0:00

This episode of Biscuits & Jam is presented by

0:02

Duke's Mayo, making it the tastiest

0:04

one to date. Hey everyone,

0:06

it's Sid Evans, Editor-in-Chief of Southern

0:09

Living and host of Biscuits & Jam. We're taking

0:11

a quick break, but we'll be back next Tuesday

0:14

with Sisters Megan and Rebecca Lovell

0:16

of Larkin Poe. In the meantime, I

0:18

wanted to bring back an episode with Jason

0:21

Isbell, who's had quite a year. In

0:23

June, he released a terrific new album

0:25

called Weather Vains, and on October

0:27

20th, you can catch him playing a character

0:30

in Martin Scorsese's latest film,

0:32

Killers of the Flower Moon. I hope you enjoy

0:34

it, and we'll see you next week.

0:45

Welcome to Biscuits & Jam from Southern Living. I'm

0:48

Sid Evans, Editor-in-Chief of Southern

0:50

Living Magazine. And y'all, this is an

0:52

artist I've admired for a long time,

0:54

a four-time Grammy Award winner

0:56

who's known as one of the best songwriters of

0:58

his generation. Jason Isbell

1:00

was born to parents who were still teenagers

1:03

in a small town in North Alabama, and

1:05

as a result, he spent a lot of time with his grandfather,

1:08

who was a Pentecostal preacher and a guitar

1:10

player. By high school, he was immersed

1:12

in the music culture of Muscle Shoals, and

1:14

in his early 20s, he was playing to sold-out

1:17

crowds with the drive-by truckers. As

1:19

a solo artist, Isbell has become

1:21

known as a poet of the rural South,

1:23

who's not afraid to speak his mind. Now,

1:26

he's got a terrific new album called Weather

1:28

Veins, a collection of songs that

1:30

continue his tradition of storytelling

1:32

with an edge. We'll talk about all that,

1:35

plus his grandmother's cornbread, how to

1:37

wring a chicken's neck, and his experience

1:39

as an actor in Martin Scorsese's

1:41

upcoming movie, Killers of the Flower

1:43

Moon. All that and more on a

1:45

very special Biscuits & Jam.

1:55

Well, Jason Isbell, welcome to Biscuits & Jam.

1:58

Thank you. Thanks for having me. Where am I reaching? you

2:00

right now. I'm in Austin. We're playing

2:02

here last night, tonight, and tomorrow.

2:05

Oh great. Is this Austin City Limits? The

2:07

venue, not the show. The

2:09

show just normally films one show, but the

2:12

venue also has shows there. We'll be back

2:14

to do the TV series next month. Oh

2:16

great. Well, so Jason, you

2:18

actually came to the Southern

2:21

Living Offices back in I think 2012 and performed

2:23

at one of the first

2:27

things that we ever did called

2:29

Biscuits and Jam. Yeah, I remember. Yeah,

2:31

on the back porch there. Yeah, and we actually

2:33

served biscuits that day, I think. Yeah,

2:35

they were pretty good. They didn't

2:38

have a whole lot of rise to them, but that's

2:40

okay. That's all right. They tasted good. Oh,

2:42

you've got pretty good memory. Yeah, I mean,

2:44

you got to watch the baking powder. You

2:47

know, you really have to. If your baking powder

2:49

is out of date or if it gets a little clumpy

2:52

with the humidity, you're going to have cat heads

2:54

whether you want them or not. Yeah, yeah.

2:56

All right. Well, that's good advice.

2:58

Well, listen, you sang a few songs

3:00

that day, and one

3:03

of them was called Alabama Ponds,

3:05

which is still a favorite of mine.

3:07

I'm just wondering, do you remember where

3:10

you were when you wrote that one?

3:12

Yeah, yeah, I was home in Sheffield.

3:14

That's why I lived in Sheffield, Alabama. And

3:16

what was the story behind that song? The

3:18

song is about feeling like you don't belong

3:21

and wanting to return

3:24

to a time when at least your memory

3:26

tells you that you fit in

3:28

somewhere. Now, there are things

3:31

in that song that allude to the idea

3:33

that maybe that place doesn't exist.

3:35

In reality, it just exists in your mind.

3:40

You can't drive through Talladega

3:43

on a weekend in October, head

3:46

up north to Jacksonville,

3:47

cut around and

3:50

overwatch your speed and boy, they

3:53

ain't got a thing. They'll

3:55

get you every time.

4:08

Well, so you grew up in Alabama.

4:11

You've written a lot of songs about North

4:13

Alabama over the years.

