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The Justin one, that happened, and it was the only thing I could do.
Im ready to make a record of my own songs again.
I wanted to be Jerry Jeff Walker more than anything else in the world for several years.
Just as I got old enough to play a bar, I was playing Charlie Dunn.
My band [the Dukes] grew up listening to this stuff too.
Mr. Bojangles is the one Jerry Jeff Walker song that most people will likely have heard of.
I mean, I did it with the Opry Band a few weeks ago.
Its kind of hard to fuck up.
Its just that kind of song.
Walker was our connection to Greenwich Village.
I was just lucky.
I had good teachers.
But I did utilize that on purpose.
I followed these guys around.
[Laughs]I was a pain in the ass, no doubt about it.
But they were generous too, those three guys.
Townes was probably harder on me than anybody else because he was pretty hard on everybody.
Jerry Jeff could be, but he was always pretty nice to me.
Hed reached a point where he couldnt afford to get stopped in Nashville anymore.
So hed come and get me to drive for him, which may or may not have been smart.
But I didnt have as many dings on my license.
One night, he came and got me.
He said, Hey, I want you to come down and play a song for Neil.
And I said: Okay, whatever, its Jerry Jeff Walker.
I got in the car.
And I didnt know who Neil was until we got to the Spence Manor.
It turned out it was Neil Young.
Walker didnt want me to play one of my songs.
He wanted me to play a David Olney song called Illegal Cargo.
Because he knew that I knew it because I champion other peoples songs, too.
It hurt my feelings quite a bit, but I played it.
And I met Neil Young, so.
How did Neil respond?He liked Illegal Cargo and I think I played some stuff later.
But what stuck with me is that I got brought up there to play a David Olney song.
When I saw David, I said, Fuck you.
But I also told him that I played the song and that Neil liked it.
Do you ever check in with country radio today, even just out of curiosity?No.
I didnt listen to it then unless I had to.
I grew up in a place with good rock n roll and good country music.
I never liked the dividers between different kinds of music in the first place.
I always thought they were in the way.
I was making a country record on purpose when I madeGuitar Town.
Before that, I was just taking money under false pretenses.
All of us were.
We wanted to be singer-songwriters.
We werent really interested in the genre.
We were interested in making great albums of our own music.
But people would pay us to be songwriters.
There are a few people like that.
Its country because its whats going on in country radio.
Some people complain Im the reason the drums are too fucking loud.
I was the first one to do that.
I didnt mean that in any sort of derogatory fashion at all.
I just meant its arrived at the same way.
How do you navigate talking about and championing autism in the music industry?Its tricky.
Ive had the same question asked when it comes to political music.
Im not a political songwriter.
I write more songs about girls than I do anything else.
I just grew up in an era where you write about whatever affects your life.
I raise money for the Keswell School every year because my son goes to school there.
Im proud of that.
Its a specific kind of school.
John Henry [Earles son] has profound autism.
Hes nonverbal, and he doesnt speak.
He learns everything, but he learns it very slowly.
He needs to be in the environment that hes in.
This is not for everybody with autism.
But for people like John Henry, my belief is that what he needs is what hes getting.
The student is always engaged one-on-one with someone that knows what the fuck theyre doing, not babysitters.
The stereotype of people with autism that makes me angry is that theres a lack of empathy.
Its just not true.
And no ones ever proven that.
Im pretty sure the person that said that was the reason we dont say Aspergers anymore.
Hans Asperger was a Nazi doctor who was experimenting on kids with disabilities.
He defined what we call the spectrum now, the beginnings of it.
For years, if you could talk, you had Aspergers.
If you couldnt, you had autism.
Now its all autism.
And who knows what causes this?
We know its epidemic.
We know its not vaccinations.
[Laughs]Thats the only thing that weve ruled out because that guylost his medical license.
But its one of those things I dont attempt to tell anyone else what to do.
I got skin in the game.
The political stuff is a little different.
Thats just trying not to go to hell.
I make an embarrassing amount of money for a borderline Marxist doing something that I really love doing.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
