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"I wanted people to see what I was feeling. To see where I’d been. I wanted them to meet people. For the first time, I felt like I was saying something that I’d never said before."
— Kenny Chesney |
THEN KENNY CHESNEY
WRITES SONGS ABOUT IT
Reigning Country Music Association and Academy of Country Music Entertainer of the Year and fanvoted American Music Awards Favorite Artist winner Kenny Chesney has built a career reflecting the smallest truths of overlooked lives. He has earned a massive audience that spans all age groups, who have bought over 19.5 million of his albums, including his recent, highly personal Be As You Are: Songs from an Old Blue Chair, as well as the 2004 CMA Album of the Year, When the Sun Goes Down, which featured the multiple-week Number One songs "There Goes My Life," "Anything But Mine" and the Uncle Kracker duet title track. In 2004, the Luttrell, Tennessean also sold 1.4 million concert tickets, making his tour the second biggest ticket seller behind Prince’s Musicology tour.
Legendary Grammy-winning singer/songwriter Rodney Crowell has spent his decades-long career capturing life-changing epiphanies, moments and feelings like lightning bugs under a mayonnaise jar and putting them into his music, starting with his tenure in Emmylou Harris’s heralded Hot Band. He has been honored with ASCAP’s Creative Achievement Award for his role as an artist, producer, songwriter and fellow musician to such artists as Harris, Waylon Jennings, Bob Seger, Jimmy Buffett, Rosanne Cash, Willie Nelson, T-Bone Burnett, Linda Ronstadt, the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band and Roger Daltrey. Crowell's next album, The Outsider, is set for release in August.
One mid-morning this spring, Crowell’s path converged with Chesney’s and the two men sat down for a candid talk. Rather than congratulate each other on their successes, they shared their unique experiences as songwriters and artists, the power of recognition and creation, the challenges and personal satisfaction of the process. Hopefully, all who read this will walk away as enriched as Chesney and Crowell.
RODNEY CROWELL: So what are you working on?
KENNY CHESNEY: I’ve got a record coming out in November. I wrote the last single but I’ve never been one of these guys who says I have to write every song on my record. Because I’m smart enough to know there’s some wonderful minds and a lot of wonderful life experiences I want to tap into. On the album I just released, I wrote every song on it because nobody else could have written those songs. They weren’t there, they didn’t meet the people, didn’t go to the places, didn’t see the things I saw. When I turned 30, I really felt like that’s when I changed as an artist and as a songwriter This record I just put out was so personal, and it kind of changed the way I look at writing songs. Every time I sit and try to write a song now, it’s really got to go somewhere.
RC: In the past, you wrote more competently for the market in which you were trying to achieve. You got on the radio and exercised your commercial savvy. Whereas now, as an artist, you are exercising your humanity and your artistry. But it takes a while to get there. I’ve been there and I know that. Sometimes our longings as an artist to plumb the depths and go down there, do those meaningful things, is not always in step with the commercial machine.
KC:: I was trying to clear my head, getting ready to cut another record and I just wanted to hear the growth - so I put every album I ever made on and listened to it from the first song to the end. It was a process of looking back to get to the kinds of songs that I want to write and the way I want to live — not just writing songs and singing, but living my life. Take a song like "She Thinks My Tractor’s Sexy" — I was smart enough to record that song, but also smart enough not to record another one like it or make a living on it.
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"Well, Picasso said, 'You gotta look at an artist's career, and the valleys are as important as the peaks.' So, I thought, 'I'm just gonna do what I'm afraid of for a while.'"
— Rodney Crowell |
RC: You have a huge audience. Do you ever feel like when you write now, you're obliged to write for what you understand that audience to be? Or do you feel obliged to take that audience to another place?
KC: That's a very tough high wire to walk. That was one of the reasons I was really reluctant to release my island record, because it was just very personal stuff. I didn’t know if anybody was going to be able to relate to it. Because that album was just a bunch of stories about people I met and the places they took me. And how they kind of taught me to live differently. So I was really scared to release that record. It was such a departure for me because it wasn’t 300 moving lights on a bunch of LED screens behind me and a big sound system. It wasn’t "Young." It wasn’t "I Go Back."