4:15

Tell me a little bit about the place where you grew up. I

4:18

grew up in Greenhill, which is about

4:20

half an hour from Muscle Shoals. So right

4:22

on the Alabama, Tennessee state

4:24

line. And yes, a very small,

4:27

just unincorporated community down

4:29

there. My school went from K through 12. My

4:31

grandparents lived next door to the school. So

4:34

I spent a lot of time there at

4:36

their house. I would walk to school. And

4:39

my grandfather was a Pentecostal preacher

4:41

and a musician, not a musician

4:43

by profession, just he played in church

4:46

and played with the family. My

4:48

dad's brother, my uncle was a musician.

4:50

And then I had people on my mom's side

4:52

that were also her brother and her dad.

4:55

And my parents didn't play anything, but

4:57

pretty much everybody else in the family did.

5:00

What were your grandparents' names? Carthal

5:02

and Louise. Carthal?

5:05

That's one I haven't heard before. Yeah,

5:07

I haven't heard it either. I don't know that there's another

5:09

one out there, but they called it Kit for

5:11

short, like Kit Carson. And

5:14

this was a Pentecostal church? Yeah, Holiness.

5:17

So it was under the umbrella of

5:19

the Pentecost. And were you

5:21

made to go to church quite a bit?

5:24

Yeah. My mom's family went

5:26

to the Church of Christ, and my

5:28

dad's family was Pentecostal.

5:30

My parents didn't, we didn't go every

5:33

week, but I went a lot. And

5:35

it was a very different atmosphere because the Church

5:37

of Christ was super quiet

5:39

and restrained and no musical

5:42

instruments voices only.

5:44

The Rogers girls, Lydia and Laura, secret

5:47

sisters, went to the Church of Christ that my

5:49

mom's family went to. I went there about

5:51

half the time and then went to the Pentecostal

5:53

church the other half. And I did

5:56

at some points get my wires crossed,

5:59

you know, and it would be time to pray and I would

6:01

start yelling out loud and speaking

6:03

in tongues. I'd be four or five years old and

6:06

my poor mom would get so embarrassed. I remember

6:08

her saying, Stand up, stand up,

6:10

be quiet, be quiet. This is not that church. They

6:14

should have said something before I went in. I just thought

6:16

church is church, you know. But

6:18

it was a very different scene. Very different

6:21

because my granddad's church was like, they had an electric

6:23

band. They had a bass and drums and all

6:25

that kind of stuff. It was raucous.

6:28

And so was that one of the first places that you started

6:30

playing music?

6:32

Mostly it was at home because that's what

6:34

my grandfather did all day, every

6:36

day. He had animals and tended

6:38

to them and some crops, just a little

6:40

small personal farm. And

6:43

he tended to those, but the rest of the time

6:45

he spent playing instruments. And so he

6:47

would play fiddle or banjo or mandolin

6:49

or something and have me play guitar

6:52

to play rhythm for him, you know. And it was

6:54

always these big dreadnought guitars. And I was

6:56

so little that it was a physical feat, you

6:58

know, just to try to reach around the thing. And if

7:01

I would start slowing down, he'd say, Oh, you're getting

7:03

lazy, getting the lazy arm. And

7:06

I would play with him for hours at a time. And

7:08

he would reward me by playing blues

7:10

music for me because that's what I really loved. And

7:12

he would lay the guitar down his lap and

7:15

tune into an open tuning and play

7:17

it with his pocket knife. That was the thing

7:19

that just really, really got

7:21

me. Like once I had heard and seen

7:24

that, I was pretty much done. Wow.

7:26

Yeah. You don't hear about a lot of Pentecostal

7:30

preachers who play the blues.

7:33

Yes, you do. You just have to look in

7:35

a different neighborhood. Sacred Steel

7:37

is a legendary tradition, you know?

7:39

Wow. Really? Yeah. Yeah. Robert Randolph

7:42

came out of that. Wow. Yeah. But

7:44

that's normally like straight steel or

7:46

a pedal steel, you know? But I

7:49

believe that those two churches and those

7:51

two forms of music were originally one.

7:53

The fact that my grandfather called laying

7:56

the guitar down and playing it in his lap, the

7:58

blues, I think is a direct. reference

8:00

to what they're doing in their sacred steel churches.

8:03

When that Robert Johnson complete recordings

8:06

came out, he took me to the record store and bought

8:08

a copy of that. And I was probably, I

8:10

don't know, 11 or 12 years old, and I was

8:12

just obsessed with it. But he went back

8:14

and made cassette copies of all the

8:16

songs that weren't vulgar. And

8:18

so he gave me the maxail cassette

8:20

tapes that didn't have traveling riverside

8:23

and stuff. And then when I turned

8:25

like 15 or so, he gave me the originals

8:28

and said, I think you can handle this now.

8:30

And I didn't have the heart to tell him that I'd been

8:32

listening to all those songs all along.

8:34

You know, I figured I'd do him a favor

8:36

and just say, Oh, thank you. Thanks

8:38

for having faith in me.

