STEVE EARLE WHAT A PEARL

Steve Earle is not a fluffball of peace, light and unicorns, though he wears his heart on his sleeve – and his jacket and his jeans. It can get messy. And at 68 his work isn’t getting any fluffier. Husband to six wives (one twice-married) and with three sons (his firstborn, Justin Towns Earle, died tragically in 2020), telling it like it is, both personally and professionally makes his work some of the most important in modern music history – Seven recently spoke to Steve at home in New York about life and his preparations for Bluesfest.

Your son John Henry is almost a teenager – how is fatherhood treating you these days?

Well, I’m a single dad nine months of the year. I tour in the summers for the most part, except for odd trips, like Australia – it actually coincides with his spring break. He’s been in this school since he was three – there’s nothing for kids with autism in Tennessee.

Last time we spoke you said you were supporting Bernie Sanders for that election cycle. How is the current political situation going?

I’m a pretty hardcore lefty. But in fact, I joined the Democratic Party for the very first time so I could support Sanders in that last election cycle. I knew it was gonna be better for everybody if he had a shot. He had enough support. I don’t know whether he could have won or not. I had a feeling that he wouldn’t get the nomination, but he came very close and it did make a difference. In this cycle, I supported Joe Biden from day one and I pissed a lot of my very, very left-leaning friends off. It’s not that my politics changed. I just thought we had to get Trump out of there.

You told me once before your best songwriting tip was to keep your ears open and not wear headphones on the subway. Does that still apply?

I haven’t been on the subway for a long time just because it got spooky. It was just because so many people that were on the street moved into the subways and they were kind of preying on each other. Me alone was one thing, but riding with John Henry was spooking me. It got dangerous, it’s still more dangerous than it was – but now it’s improving slowly but surely.