riding
(07:32):
fair rides, you know. But it was in hindsight, it
was a very I mean, they were hungry and they
were working really really hard, and that probably wasn't their
only show that day, and they still definitely brought it,
you know. But it wasn't like I looked at him
and thought, this guy's about to change country music significantly.
I just thought, Wow, this guy's working really hard at
(07:55):
four o'clock in the afternoon and Lawrenceburg, Tennessee. You know.
But then I really liked what was on the radio
in those days. I mean I loved Prince and Crowded
House and Till Tuesday and all these really great pop songs.
So there was this strange combination of that and then
(08:15):
the arena rock and southern rock that my dad was
listening to. Dad was in diseasy type and skinnered and
these big rock bands and playing guitar. That became a
big deal for me, that kind of stuff. You know.
My uncle played in a cover band. They would practice
in the garage and my dad and my mom would
go over there and drink Margarita's and fall asleep on
(08:38):
the weight bench and they would My uncle had like
a broken cry baby wah pedal and they would cover
like a hurricane and the wah pedal would do that
you know, when the pot breaks when it does that,
like yeah, yeah, And I remember that from probably seven
or eight years old, and they would play it for
like twenty five minutes, so I don't think I could
stay awake for all of like a herring came. So
(09:01):
it really helped. Coming from the family that you came
from really helped form your world of music. Yeah, yeah,
it was huge. I got very lucky, Yeah, very lucky,
because it was just like it was second nature for
them to support what I was doing. They didn't realize
(09:22):
they were supporting me. They just thought this is how
we all spend time together, you know. Um. And it
didn't occur to me until much later on when some
of those folks weren't around anymore that you know. They
gave me a gift that most people never get. You know,
I knew what I wanted to do from There's no astronaut,
no fireman, no nothing like that. I just wanted to
play the guitar for the rest of them. Do you
(09:44):
think it was more seeing them doing it or hearing
what was being played in the house? Do you know
what I'm saying it was? Would the same have happened
if it was just hearing recordings? Or do you think
seeing people played a role in it? Oh? Seeing them
do it definitely did the community of it, you know,
(10:05):
because we would get together every Sunday night. My grandparents
would have friends and family over to their house after
both church services were over, and they would bring something
to eat and they would sit around and play. And
it was to me it was like, I don't even
want to use the word accessible, because it was just natural.
You know. I didn't know everybody's family didn't do that.
(10:26):
I thought everybody was doing the same stuff. You know.
My parents didn't play, but they were always there and they,
you know, were always listening to music or somehow around
people who were playing music in the room, and yeah,
I remember, I don't ever remember thinking that looks difficult.
You know, I just wanted to participate. You know. I
(10:48):
didn't have a whole lot of friends in school because
I just wasn't really redneck enough in North Alabama to
fall in with any of those groups. So at one
point I realized, Oh, everybody thinks this is cool that
I play the guitar, So I'm going to do that
in front of everybody, and they'll be nice to me,
you know. And that's still I'm still working. I'm still
(11:11):
going on that principle to this day. Do you do
you keep a diary? I take a lot of notes
for songs, A whole lot of notes. Has it always
been the case? Have you? When did you start taking
notes for songs? Oh? Yeah, that's a good question. Um,
probably when twenty years ago. I guess when. I when
(11:34):
I first got serious about writing songs, when I was
in college and and I thought, you know, I might
I might be able to do this and write some
songs that need to be written rather than just copies
of things that I've heard other people do. The first
set of songs that I wrote, I didn't really I
went to college in Memphis at University in Memphis and
(11:55):
used to be Memphis State, and I didn't really get
out and play live or you know. I saw a
lot of shows and saw a lot of people perform.
And then I was working at a restaurant and one
of the guys that worked there at the restaurant with
me had had a show booked and he asked me
if I wanted to open for him at this coffee
shop downtown, and I said, yeah, I'll do that, And
(12:17):
I didn't have any songs written. I thought, well, I
don't want to just play cover songs. So I wrote
like forty minutes worth of songs like overnight pretty much,
you know, just flipping back and forth between different songs,
and I wrote enough material timed it out so I
could go do my opening set, you know, and that
those songs got I got my first publishing deal off
(12:39):
of those, and you know, I wound up demoing them
and it got me a lot of attention, you know, locally.
I was able to take a draw and quit working
regular jobs and all that kind of stuff from that batch.