8:41

But it's so funny, because I mean, I've seen

8:43

for the 1920s lyrically.

8:45

Yeah, I mean, it's out there. But it's

8:48

so funny that we've been having that same sort of

8:50

argument over what you can say and can't

8:52

say and music for 100 years now. Yeah. And

8:55

then I had a really

8:57

good music teacher in middle

8:59

school who would travel, you know, we didn't have a committed

9:02

teacher at each school. We had one that went

9:04

to all the different schools in the county. His name was Michael

9:07

Nix. And he loved

9:09

the Rolling Stones more than anything else in the

9:11

world. And he would come in and

9:13

teach us all Beatles songs, Rolling

9:15

Stones songs. And I started asking him questions.

9:18

And I was, I don't know, 10, 11, 12 years

9:20

old. And he was so shocked

9:23

by my questions. Everybody was asking

9:26

about what was on the radio at that point. But I wanted

9:28

to know about these old blues songs. So

9:30

he started calling me out of class. And

9:32

he would kind of mess with me a little bit, you know, make it

9:34

sound like I was in trouble. And I had to go to

9:36

the principal's office, which I think made the other

9:39

kids think that I was cooler than I was.

9:41

So now in hindsight, I appreciate

9:43

him for that. He was doing you a favor. He

9:46

was. Yeah, I would get a call on the PA,

9:48

you know, Jason Isabel come to the principal's office at once.

9:50

And I would know that it was him from the exaggerated

9:53

tone. And I would get in there and he'd

9:55

have a mixtape he'd made for me of REM

9:58

or something that you know, I would have no access

10:00

to otherwise. And that

10:02

was great. That was formative for me.

10:05

And he's since passed away, but I ran into

10:07

him. A few times after that, he would

10:09

come and see some shows and stuff like

10:11

that, which was really cool. Jason,

10:15

I want to talk about food for a second. And

10:17

I'm wondering who was the cook

10:20

in your family? You know, pretty

10:22

much everybody. My mom's mom

10:24

can't make a biscuit. That is a running

10:27

thing in our family. I think

10:29

she tried a batch at one point and they

10:31

were so bad that they got buried in the yard

10:34

and the dog dug them up

10:36

and wouldn't eat them, reburied them, buried them

10:38

back in the same hole after he tried

10:40

one. But she can cook. She can cook all kinds

10:43

of stuff. Just not biscuits. There

10:45

are cooks and there are bakers. And the

10:47

people who tend to do things

10:49

by their own rules and the people who

10:51

don't go by the book, they make very

10:53

good cooks, but not very good bakers.

10:57

The chemistry in baking has to be

10:59

precise. And if you try to, I

11:01

think it'll taste better this way. No,

11:03

baking will show you that you must

11:06

go by the rules. But

11:08

my mom was a good cook. My grandparents

11:10

on my dad's side. My grandmother cooked

11:13

very traditional stuff. She cooked on wood

11:15

stove and, you know, she made cornbread

11:17

and fried chicken and biscuits and chocolate

11:20

syrup. Some people call it chocolate gravy. We

11:22

call it chocolate syrup and red eye

11:24

gravy. My grandfather loved red eye gravy,

11:26

which is just grease. It's really

11:29

just grease. Right. He

11:31

was tough. He was old, old fashioned

11:33

tough. His top teeth were all fake. So

11:35

he had the fake pallet to hold him in

11:37

and he would drink his coffee out of a percolator

11:40

when he would lose his patience with the coffee.

11:42

He would just pick it up off of the wood stove

11:45

and the drip and drink it just right

11:47

out of the boiling. I think he just

11:49

wanted us to know he could do that because the

11:51

roof of his mouth was covered and

11:53

the rest of his throat was so scarred

11:56

that he just pick it up and drink it. Put

11:58

that steel percolator tip. on his bottom

12:00

teeth and drink coffee out of it. I'm

12:02

not kidding. He would take drip coffee

12:05

and he would put instant coffee in

12:08

the cup instead of sugar or

12:10

cream and stir it up to make it stronger.

12:14

They could drink it at 10 o'clock

12:16

and go to sleep at 10 30. I've never seen anything like

12:18

it. My grandmother literally would get up in

12:20

the middle of the night and drink a cup of

12:22

coffee and go back to sleep. They

12:25

drank caffeinated coffee all day and

12:27

all night. Wow. They don't make them like that

12:29

anymore. They sure don't probably for the best,

12:32

you know. He would teach

12:34

me if I was going to eat farm animals,

12:36

I would have to learn how to kill the farm animals.

12:39

So when I was probably

12:41

my daughter's age, she's about seven, he taught

12:43

me to ring a chicken's neck. And this

12:45

is how I learned also not to name the

12:47

animals. Right. But I've had a chicken

12:50

and chased it around. So I finally got it. I

12:52

was all sweating out of breath. And then, you

12:54

know, you grab the chicken by the head and you twist

12:56

it around in a circle as hard as you can.

