Giving a truck

More recently he’s gone his own way with a solo album of rootsy rock, Sirens Of The Ditch, recorded with a cadre of old friends and colleagues (including some members of Drive By Truckers) and his new band 400 Unit. Now he’s the boss.

“Drive By Truckers was as much of a democracy as it could be,” he reflects. “It was originally Patterson Hood’s idea . He started it, so he kind of had veto power. But it was quite close to an equal partnership between all of us as far as that went. And that made things great sometimes and difficult sometimes. Now, I really don’t have to weigh up a whole pile of different opinions when I make a decision about a record or business or anything else. But it definitely requires more work and I have to pay very close attention to what’s going on.”
And Isbell pays very close attention to all elements of what’s going on. There’s a political thread in his writing (songs like ‘Dress Blues’ tell the story of a local boy in Iraq). He has a particular notion of what a songwriter is supposed to do.
“If someone pays you to write your opinion, and that’s what the songs are in many ways, you have a responsibility to do it honestly,” he proffers. “It’s important, especially now in this country, that anybody with an opinion be heard. I don’t think creative people are being listened to or negotiated with in the way that they used to be. It’s seen as almost shameful for somebody who’s in the public eye and who writes songs to say: ‘This is how I feel about this.’ It’s not like songwriters are just random celebrities. It’s not like we’ve made a craft out of being famous. We’re actually social commentators and that’s how songwriting started in the first place. We’re like the town-criers.”
Resolutely independent, Isbell believes that the music industry has got the wrong end of the stick over the past few decades.
“Nowadays independent bands starting out don’t need to have a label at all,” he maintains. “And that’s the problem the industry is running into. You can do so much promotion and distribution through the internet that it’s possible to make a living at this without ever being signed to a record label. The problem was that labels began thinking artists work for them rather than with them. They were seeing 5% of their artists making 80% of their income and everybody else was a tax write-off, and that system isn’t working for them anymore. Big artists aren’t making as much money and there also aren’t as many big artists. If major labels are to continue they’re going to have to pay attention to each individual act that they sign and try and come up with a plan that works for that specific artist.”
Meanwhile, Isbell will persevere with a plan all of his own.

Jason Isbell plays Dolan’s, Limerick (March 28); Cyprus Avenue, Cork (29); Roisin Dubh, Galway (30); and Whelan’s, Dublin (April 1)