Do the meanings of the songs change for you over
time or do they tend to stay the same The
(13:00):
meanings don't change for me, but the significance of them
changes and everything around them changes. You know. It's like
an object in a room. Like if you were to
watch a scene in a movie where somebody filmed, say
an ashtray sitting in the middle of a room, but
they you know, they did it like time lapse, where
(13:22):
you saw it over the course of twenty years. The
ash tray would be the same, but the significance of
the ash tray in the room would be very different.
The context keep context keeps changing. Yeah, And I think
for me that's the best way for it to work,
for me to be able to deliver songs from fifteen
or twenty years ago, because you know, I got sober
(13:43):
about seven and a half years ago, and my work changed.
And how did that happen? What was the motivation to
get sober? I knew that I needed to. Um. I'd
been drinking a lot for a long time and doing
various drugs, and I fell in love with my wife,
my current wife, who was not my wife at the time.
(14:03):
I say current wife because she wasn't my wife at
the time, not because I have plans on her not
being in the future. UM, Amanda. I knew she wasn't
gonna put up with that shit, you know, And and
I think everybody I'd been with in the past would
put up with it, and she wouldn't. And I thought, well,
I'm gonna have to do something, or she tell you
that you just felt it. Um, Well, they all tell
(14:27):
you that, I don't think. I don't know. I haven't
had that experience. Well okay for me, they all told
me that, but this time I believed it, you know,
and you know I can't. I came to her one
night when we were just dating and we were on
the road together. She's a musician also and a songwriter,
and I told her I needed to quit drinking. I
(14:48):
didn't think I could do it on my own, and
she said, well, if you're sure about that, then you know,
we'll do what we need to do to make sure
you quit. And I repeated it again a couple days later,
and she said, all right, that's it, you know. So
she called Tracy, my manager, and my mom and a
few other friends who she didn't really know very well
(15:11):
at all, in the middle of the night and said
he needs to go to treatment. And Tracy made the
arrangements and you know, the accountability of my family and
my friends. Knowing that I was serious about it caused
me to fulfill my end of the bargain. And I
went in, you know, thirty six hours later and haven't
(15:32):
had a drink since. That's great, and it sounds like
you wanted it to happen, So yeah, that's a big
piece of it. It is. And I got lucky because
you know, I don't have it genetically, and I know
a lot of people struggle. You know, a lot of
people go to rehab multiple times and they fight and
they fight and they just can't get a handle on it.
But well, for whatever reason, you know, knock on wood,
(15:53):
I haven't really had that much desire. There are moments,
but they pass, you know, and I've learned to be
grateful enough to talk myself out of those those moments.
You know, count the things that have happened since the end,
and pretty soon you're like, yeah, I don't really need
(16:14):
a drink right now. Maybe I just need to go home.
We'll be right back with more of Rick's conversation with
Jason Isabel after the break. We're back with more from
Jason Isabel. Would you say that your writing is more
of an intellectual process or is it something else. Yeah,
(16:35):
it's more intellectual for me. I mean, you know, the
inspiration Like I've used this quote before, but Chuck Close said,
inspiration is for amateurs. The rest of us just show
up and get to work. And I love that because
if you're not inspired, then you're not an artist. You're
not paying attention, you don't have the level of awareness
(16:57):
that you need to have to create. Eight. Um, So
that's a constant you know. Inspiration is like like heart rate,
it's always running, it's always there, and all the things
that I consider to be sort of magical and mystical
about the process are constant. You know. That's that's I
think part of the character of being a creative person
(17:21):
that I think I walk to the grocery store with
the same level of mysticism as I write a song.
You know. Um, it's all process. It's it's a way
of being in the world exactly. It's yeah. So I
don't you know, I don't think about creating as a
(17:41):
supernatural or preternatural or um as an experience that that's
disconnected from the mathematics of creating. You know, Creating for
me is solving puzzles. Now, there are when you when
you solve the puzzle, you do feel rewarded, you know,
by something great than yourself. I think there's something when
(18:02):
you hit it just right. Yeah, you know, and you've
hit it just right many many times, and you probably
have that feeling where it's like, whoever to just help
me with that? Thank you? You know, absolutely, because you
feel at that moment like something's happening that you didn't
necessarily do all by yourself. Always, yeah, all of it.
I mean my experience is that we have little to
(18:24):
do with it. Yeah. Yeah, you show up and pay
close attention and our patient because that's a big part
of it, is the patients involved. But a lot of
it feels like to me, feels like it comes from elsewhere. Yeah. Yeah,
I can go with that for sure. But I think
(18:45):
to find it, you know, you have to sometimes you
have to turn every rock over. Absolutely, You've got to
be the person that's willing to look in most places.