12:59

And then you stop and try to snap it like you're

13:01

slapping a towel. And if you're lucky,

13:03

the body of the chicken will come off and you'll

13:05

be holding the head. If not, the whole chicken

13:07

will fly off and you know, it'll flop around

13:10

for a minute and that'll be it. And so he

13:12

taught me how to do this. And then the next day

13:14

he said, all right, I need you to do that

13:16

to a goose. We're going to cook goose. And

13:18

I was saying it was a whole different deal. It was very

13:21

different. Yeah, I was being set up to fail

13:23

and I went out and got ahold of the goose

13:26

and the geese were mean. They would put their head

13:28

down on the ground and get that hump in their neck

13:30

and put their feathers out and make themselves look bigger.

13:33

But I finally got ahold of the goose and

13:35

I got to swinging it around and

13:38

its neck just kept getting longer and longer

13:40

and longer. And it was probably, I don't know, 12,

13:43

15 feet long by the end of it. And

13:46

I was frustrated. I went and got the ax.

13:48

Oh, my way to walk to get the ax. I heard him laugh

13:50

and I looked up. He was on the back porch. He

13:52

set me up. The whole thing had been a practical

13:55

joke at the great expense to

13:57

the goose. But that was

13:59

his. That was his idea

14:02

of entertainment. That was a good time.

14:04

That was a good time for him. Yeah. There

14:06

was a family story about one time they had

14:09

disassembled a man's cow

14:12

and a buggy and they had reassembled

14:14

the buggy with the cow attached

14:16

inside the man's house. You know, when they

14:18

were kids, there was like 12 of those kids and they

14:21

were horrible troublemakers.

14:23

And he carried that with him. He had that sense of humor

14:26

for his whole life. I had the incubator

14:28

where I would take care of the chicken eggs until they

14:31

hatched and he would go in and inject dye,

14:33

food coloring, you know, into the eggs

14:35

and the chickens would come out pink and green

14:37

and purple. You know, I don't think it hurt

14:40

them. Like they would keep until they shed their initial

14:42

down, they would be that color.

14:45

So every Easter would be a surprise. I'd

14:47

have all these chickens, all these crazy colors.

14:49

Yeah. Wow. Jason,

14:55

I want to talk about music and muscle

14:57

shoals for a second.

14:59

You were born into one

15:01

of the most

15:03

kind of magical music

15:05

places in the world, really.

15:07

And other than your grandfather, I'm wondering

15:09

if there was one person who was

15:12

really a mentor to you when it came

15:14

to music. There were a lot. Once

15:17

I got to the age where I could get out

15:19

and around and go into town and see people

15:21

play, I remember when I was 13 or 14,

15:24

they would have like the WC Handy Festival

15:27

and everybody would play in all the bars and stuff. And

15:29

I remember my mom would take me and just beg

15:32

door people to let me in. And sometimes

15:34

they would, sometimes they wouldn't. I would get

15:36

in occasionally. And then other nights they just

15:39

wouldn't have the time or the

15:41

patience for a kid in there. But

15:43

we would go see the decoys all

15:46

the time, which was David Hood and Kelvin

15:48

Holly and Scott Boyer and Mike

15:50

Dillon and NC Thurman. And

15:53

we would follow them around. And then Barry

15:56

Billings was a big deal

15:58

to me because he played at the Mexican

16:00

restaurant in Florence every Friday and

16:02

Saturday night. And the thing about

16:04

Florence was that they had the 5149

16:08

law, so you had to sell more

16:10

food than alcohol, which was bad

16:13

for venues. You couldn't have a music

16:15

venue that way. And they would check the receipts at

16:17

the end of the month and shut you down if you didn't

16:19

do that. But it was great when we

16:22

were 15 or 16, because it meant that there

16:24

couldn't be an age limit. They couldn't kick us

16:26

out. We're in a restaurant. We don't have to be 21.

16:29

My mom would drop me off there to watch

16:31

Barry and Danny Kirsch and Joey Flippen

16:33

and Mary Mason. And we would stay for three

16:35

or four hours and just order some

16:38

cheese dip or some tea. We'd have

16:40

about $9 between us and

16:43

just order enough to where they would let us stay.

16:45

And George, the owner of the place, the place was called

16:48

La Fonda, Mexicano. It was in Florence.

16:50

And George got to know us and we got to

16:52

be friends with their whole family. And I

16:54

still talk to him every once while the restaurant's gone,

16:57

but it was perfect for us because

16:59

Jim Bowe, my bass player, would hang out

17:01

in there and Chad, my drummer, and Chris

17:03

Tompkins, who was my best friend then. And

17:06

you know, he's written like 15 or 16 number

17:09

one country songs now, but we would

17:11

all camp out there on Friday, Saturday

17:14

nights and they'd get up to sit in with them. And sometimes

17:16

we'd be up there the whole night. It was instrumental

17:18

for me because I didn't know

17:21

how to play with the band. I've been sitting in my room

17:23

playing guitar by myself or

17:25

playing with Chris in somebody's garage or something.

