Why Steve Earle Will Never Move Back To Texas

Texas music legend Steve Earle was raised in San Antonio but doesn’t want to live in Texas again.

By David Brown February 17, 2015 3:36 pm

On His New Blues Album Terraplane:

“It’s a component, it’s one of the components, the major components of rock and roll and folk music and everything that I do. You know, I’m going through a divorce so there was that component – it was a good time to write blues songs and I had a guitar player that can play this stuff – especially the electric stuff was more intimidating for me because the folkier, acoustic stuff I’ve been doing for a long time but, you know, there is no Los Angeles shuffle. There is no New York shuffle – there’s only a Chicago shuffle and Texas shuffle. And I knew Stevie Ray Vaughan and I know Jimmy Vaughan and the bar is really high if you come from where I come from and play some of the festivals I play and some of the places I play if you decide you’re going to make a blues fair on purpose.”

On Why He Doesn’t Ever Want to Live in Texas Again:

“No way, and I hope that doesn’t hurt anybodies feelings. I’ll always be a Texan, I’ll always be proud of that. I landed at the airport yesterday and I walked down headed for the rent cars and I looked up at that statue of Barbara Jordan – that’s the Texas that I left in 1974. And I’m not sure its that anymore. I need to walk out my front door and see a mixed-race, same-sex couple holding hands and not being afraid to do it to feel safe at this point in my life. I need to be some place where the cultures full of _. The reason Texas is so rich in singer-songwriters is because the culture is really rich here. So there is something going on there is no doubt about it but there’s some things in our DNA that I guess allowed this to happen eventually. But there had never been a Republican Governor in Texas when I left here – nobody could even imagine there ever being one.”

On Why He’ll Always be Steve Earle:

“I’m still going to be Steve Earle just because I live, I’m going to go there and I’m going to do what I do and I’m gonna be at the center of the universe doing it instead of being here and this was a different place I watched. I went from getting my a** kicked constantly just because I had long hair and cowboy boots to standing in a cow pasture with the same guys that used to kick my a** and listening to Willie Nelson. So this was hated for being Southern California with way better food as far as I knew. So I just didn’t, you know, and then something happened and there were friends of mine that stayed that blamed it on me but I reached that point in my life where I no longer think I’m anywhere near that powerful.”

This story was prepared with assistance by Victoria Garcia.