RC: I’ve got a pretty smart audience and one lesson I’ve learned: the older I get and the more I write songs, is that deep down, people are suckers for the truth no matter what it is. The culture we’re living in is really putting that to the test. Media and the whole instant gratification system that we’re living in is making it real easy to sell something that ain’t true.
KC: Oh, there’s no doubt about it. I’m struggling with a lot of things as a songwriter because I find myself wanting to write not the same kind of songs I would have five years ago. And that scares me a little because my audience is used to a certain thing. It’s tough. It’s a double-edged sword. But I think with the record I just put out about my life in the islands - it did teach me a lesson that they will accept it somewhat.
RC: Artie Shaw said something on Ken Burns’ documentary about the history of jazz. They asked Shaw, "So man, why did you quit playing?" And he said, "Because people got hung up on what I was doing on my way to really getting good." When I heard him say that, I said, "Oh man, I understand what you’re saying. When I look back at my records, I often have to push them off because really what I do now is more fully realized. It’s not Diamonds and Dirt. People want to hold my feet to Diamonds and Dirt and say that’s the moment. But it’s not. It’s not, it’s not. It was a moment. It’s like when I hear that album, I don’t hear five number one records. I hear the six inferior recordings.
KC: I think the older Rodney is different, that’s all. I’ll be 37 in a couple weeks. I do feel different. I mean people ask me every year, "Well, you feel any older?" I say all the time, "I don’t feel older. I just feel different." And it’s really weird because when I sit down to write a song now, I just feel it going to another place. Like, right now I’m in the process of writing a song about a date I went on.
RC: A date?
KC:: A date. It was a really wonderful date I went on. It probably won’t mean anything to anybody but me, because it was that moment in time. That’s what I find myself writing about: trying to capture a moment. Trying to capture that emotion I felt in those 6 hours I spent with that person. I think I edit myself less now.
Well you gotta - you’re way up there, man! You have this enormous success. What I wonder if I stand back and look at it, with compassion and chin-scratching and curiosity: Can we get humanity across when the strokes are that broad? You’re trying to dredge up in your artistic process to express your humanity. And humanity is fine drawings, not broad strokes. I mean Hallmark cards are just a broad stroke, but it sounds like you’re talking about a finer path in life.
KC: I feel like a very simple man. I was brought up in an incredibly simple family and a very country family. And I still feel like that kid in a lot of ways. And I don’t feel it’s as big as it is.
RC: When you say simple, don’t you really mean integrity? Because simple is probably the hardest thing to be.
KC: Somebody asked me the other day, "When did you feel famous?" And I said, "I don’t." I really don’t. People tell me I am by the way they act. But I really don’t feel it. I don’t take advantage of it because I don’t like it that much. It messes you up.
RC: People have that thing when you walk into a room, because of my notoriety, or I would call yours "fame," they react to that notoriety or that fame. You have to resist stepping into that persona, that image of what they’re seeing.
KC: But a lot of times, too, you’ve got to. I feel like no matter how they act, that it’s kind of like an obligation not to make them feel uncomfortable in a way.
RC: Well that’s how you were raised. And it’s a kind thing to do.
KC: Somebody asked me, "What do you think about fame?" I said, "It gets in the way." I love what I do and I’m good at it. I know I can get on stage and can connect with 15,000 people. But I still scratch and claw for everything I get as a songwriter. And now its harder because my standards are higher.
RC: You were talking earlier about the process of looking back. I think it’s healthy to go back and listen to all your records and say "Okay, that’s where I was. . . but here I am a grown man now."
KC: It is. Hopefully, one day there’ll be a kid who comes to Nashville and says, "You know what? I loved ‘I Go Back’." Or "I loved a lot of songs on that island record," or "I loved ‘Old Blue Chair,’ songs that Kenny Chesney wrote." That would be great. Because I have those moments.