17:27

And this was the first time

17:29

I had to actually pay attention to

17:32

the song and play for the song. And

17:34

I learned a whole lot. Barry was so

17:36

patient. I remember one night they

17:38

turned around in the middle of the song and he said,

17:40

now when somebody's singing or

17:42

if somebody else is soloing, maybe you

17:44

might not want to solo at the exact same

17:47

time. You know, maybe you might want to

17:49

play some chords or just not play anything

17:51

at all. And I was like, Oh, I

17:53

see. Later on, I realized that that was

17:55

about the nicest way you could have put that

17:57

most people would have been like, shut the hell up, kid.

18:00

Back off. Yeah. Barry was huge.

18:02

Then David Hood was another person.

18:05

I spent a whole lot of time around and I

18:07

know Jimbo, my bass player, did the same. David

18:09

was always very gracious with his

18:11

time and we would ask for advice.

18:14

I remember asking David, how do you do it? How do you

18:16

get to the point where you're a professional musician?

18:19

You played on all these hit records. I wanted some

18:21

mystical, magical secret from

18:23

him. He said, well, you

18:25

show up on time and you make sure all your

18:28

gear works, and you'd be nice to everybody.

18:31

I was like, yeah, and what

18:33

else? He was like, that's pretty much it. He

18:35

would never take credit for the quality musician

18:38

that he was, but he was proud of the fact

18:40

that he showed up on time. He

18:43

was right. That'll set you apart

18:45

from 90 percent of the competition,

18:47

if you take it seriously. In every profession.

18:50

Yeah, right. If you take it seriously

18:52

and be a professional.

18:54

After the break, I'll talk more with Jason

18:57

Isbell about John Prine, his own

18:59

songwriting, working with Martin Scorsese,

19:02

and much more.

19:06

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Welcome back to Biscuits

19:52

and Jam from Southern Living. I'm Sid Evans,

19:54

and today I'm talking with the Grammy award-winning

19:57

musician, and now actor, Jason

19:59

Isbell.

20:01

Jason, another influence I

20:03

want to ask about is John Prine.

20:06

You opened a lot of shows for him,

20:08

and I feel like your songwriting and your

20:10

storytelling have a lot in common,

20:13

and I'm just wondering if he was a big influence

20:15

on you before you got to know him. Yeah,

20:18

that was done by accident. I definitely stole

20:20

from John on many occasions. Got

20:23

to know him real well. We got to be really good

20:25

friends and I value that time

20:28

that I spent John about as much as I value

20:30

anything. The way he

20:32

saw the world and the details that he

20:34

noticed and the things that he allowed himself

20:36

to be moved by really

20:39

informed, not just his

20:42

work and his songwriting, but the way he lived,

20:44

the way he interacted with his family

20:46

and the people that he cared about. John

20:48

was one of the only people who in

20:50

his 70s would

20:52

be watching the clock on stage because

20:55

he wanted to play longer. Most people that age

20:57

were ready to go to the hotel, go to bed,

20:59

but John was always upset

21:02

when it was time to end the show. It

21:05

was a special thing. My mom would play me

21:07

those records when I was little, when I was a baby,

21:09

we'd sit and listen to him in the floor of the trailer.

21:12

I grew up with John's music being a big

21:14

part of my life, and then to actually get

21:16

to know him was about as big a reward

21:19

as you get in this profession.

21:21

It's nice to live comfortably and

21:23

take care of your family and all that, but nothing

21:26

really is better than getting to know those

21:28

people and them turning out to be everything

21:31

you'd hoped like John was.

21:33

Yeah. I

21:36

interviewed his wife Fiona

21:38

a couple of years ago and she was telling

21:40

me how John came home one

21:42

day and handed her a CD

21:44

and he was all excited. He

21:48

said, go get in your car and

21:50

listen to this right now. You're

21:52

going to flip out.

21:54

It was your album Southeastern.

21:57

Yeah. I remember the FBI owners told me

21:59

that. I think he tracked my booking

22:02

agent down in maybe at Arnold's one

22:04

time when they were having lunch or something. I think that's

22:06

how we actually initially got

22:09

to working together. John Paul White

22:11

was making a record on Donnie Fritz at

22:13

Gary Nicholson's studio. And

22:16

John Paul called me and Amanda to come over

22:19

and sing. And John, Brian

22:21

was there and Al Bonetta was there, John's

22:23

old manager who passed away a few

22:25

years before John did. But Al had

22:28

one of his old muscle cars. He loved old

22:30

muscle cars. And they were there and we met

22:32

John that day and we all seemed to

22:34

hit it off real well. But yeah, after he heard

22:36

that record, he wanted to do something. We

22:39

went on the road together. And he also went out

22:41

with Amanda a lot. She opened for him and played

22:43

with him in a bunch of shows.

