Americana star Jason Isbell on sobriety, social media and Trump: ‘I can handle stupid rednecks but I don’t want Nazis’
Just months ago, Jason Isbell’s mouth was a battlefield of dental dysfunction. Of course, the multi-Grammy winner’s naturally crooked grin always seemed more or less in keeping with the unvarnished look of a hard-living Americana star from rural Alabama. But after a 15-hour stint in the dentist’s chair to treat bone loss and severe infection, Isbell’s smile has been rebuilt. It’s picturebook: straight and white.
Isbell may not be a household name but he is a songwriter of great depth and intelligence. Blending country, folk, roots and rock, his music is soulful and alive, with deceptively sophisticated lyrics about addicts, runaways, lovers and outsiders. Naturally, his vignettes of the American working class have seen him compared to Bruce Springsteen, though his quieter songs bear the traces of one of his late mentors, the master American songwriter John Prine. On Sunday night, Isbell’s latest album, Weathervanes – recorded with his band the 400 Unit – is up for three Grammys (Best Americana Album, Best Americana Performance, and Best American Roots Song).
I’m meeting him in the green room of London’s Cadogan Hall, a couple of hours before he’s. He’s known as one of the genre’s more outspoken figures for a reason.