I get off that bus and I can’t wait to get up on that stage and do what I do. And it’s an amazing rush. It’s just about connecting with the audience. But I can’t write songs consistently every day. Maybe I could if that’s all I did. But it’s not like that now. When I first moved to Nashville, I got a songwriting deal at Acuff-Rose. I was in the hallways every day with Whitey Shafer and Dean Dillon and Skip Ewing, and I was having lunch with these guys, and all of a sudden, I wasn’t on the outside looking in. I was inside a little, making $150 a week, going to Mac’s Cafe and writing songs in the afternoon. It was an amazing time for me.
RC: But they don’t have to do what you have to do either.
KC: It’s such a balancing act for me because I love being that guy. But the one thing I miss the most is being able to sort of write a lot of songs. I still believe a great song is a great song no matter if I write it, you write it, or some new guy in town writes it. I love that.
RC: Well, Picasso said, "You gotta look at an artist’s career, and the valleys are as important as the peaks." So, I thought, "I’m just gonna do what I’m afraid of for a while."
KC: I understand that, but it’s an exciting time in my life because I’m just starting to learn what it’s like really to be an artist; I never really knew. You may think it’s weird for me to say that since I’ve been an artist for 12 years and I’ve been making records for a long time. But when I really got my heart broken, she stepped on it with a high-heeled shoe several years ago. All of a sudden I grew up a bit. It wasn’t okay just to be average. And it wasn’t okay to do it like I was doing it. An epiphany maybe. For the No Problems album, I drew a lot from that relationship as an artist and a songwriter, and more importantly, as a person. I think I was able to write some of the kinds of songs I was never able to even think about writing before. It’s a scary place to be and a good place. I have a chance to really do something cool.
RC: You came along in the music business at a time when you’ve gotta be pretty smart, where career management missteps aren’t as easily forgiven now as they were even when I came on. I was making records in the 70s where I remember somebody saying, "We’ll make three records with you before you even go to radio."
KC: I just imagine what they thought when I put out this beach record. "What? Kenny Chesney is gonna release a record based on his life living on a boat?"
RC: Joseph Conrad did some really good writing about that.
KC: I wanted people to see what I was feeling. To see where I’d been. I wanted them to meet people. For the first time, I felt like I was saying something that I’d never said before — painting a picture. That’s what I learned from some of the songs you’ve written and that Willie Nelson’s written, and songs like on Springsteen’s Nebraska.
It’s funny; I heard some songwriter the other day say, "Well, I’m taking some time off." No you’re not. You’re never taking time off. If you’re a songwriter, you’re always hearing things, making notes. I may get away from writing. But I don’t quit being a songwriter. I have so many little things that don’t mean anything that I have just written down.
RC: You keep a journal?
KC: I do keep a journal. I do. And mostly it’s about my life in the islands. That’s basically what this island record is - my journal set to music.
RC: Do you have a sailboat?
KC: I don’t have a sailboat. I don’t want to work that hard. I have a boat, a 60-foot boat - it’s like a bus. But in a lot of ways, that boat has helped me become a better songwriter. Because every year I’d get off the road and I go straight there.
The year before last, I was about as exhausted as I’ve ever been as a person. Mentally exhausted. I wasn’t sick of the business, though. I was just tired — tired of the meet and greets, of the road, of catering. And I was so tired I didn’t even want to listen to anything. I got on my boat and I didn’t even put a CD in. After about a week, I went by my closet, and a buddy of mine, Ben, who’s a boat captain that lives down there, had my closet door open. It’s where I keep my guitar on the boat. So I walked past that closet and I sat and stared at my guitar. Finally, I pulled it out and put some new strings on it. Messed around a bit. And all of a sudden, it’s 3 hours later and I’d written a song. Then I put a Jackson Browne CD in…
RC: Back in business [LAUGHS].
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