22:45

Well, Jason, I want to talk about some things that you've

22:47

got going on right now. You have a lot ahead

22:50

of you. And among other things,

22:52

we'll talk about the album in a second. But

22:54

you were cast in a movie with

22:56

Martin Scorsese that he directed

22:59

called Killers of the Flower Moon. It was

23:01

shot in Oklahoma. What drew you to that

23:03

story? Man, the story

23:05

is unbelievable.

23:07

When we were on lockdown, I couldn't tour. I

23:09

called my agent and said, maybe if there's a movie

23:11

or a TV show or something I can be involved with,

23:14

that might be fine. And he

23:16

started looking around. And sure enough, Marty's

23:18

casting director, Ellen, was open

23:21

to let me audition for a role. And I

23:23

just kept on working at it until I

23:25

finally got the part. But the thing

23:27

about that story is it shocks

23:30

me that I didn't learn it in school. And

23:32

even the people I talked to in Oklahoma

23:35

who grew up, went to high school out there, didn't know

23:37

about it. The Osage people had

23:39

been pushed around and moved around

23:41

like a lot of the indigenous folks close

23:43

to the end of the 1800s. And they had a really

23:46

brilliant chief who spoke multiple

23:49

languages and was just, by

23:51

all accounts, a genius. And he had

23:53

the idea that they should locate themselves

23:56

on the spot of land in North Central

23:58

Oklahoma, where white people couldn't

24:00

survive. He said, we can live off of

24:03

this land, but they can't. So they

24:05

won't make us move if we go here, which

24:08

in and of itself is a pretty bleak proposition,

24:10

but the tribe was grateful for that. And

24:13

that's where they moved and set up, you

24:15

know, their lives and their community.

24:17

And then they found oil. And when

24:19

they found oil, they very quickly

24:21

became the richest group of people in

24:23

the world. So they were wearing furs and

24:26

they were buying custom colored Hudson's.

24:29

And then of course, the white

24:31

folks got wind of it and started marrying

24:33

off the Osage women and murdering

24:36

them and all this kind of horrible stuff started

24:38

happening in the name of acquiring

24:40

those mineral rights and then auctioning

24:42

them off to Getty and Sinclair

24:45

and Phillips. And it's really

24:47

just a breathtakingly

24:50

sad story. But one that needed

24:52

to be told. It needed to be told. And

24:54

the way Scorsese presented

24:57

the story to me made a lot of sense.

25:00

His idea to work directly with the tribe

25:02

and focus the perspective on their experience

25:05

rather than the white savior trope,

25:08

it really rang true to me.

25:10

And when I got there and met a lot of the Osage

25:12

folks who were working on the movie, some

25:15

of them playing their grandparents or

25:17

aunts, uncles or fellow tribesmen

25:20

who had passed away 100 years before,

25:22

it became pretty obvious to me

25:24

that he had done a lot of work to

25:26

make sure he told the story the right way. So it's

25:28

something I was very proud to be involved

25:31

with. But at the same time, I was

25:33

also terrified because I didn't, I don't know how

25:35

to act, you know, that's not my job.

25:37

And other people there have Oscars

25:40

for it. A lot of my scenes were with

25:42

Leo. And luckily, most people

25:44

at the very top level of

25:47

their field are generous

25:49

with their time and their kind and their helpful.