And that's I guess goes along with the patients. Yeah,
in the in the right process. Do you ever think
of the audience? I try not to. Uh, yeah, I
(19:08):
think I think I do my best work when I'm
not doing that, but I'll allow myself to think of
the audience if it's in the service of challenging them
or helping in some way. Not I don't. I don't
think about pleasing them or about meeting their you know,
requirements or expectations. But I do think about pushing them,
(19:33):
you know, or maybe presenting things to them in a
way because like on the last album, I had a
song called white Man's World that was about privilege and
about you know, realizing who I am and what opportunities
I have that some people don't just simply by the
fact that I'm white and male in America and especially
(19:57):
in the South, which the song talks about that too.
M So I was thinking about my audience when I
wrote that song, but I was thinking about it in
a way that like, I want to push your buttons
a little bit, you know, I want to make you
consider that you know now that you hold me in
a certain esteem, you're willing to pay fifty or seventy
(20:18):
five bucks to come stand and listen to me do
this for whatever reason. Now, I would like to use
that to kind of square up on you a little bit.
Would you play it for me now? Yeah, sure, beautiful,
thank you beautiful. How did it start that song? I
think with the groove, And then I thought, this, the
(20:39):
groove is a little funky, so I have to be
careful with it, you know, because I really enjoy music
that used to be called black music. But I'm also
very careful about making it because I'm not I don't
feel qualified to make it, you know, not in that way.
(20:59):
So I think, if I'm gonna make a song that
has that kind of groove, there needs to be a
purpose to it, you know, So I need to make
something that is aware. And it was around the time
of the presidential election when I was writing this song.
It was right after the presidential election, and I wrote
a flurry of songs, as as a lot of songwriters
(21:20):
did in that week or two and still are, but
that was one of them. And I thought, what, you know,
what can I say about who I am and what
my responsibility is that might sway people a little bit
and might also, you know, earn my keep as far
(21:43):
as playing a song with that kind of groove goes,
you know, because it's a blues really, so it's like,
if I'm going to play the blues, I better fucking
sing the blues, and I better do it for the
right reason, you know, And I think that's that's where
it came from. So I thought, well, what is one
truth and then let's write another true thing, make them rhyme.
(22:04):
But I remember writing very easily and comfortably about my
own admissions in that song about like how I wish
now that I had stood up and said something when
I was hearing racist jokes, you know, and writing about
that aspect of you know, southern that's not necessarily you know,
(22:26):
more ruralness, but I definitely there's there's a line from Dixieland,
you know, so it's like I'm talking about I'm talking
about the South right there. That part was very easy
as far as working that puzzle that one kind of
fell out, but getting to the chorus was was difficult
because you don't want it to be too flippant, you know,
(22:48):
when you're trying to motivate people to think about, you know,
something like like a racial division or like privilege, you know,
you have to look at what happened in a way
that either keeps it from being repeated or suggests that
it might not have been the most human course of action,
(23:10):
or you know, suggest that your perspective might be skewed,
not necessarily flawed, but you might not be seeing every
angle to this situation. So that was a that was
a tough balance for me to figure out how to
how to talk about race in this way from my
own perspective. You know, I knew from the onset that
(23:33):
I was going to have to reveal some things about
myself in a song like that. You got to be
more honest than you're comfortable with, or nobody's going to
give a shit, you know. Um, So that that was
the that was the hard part of writing that one.
It wasn't so much the normal puzzle that I'm used to,
you know, trying to make something meaningful and beautiful. In
(23:55):
a way, it was the idea of how do I
dwell all enough on what has happened up until now
to possibly get some people my audience to reconsider their
role in it. Do you think that that is even possible? Yeah? Yeah,
on a small scale, you know. But I choose to
(24:16):
think that that's possible because it's like I was talking
to somebody the other day and I was like, Man,
if you want to think of it this way, it's
traffic and storms. That's it. That's all that's left of humanity.
