| October 22nd, 2004 01:37 PM |
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| Ten Thousand Motels |
Earle is raring for 'Revolution'
By Steve Morse, Globe Staff | October 22, 2004
So if John Kerry is elected, would politically active singer Steve Earle want to join his Cabinet? "No, I make Democrats nervous," he says. "And that's OK. I'm pretty radical. But it's much easier for me to support John Kerry than Bill Clinton. Clinton is the only Republican I ever voted for twice."
Ah yes, welcome to the Steve Earle sense of humor.
Earle has become perhaps the most radical rock singer out there. His new album, "The Revolution Starts . . . Now," contains a vicious swipe at the Federal Communications Commission (in the song "F the CC"), as well as bold jabs at the war in Iraq ("Rich Man's War") and the outsourcing of American jobs to foreign lands. And that's just for starters.
Earle is a recovering alcohol/substance abuser who exchanged his addictions for the political arena -- and hasn't looked back.
"I never shied away from [politics]," says Earle, who headlines Avalon on Tuesday with his band the Dukes. "But the difference in the way I do activism now is that I used to show up at rallies and play a song and get back in the limo and leave. Now I wash dishes and pick people up at the airport and do whatever needs to be done when I'm doing my anti-death-penalty and political stuff. I'm just more committed because I almost died [from addiction]. I spend my time much more seriously than I used to."
About his new CD, Earle says, "I had two songs I wanted heard -- `Rich Man's War' and `The Revolution Starts Now' -- and I wanted to get the album out before the election. So as soon as we got back from touring Australia in April, we went straight into the studio the first week of May. But I don't ever want to make a record like that again. It was real immediate, and I think it shows up on tape how immediate the process was."
Like rocker John Fogerty, whose new single is "Deja Vu (All Over Again)," Earle sees a disturbing parallel between the Vietnam War and the Iraq conflict. "As long as it was just poor kids going, nobody raised very much hell about Vietnam at first," Earle says. "But then it went on so long, they needed more bodies, so middle-class kids started being drafted and then suddenly it became a mainstream issue.
"But at least there was an agenda being sold -- people believed they were fighting Communism," he adds. "But with this [Iraq] war, what [the government] has in mind is war without end. They want a permanent presence in the Middle East, but there are people over there who won't stand for it, so they're going to fight. . . . We'll lose a certain number of kids from every generation to this idea of occupying the Middle East, which is what we're doing."
Apart from his music, Earle airs some of his views in his show "The Revolution Starts Now" on Air America, the liberal radio network that also boasts Al Franken and Janeane Garofalo. "It's in 30 markets now, but where most people hear it is on their computers," says Earle, who is on Sunday nights at 11 on WXKS-AM (1430).
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