from MAKING scratch ART
Singer-songwriter gains new clarity as his music tells us who he really is
Jason Isbell’s life is full of clarity.
That is a direct result of being sober for the past six years and making a commitment to focus more on his career.
And it’s paying off.
In the past two years, Isbell has picked up four Grammy Awards — two in 2016 and two in 2018 — for songs and albums he’s released with his band The 400 Unit.
“It’s still very surreal,” he says. “You work for so long with no one paying attention to your music. Then all of a sudden, people are listening and your wildest dreams are coming true. I’d always hoped that people were listening to the music. I always wondered if we were going to have more than 100 people at our shows. It’s changed in the best of ways for me.”
Isbell and the 400 Unit recently got back from touring in Australia.
They are heading out on a tour that brings them to Albuquerque for a stop at Popejoy Hall on Wednesday, April 25.
Isbell is currently touring in support of the Grammy-winning album “The Nashville Sound.”
On the album, Isbell tackles the everyday human condition, including themes of privilege, longing, nostalgia, love and mortality, and finding hope, with a thoughtful, heartfelt and sometimes brutal honesty.
And he’s happy with the direction his life and career.
“I think the biggest deal for me is having a lot of input and paying attention to people around me,” he says. “I’ve listened to different kinds of writing and I do a lot of editing. I make sure that no matter what I do, whether it’s time spent writing or time with my family, I want it all to be quality time.”
Over the course of the past five years, Isbell’s profile as a songwriter has risen dramatically.
He’s often being compared to many of the great songwriters, yet he keeps it all in stride.
“I think most of my challenges now are creative challenges,” he says. “I’ve held back songs not to questions of personal challenge, but I’ve held them because they aren’t finished. Because the melody isn’t strong enough. If I feel afraid to reveal something about myself and that’s part of my job. I need to open myself up. The more of that I do, the more success that I’ll have as a songwriter. Three albums ago, that wasn’t the case. I don’t give myself rules anymore. Sometimes writing can be a little bit scary. If you want to move people with your music, then you have to tell them who you are. In my situation, I’m trying to make art from scratch.”