Steve Earle, Praises/Defends Colter Wall, Slams Richard Buckner in Crazy Interview
Man, where has this Steve Earle been for the last 10, 15 years or so? He’s releasing his new album So You Wannabe an Outlaw? on June 16th (streaming on NPR) that’s unabashedly inspired by Waylon Jennings and the other original country music Outlaws, and will also feature appearances by Willie Nelson, Miranda Lambert, and original “Whiskey River” writer, Johnny Bush, and apparently the 62-year-old is feeling salty as he reignites his Outlaw spirit.
In what starts off to be a rather innocuous local interview with a reporter in in Canada after a show in Toronto, Steve Earle begins by highly praising Canada’s own Colter Wall. Then when reporter Brad Wheeler question’s Colter’s legitimacy, sparks fly, and poor Richard Buckner gets pulled into the melee.
“You’ve got a great Canadian fan base,” reporter Brad Wheeler asks. “Do you keep an eye on the music coming out of here?”
“The best singer-songwriter I’ve come across in years is a Canadian. His name is Colter Wall,” Steve Earle explains. “He’s from Saskatchewan, and he’s incredible. His songs are stunning. He’s been listening to the right stuff, and he gets it.”
“I haven’t heard his new album yet, but I heard him described as ‘bad Richard Buckner,'” the reporter replies.
This is when things got real.
“Richard Buckner sucks,” Steve Earle responds unabashedly. “Richard Buckner is the most overrated songwriter in the history of songwriting ever. Girls liked him, because he stared at his feet. He’s a neanderthal. I know Buckner. He can’t write his way out of a wet paper bag. Richard Buckner was nothing but a painfully alternative hipster’s darling.”
So there’s that.
Steve Earle also accurately points out in the interview that being a country music Outlaw was never just about dressing in leather and doing drugs, but about wrestling for creative freedom of your music.
“I see disturbing things when people try to define what outlaw music is. Outlaw music is a term like rockabilly that I don’t think was actually used at the time. Somebody in retrospect came up with that term. It wasn’t about the drugs we were taking and the trouble we were getting into back then. It was about artistic freedom.”
Anyway, it’s pretty unusual to see an artist these days laud someone as glowingly as Steve Earle did Colter Wall, or take someone to the woodshed like he did Richard Buckner, and appeared to be something a greater spotlight needed to be shined on. And good on the reporter Brad Wheeler for having the guts to post it. Meanwhile Richard Buckner is in some coffee shop in Brooklyn wondering what the hell he did to piss off Steve Earle.
The apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree when it comes to the Earle clan. Earlier this year, Steve son Justin Townes Earle twisted off on Bro-Country, saying, “I cannot stand that fucking shit. That is the most bullshit idea of country music you could ever come up with. I mean that is just the worst kind of shit imaginable. If you think that shit is country you can kiss my genuine Tennessee ass.”
May the Outlaws rise again.
June 9, 2017 @ 8:38 am
Seriously. I try saying this all the time. Outlaws were called that because they wanted to do what they wanted to do, not what they were told to do. Anyone who thinks Outlaw country is about doing drugs *cough*LukeBryan*cough* is an idiot.
June 9, 2017 @ 9:12 am
So a self described communist slams a Canadian songwriter..OOHHooOOOOooohOOO we got ourselves a REAL OUTLAW here!!
June 9, 2017 @ 12:48 pm
I don’t think you can call Bruckner a Canadian songwriter. He lived in Edmonton, I believe, for a few years but was born in California. That makes him an American in my books.
February 4, 2019 @ 2:29 am
He’s a socialist, not a communist & he lauded a Canadian artist, Wall, & vilified an american artist, Buckner.
February 18, 2020 @ 10:00 pm
I saw a guy walking down Decatur St. tonight, wearing a Steve Earl t-shirt. The logo was a red skull superimposed on a Soviet hammer and sickle. The Khmer Rouge used the same hammer and sickle on their flag. Stalin…Pol Pot…some heroes ya got there, Steve. Been a fan since the 90s, but Steve is apparently a total nut job, which isn’t always a bad thing, but combine that with being a poor student of history and/or a genocidal maniac and I have a problem with you. For the record, being too dumb to avoid jail for petty drug charges, political aspects of the Drug War ™ notwithstanding, doesn’t make you an expert on Communism, or an outlaw.
June 9, 2017 @ 9:36 am
Those God damn Earle boys, always up to somethin. Seriously though, I can’t wait for the new album.
June 9, 2017 @ 9:47 am
Steve is a brilliant writer and I’m happy to see him get back to the sound we all fell in love with from his Guitar Town era. This is the music I wish he had done more of, although I will say his other work is quite good. Guitar Town, The Hard Way and Copperhead Road are my favs. True, he has a unique affinity for angering folks with his radical views on the world but I can separate it, put it in context and find enjoyment in his lyricism and melodies. I’ve said it before, I don’t look to artists in music to guide my decisions and world views. I just appreciate their music!
I saw Colter Wall open for Dale and Ray this year. My take is he’s a good picker, writes interesting songs but his voice is a bit weird to say the least. The live experience with him is way different from playing his recordings.Still willing to see if he will grow on me…
June 9, 2017 @ 10:17 am
I just heard Colter Wall on You Tube he’s really good and probably more country than Luke “skinnyjeans” will ever be.