25:52

And they just want the whole project

25:54

to work. And they'll do whatever they

25:56

need to do to make sure the whole thing works. Now,

25:59

when you get to the level right under that you

26:01

run into a lot of different ego issues

26:03

and it's not so comfortable for somebody

26:05

who might see themselves as an interloper

26:08

but in this situation I just asked

26:10

questions I said what the hell am I supposed

26:12

to do I've memorized everything

26:14

I've done all the work that I know to do how

26:17

do I deliver this in a natural way I got

26:19

lucky because they were kind enough to guide

26:21

me and it became a really beautiful experience

26:24

it'll be out in October I think the 20th

26:26

of October in the theaters well

26:29

I can't wait to see it but I hope you're not handing

26:31

in your guitars anytime soon I

26:34

like my job and I'm going to keep

26:36

my job people have asked me

26:38

if it's something that I would do again and

26:41

then I say well if it's something like

26:43

this and then usually they stop me and they say

26:45

there is nothing else like this catering

26:47

is never this good the crew is not

26:49

this huge the trailers aren't this

26:52

nice it's not like this I

26:54

kind of started at the top in the movie

26:56

making business and I don't know that

26:58

I'm gonna do a lot more but if there's

27:00

a story that somebody needs help telling and

27:02

I feel like it's a story that should be told

27:05

then I'll do what I can to help yeah

27:08

well on the music front Jason

27:10

you got a new album out and it's

27:13

called weather veins and it's

27:15

fantastic I've heard it thank you thank

27:17

you just so many great songs

27:20

on that album I want to ask

27:22

you about the name of the album why

27:24

you picked weather veins and what

27:26

that means to you

27:27

well it came from a lyric in this

27:30

song cast iron skillet it's a simple

27:32

tool and it's something that doesn't

27:35

give you a lot of information and then once

27:37

you have that information it is your job

27:39

to use it to predict the future and

27:42

I think that theme works

27:44

pretty well with a lot of the songs

27:46

on this record and it works pretty well for my

27:48

view on life just

27:51

the general idea of remaining aware being

27:54

prepared by being in the moment rather

27:57

than fixating on what could

27:59

happen or what may happen or what

28:01

will happen next, really slowing down

28:03

and observing what's going

28:06

on now. And then through that process,

28:08

you see which way the wind is blowing,

28:10

so to speak. So it made sense. And

28:13

also, it was a good vehicle for us to use

28:15

the artwork to sort of scatter

28:17

some references to songs, individual

28:19

songs, and to also my career

28:22

as a whole at this point.

28:24

Well, you mentioned the song Cast Earned Skillet,

28:26

which sounds like it could be a

28:29

simple country song,

28:32

but it is not at all.

28:35

Yeah, I mean, it is a simple song.

28:37

The melody and the lyrics is simple.

28:39

Now, the things that happen in the song and

28:41

the emotions that are discussed

28:44

aren't simple. But see, they never are,

28:46

you know? Even in what I would call a very

28:48

simple country song, those emotions aren't

28:51

simple to the people that are feeling them. One

28:53

of the issues that I have with a lot of more

28:55

popular country music these days is I

28:58

think they aim low and they sort

29:00

of patronize their audience in a way where

29:02

it's like they're just ignoring

29:05

the fact that feelings like heartbreak are

29:07

very complicated. And I try

29:10

to dig in a little bit harder and ask a little bit

29:12

more of the audience because I think

29:14

they're perfectly capable of understanding

29:16

that and handling it. Yeah. It's

29:19

heavy though. It's a heavy song because it is about

29:21

race relations and murder and

29:23

there aren't two topics in the South that

29:25

are more heavy than those, I guess. But

29:28

you know, those things really happen. Those are just

29:30

stories from my childhood, from people that I

29:32

knew, people that I was close to growing

29:35

up. I didn't have to make up any of those details.

29:50

She found love and it was simple

29:53

as a weather vane. Her

29:56

own family tried to kill her.

30:06

Well, it's also a beautiful song and beautifully

30:09

crafted. Thank you. You

30:12

know, I meant it, and I think that lends itself

30:14

to make a better song just about every time.

30:17

Some of my favorite songwriters don't work

30:19

from a place of technical ability

30:21

at all, but you can tell that they mean what they're

30:23

saying, and that's all it takes for me.

30:25

Yeah. And there's another one on there called Vestavia

30:28

Hills, which if you're talking about Birmingham,

30:31

is about a mile from my house. Oh, yeah.

30:33

It's right down the road here.

30:35

What inspired that one? So that's a story

30:37

song, and it's about a crew member, a roadie

30:40

for lack of a better term, who has had

30:42

enough. And luckily his wife

30:44

is fairly well off and has a nice house

30:47

in a nice neighborhood. And

30:49

it's basically a three and a half, four

30:51

minute way of saying, I don't have to put up

30:53

with this. I have a nice house

30:56

and my wife pays the bills and I'm going home.

30:58

That's basically what that song is. And

31:01

it's sort of another angle on

31:03

the cautionary tale because

31:05

the perspective is from somebody on the

31:07

outside looking in. He's seeing

31:10

this artist that he works for falling apart,

31:12

and he's tired of having to clean up his messes,

31:15

and he goes back home. The

31:17

crew guy is being professional

31:20

and saying, here's my notice. I'll

31:22

do this tour, and this is the end of it. If

31:25

you're in a bad shape, you wind up

31:27

asking more of your crew people than you should.

31:29

And I've been that person myself in the past.

31:31

It's been a long time, but I remember how that

31:34

failed. Well,

31:36

Jason, you and your wife, Amanda

31:39

Shires, who is an incredible musician

31:41

and fiddle player,

31:43

y'all have a daughter together. I

31:45

just got to ask, are y'all raising a young musician

31:48

or is the jury still out? The jury

31:50

is out. She's really into

31:52

singing, and she started making up songs.