That's all we've got to look forward to. We're going
to be sitting in traffic until storm kills us. But
I would rather not, you know, I would rather think maybe,
(24:39):
maybe sometimes some eighteen year old white guy in a
fraternity in Georgia, here's that song and thinks, yeah, maybe
my way of thinking, Maybe my dad wasn't exactly right
about all that shit. You know, maybe I do have
a little bit of privilege, and then maybe that'll open
them up into thinking something. I don't think I'm gonna
move the all powerful needle, but for me to go
(25:01):
to sleep at night, I have to think that there's
some sort of a purpose, you know, motivational in some
way or another. When I think about protest songs, and
I'll call that a protest song, I don't know if
it's it's the strict definition that works. So, yeah, that's
a that's a badge of honor if we think of it.
If we think of protest songs, I tend to think
of them as speaking to like minded people more than
(25:27):
having the power to change other people. Yeah, I think
if anything, and this may not be right more often
than not, if someone didn't agree with what you were
saying in the song, they would more likely not like
the song and not maybe not like your other songs
because of it. But but I've not been to one
of my concerts those those folks. It's it's an interesting
(25:50):
it's an interesting dynamic because I'm sort of a country
singer and I'm sort of a Southern rock singer. Yes,
you know, And it's not it's not like I'm necessarily
certain that they look like me. The audience looks like me.
You know, I can't really, I can't really change that.
I mean, I've tried, but there I think are a
(26:12):
lot of and you know, I've wound up having some
pretty serious conversations with folks about that. Um, I just
think I think there's an opportunity there, even though it
could be a very small I'm talking you know, it
might be people you could count on if you change
one person, it's incredible. It is it's incredible, and it's
(26:33):
worth all the work. Yeah, and there's a lot of
people out there, I think, compared to other people who
believe the way that I believe, I think I have
a lot of open ears from the other side. And
I don't mean that from the other side like a
political divide. I mean just a lot of people that
(26:53):
might listen to what I'm saying that might not have
necessarily agreed with me before they heard that. And I
know that is fucking hubris, I know, but we all
have to be a little bit egomaniacal to do all
this crazy shit. You know. I used to think that,
like the Dixie Chicks thing, because that's still something that
comes up a lot in Nashville, especially probably in a
lot of other places. You know. I used to think
(27:15):
that that was because their audience was very different from
them as far as, you know, the things that they believed.
But then one day we were playing at the Roundhouse
in London and the first time I played there, and
I was walking around the place on the sidewalk and
it hit me, you know what happened because she's a woman.
It happened because Natalie is a woman and said those things,
(27:38):
and she was talking out of turn because she was
a woman. Because if Tim McGraw had said it, you know,
he's he's a blue dog Democrat. I don't know if
he would have said exactly the same thing, but you know,
it wouldn't It wouldn't have happened. Eric Church has said
things recently that a lot of his audience disagreed with,
but they keep on buying records and tickets, and nobody's
burning Eric Church CDs outside of records radio station, you know.
(28:01):
So that was a real eye opener for me. That
was another level of that privilege. And I think, you know,
I'm a man, and I'm not gonna get black bald
for saying what I believe quite as easily as Natalie
might have, you know. And that's another thing. Like the
responsibility to the blues music that I'm making, I have
(28:21):
a responsibility to the message itself. You know, you have
to use that privilege to try to chip away at it.
I'll say, even from the perspective that I have about
protest music, it's still even if it only is supporting
an idea that someone already believes, it still has power.
(28:45):
It still feels like we're not alone. But I think
that's the real power of protest songs is more of
a m It feels like you're part of something bigger
than yourself, and you don't feel alone. More than getting
someone else to believe what you believe. Through the song. Yeah,
(29:08):
so somebody might not give up as quickly if they
feel that way, they might not give up on the
fight that quickly as they think. Well maybe so, yeah,
maybe so. I don't even know if it has to
do with fighting or not. I think even just the
just the feeling, not alone, it's a big deal. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
(29:30):
that's that's true. That's enough and sometimes We'll be back
with more from Jason Isabel and Rick Rubin after the break.
We're back with more from Jason Isabel. I noticed in
the song that you played there's no repetition in the chorus.
So the chorus repeats in the song, but none of
(29:52):
the words in the chorus repeat. Yeah. Would you say
that that's a common in your song writing, that there's
not a lot of repetition. Yeah. Yeah, And I've tried
to write in more and not had a whole lot
of success with it. Sometimes I don't even have a chorus.
(30:12):
A lot of my songs that don't have a chorus
at all because I just feel like I've got more
to say to get the story out, you know. Yeah.