31:55

And I think that's great. If I could have my

31:57

druthers and shoes, what would come first?

32:00

it would be that. I just want it to be something

32:02

that is normalized

32:04

for her to make up songs to

32:07

explain how she feels about things.

32:09

And lately, just in the last couple of weeks,

32:11

really, she's been getting kind of

32:13

good at it. The other day we were in Lubbock

32:16

and she'd written a song about prairie dogs

32:18

and yeah, I told her that's actually really

32:20

good. That sounds like a song that an adult

32:23

would have written, but I'm not easily impressed

32:25

by that sort of thing and I heard her tell

32:27

maybe three or four different people. My dad

32:30

said this is pretty good and he's not easily impressed

32:32

by that sort of thing. She was proud

32:34

of it. But then she watches a lot of our

32:37

shows and we do a lot of like musical

32:39

excursions. You know, we see how different

32:41

instruments are made and that kind of thing. So

32:44

it's very much a part of her life. She

32:46

hasn't like settled on an instrument to learn

32:49

to play yet, but as far as the profession

32:51

goes, by the time she's an adult, I

32:53

don't know if anybody will be able

32:55

to become a musician and make a living

32:58

at it. I think if you're not grandfathered

33:00

in, you might be out of luck by that

33:02

point in time. But that doesn't mean

33:04

that you can't be a musician.

33:06

So I do expect it'll be something that's

33:08

a big part of her life one way or another.

33:11

Yeah, well I hope so. Yeah, it's a

33:13

great way to tell people how you feel. It

33:15

just really works for that because you can kind

33:17

of hypnotize it with the song

33:19

aspect of it, the rhyming and the music.

33:22

And you kind of lull them into this sense

33:24

of paying attention to you and

33:26

then you can tell them things that you wouldn't normally

33:28

say in a conversation. Yeah, well

33:31

Jason, I just got one more question for you. What

33:34

does it mean to you to be Southern? I

33:37

think there are a lot of

33:39

cultural benefits. I think

33:41

I've had exposure to a lot of

33:43

very creative people and I think

33:46

obviously there's a lot of conflict between

33:49

generations. But there's also,

33:52

if you're able to keep the nostalgia

33:55

at bay and look at things the way they

33:58

really are, I think being Being a

34:00

Southerner is a great opportunity.

34:03

I'll give you an example. When I was on the Daily

34:05

Show the first time with Trevor

34:07

Noah, he had me in the chair to interview

34:09

me and talk to me. Most

34:12

people just had me play a song and that's it.

34:14

I appreciate that and I'm happy to do it. I

34:16

love sitting in the chair and talking on a talk

34:18

show because then you feel like a real celebrity.

34:22

It's not just like the court jester for

34:24

the last three minutes of the show. You get

34:26

an interview. It's a big deal. I

34:29

remember we were talking about the political climate

34:31

in Alabama and Tennessee. So

34:34

many people said that that is the first

34:36

time that they'd ever heard of me. What

34:38

really caught their attention was

34:40

the fact that the things that I was saying

34:42

did not line up with

34:44

their expectations of my accent.

34:48

They would hear my accent and they would

34:50

think, wait a minute, what is he saying? That

34:52

doesn't make sense. People with that

34:54

accent say the opposite of that. I

34:57

saw that as a huge opportunity

35:00

to really show people that we

35:02

have more in common than we

35:04

have that separates us and that

35:06

you can't judge a book by its cover. That

35:09

always makes for more interesting people. I'm

35:11

grateful that I'm from the South because

35:13

it gives me the opportunity to develop

35:16

my personality in a more complex

35:18

way than had I been from another

35:20

part of America or another country. Well,

35:23

it's definitely complex down here, that's for sure. It's

35:26

the music, man. I mean, it is. It

35:28

is. But one of the ways that we've always attempted

35:30

to deal with that is by making

35:33

music. There's no better

35:35

region in the whole world for the

35:37

kind of music that I like. So it's like

35:39

winning the lottery being born where I was

35:42

born because I was exposed

35:44

so early and so consistently

35:46

to really about as high

35:48

quality art as anybody in America

35:50

has ever produced. I don't know

35:53

that anything we've ever given the

35:55

world has had a greater significance

35:57

or more artistic importance than...

36:00

the R&B that was made in the

36:02

1960s. I think that was kind of as

36:04

good as American art ever

36:06

got. And to be brought

36:09

up around the people who had worked

36:11

on those records and in a climate

36:13

that was sort of infused with

36:15

that kind of spirit, it has served me

36:17

very, very well. Well, Jason Isbell,

36:20

thanks so much for being on Biscuits & Jams.

36:22

Thank you. I enjoyed the conversation a lot.

36:24

Thanks for your time.

36:27

Thanks for listening to my conversation with Jason

36:29

Isbell. Southern Living is based in Birmingham,

36:31

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