I don't repeat myself a lot. Yeah, there's something interesting
when a song I like when a phrase can be
repeated over and over in a song, yet it almost
(30:36):
feels like you're hearing different things and not hearing different things,
but it means something different as the song progresses. And
I don't know, just like that feeling. And it's so
interesting how certain phrases it's hard to find a phrase
that bears repeating. Yeah, but I'm thinking right now, like,
(31:00):
I mean, it makes perfect sense that they would say
wild horses couldn't drag me away multiple times. Yeah, and
never have I thought I wish they just said that once. No, this,
I feel like I'm getting some very valuable advice, Like
thank you first of all very much. It's well good,
(31:21):
let's do this again sometimes but no, I mean, yeah,
I appreciate that because you've already told me a few
things that I'm like filing away in my mind. But yeah,
you know, sometimes it's just not occurred to me. I've
always thought I've already said that, I don't have to
say it again. But obviously you're right. A lot of
the songs that are my favorites do that, you know,
(31:42):
And there's a reason for it. Yeah, not necessarily to
introduce new information, but no, and it's not necessarily even laziness.
Sometimes it's refrain, and I don't have refrain a lot. Yeah, yeah,
but it's interesting when both when it's satisfying to feel that,
and it's hard, you know, I know from spending time
(32:03):
working with songwriters, those phrases don't always come so easy.
And it's miraculous because that when it does come, because
it's always, or more often than not, a very ordinary phrase.
So you could have ten ordinary phrase, you could have
a hundred ordinary phrases, and you can repeat each one
(32:25):
of those phrases ten times, and ninety nine of those
it's not interesting and after the third repeat you don't
want to hear it anymore. But there's somewhere at the
end to ten you feel like, let's keep going, let's
keep saying these words over and over because it does
something else. It has some other power. Yeah, and it
(32:45):
picks up steam in a way almost like a snowball
or something or that that you start thinking and I
don't know if it has to do with what the
words mean or the what the how they sound, or
some combination if you can hit on both, and that's
probably yeah, where it like you almost start deconstructing the
(33:06):
meaning like the first time, it means what it means
on the surface, but as the repetitions go, your relationship
to the phrase changes right right, and like the second
one can almost be like sarcasm or irony. But then
after that it gets poignant. It gets like like hallelujah,
like the Leonard Cohen like he just says Hallelujah over
(33:27):
and over and a and the first time it's like,
the second time it's like, whoa hold on? Was that
second one blasphemy? You know? And the third one it's like,
oh no, it's all those things and none of those things. Yeah, yeah,
that's a good that's a good point. I never tried.
I don't think I've ever tried it, but I will
now now that you told me to free of charge. Yeah,
(33:53):
you're taking from this whatever you I'm taking all of it,
and whatever works is great. Yeah. Do you want to
play me another song? Do you have any any new songs,
anything that's sort of fresh, but yeah, maybe hasn't even
come out yet. I do, I sure do. I would
love to play I saw I've never heard I'll play
a song hardly anybody's I think Tracy may have heard
(34:16):
it once, But beautiful thank you. When did you add it? Um?
A few months ago? Yeah, about three months ago. I
guess I've written a few cents, but I think that
one's the one that I'm probably the most attached to
right now. The new bunch that had a little bit
of the repetition that we were just talking about it,
(34:36):
and right when I got to it, I thought about that,
and it proved that point of each time he said it,
it didn't feel like, oh, he's just repeating himself. It
felt like the emotion deepened with what you were saying
and with the melody that was working with it. Yeah,
So it really it felt like satisfying, yeah, to hear that. Yeah.
(35:00):
And it also kind of maybe I let myself do
it that time, because at first it's my love want change, yes,
But by the end it's my love want change a thing.
So it's kind of like my love is steady but
also inconsequential, yes, you know, And I think maybe that's
why I let myself do it. But now that I
think about it, also though, I should probably let myself
(35:20):
do it even when there's not that that twist. Yeah,
cool man, Yeah, thanks, thank you so much, Thanks for
having me. Thanks to Jason Isabel for talking with Rick
at a live show in January. Jason called his new
album Reunions his best yet. Make sure to check it
(35:40):
out when it drives. You can hear more from Jason Isabel,
including the song he wrote for A Star Is Born
by visiting Broken Record podcast dot com. Also subscribe to
our YouTube channel for bonus content at YouTube dot com
slash broken record Podcast. Broken Record is produced help from
Jason gambrel Me LaBelle Martin Gonzalez and Lea Rose Pushkin Industries.
(36:01):
A theme music's by Kenny Beats. I'm justin Richmond. Thanks
for listening.
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