June 9, 2017 @ 10:19 am
This won’t be the last juicy quote you get from SE in the next few weeks. WBR is really pushing this album, promotions-wise, and Earle seems more open to interviews than he has been in years.
June 9, 2017 @ 2:38 pm
He has always done a lot of interviews. He likes to talk… but Warner is definitely doing more promotion than New West.
Not sure what is up with his slam of Bruckner (sounds personal and rather unusual for him), but he has been praising Wall a lot.
June 9, 2017 @ 10:34 am
very excited for his new record. the new Earle song “Fixin To Die” is on Spotify and Youtube and it is insanely good.
June 9, 2017 @ 2:38 pm
Reminds me of his cover of Breed.
June 9, 2017 @ 10:58 am
Just saw Colter Wall open for Jamestown Revival and he put on a great show. The concert was very well attended on a weeknight and the venue was packed to see him open. After he finished, JR had a nice set but being honest, it seemed more had come to see Colter. I met him after the show and he seemed to be a good guy.
Earle’s new record is going to be good, I am looking forward to it.
As for the Outlaw term, I think even Waylon thought it was an overblown marketing term to create an image. In reality, it seemed to mean someone who disn’t want a big label telling them to churn out the same ole formulaic music. The marketing image made them out to be like rock and roll rebels trashing hotels and doing drugs and it sold well obviously.
June 9, 2017 @ 12:08 pm
“Good on the reporter” for asking a confrontational question based on a second-hand, ill-informed observation and thereby needlessly dragging Richard Buckner into a position where Earle almost had to say something negative about him?
Hard disagree there.
June 9, 2017 @ 12:27 pm
Earle didn’t “have” to say anything negative about Buckner.
He chose to, because he’s a dick…which is why we love him.
June 9, 2017 @ 12:33 pm
Yeah, perhaps not as artfully phrased as it could have been on my part. But Earle is clearly trying to promote Colter Wall’s music, and the reporter responds (basically), “I heard Colter Wall isn’t as good as Richard Buckner.” Which is second-hand, irrelevant, and puts Earle on the defensive with regard to his opinion. I guess he could’ve said, “Well, I disagree with that.” But where’s the fun in that?
If he’d heard the record himself, I might feel differently. Personally, I like all three artists involved. And I don’t think Colter Wall sounds anything like Richard Buckner.
June 22, 2017 @ 5:07 am
Speak for yourself. I don’t love Steve Earle “because he’s a dick”, I love his songwriting, singing, and delivery. And we love that he speaks his mind, but that doesn’t mean he gets to spout off like a dick. This is the same stupid logic that got us Trump. (Oops, I brought politics into this. What a dick….)
June 9, 2017 @ 1:05 pm
I didn’t say, “Good on the reporter for asking a confrontational question.”
What I said was, and verbatim, “Good on the reporter Brad Wheeler for having the guts to post it.”
What I mean by that is he asked a confrontational question, had it swatted back in his face, and despite making him look a little bit foolish, decided to post the exchange anyway because he knew he’d unearthed gold, however accidentally.
And by the way, I’ve got no problem with Richard Buckner. That’s not why I posted this. I posted it because the whole exchange seemed crazy and newsworthy.
June 9, 2017 @ 1:15 pm
And now I clicked the wrong “reply” link. Here we go:
I wanted to make that amendment as soon as I posted the comment, honestly. Would’ve edited if I could. This was by no means intended as a criticism of your post. I agree that it’s noteworthy. Should’ve confined my criticism to the reporter’s question. Apologies.
June 9, 2017 @ 1:27 pm
No worries. It definitely was a strange thing for a Canadian music journalist to throw in a random dig at Colter Wall.
June 12, 2017 @ 2:37 pm
Nate and Trigger’s exchange here is #PeakCanadian. If you are not, in fact, both Canadian, shhhh, don’t tell us.
June 9, 2017 @ 12:29 pm
I gotta say, my favorite part of the interview was the very end:
“Painfully alternative hipster’s darling, you say about Buckner. Can you explain that?
I don’t want to be a part of a culture that defines itself by what it hates. I can’t stand alternativism. I mean, I hate disco, but I have to admit there’s been some great art coming out of dance music.
But out of hate and alternativism comes great art. Punk rock, as a reaction to disco, for example.
Sure. But the stuff that’s great in punk rock are the songs. The songs hold up. The stuff lasts. Nirvana’s not Nirvana because of punk rock. Nirvana’s not Nirvana because it was different than hair metal. Nirvana is Nirvana because Kurt Cobain was a world-class songwriter. It’s always the songs.”
June 9, 2017 @ 1:14 pm
I wanted to make that amendment as soon as I posted the comment, honestly. Would’ve edited if I could. This was by no means intended as a criticism of your post. I agree that it’s noteworthy. Should’ve confined my criticism to the reporter’s question. Apologies.
June 9, 2017 @ 12:48 pm
That’s some outlaw sh$t, slam a songwriter that’s probably working week to week. Maybe Buckner needs to get some of that Treme money. The last time I went to Buckner show, and I am a fan, there weren’t many hipsters there, primarily 40 and 50 year olds. Justin on the other hand, who is incredibly overrated, gets all of the hipsters with that name alone.
June 9, 2017 @ 1:05 pm
Don’t y’all think this outlaw bits done got out of hand? Sorry, couldn’t resist. Earle’s comments seemed uncalled for and mean-spirited. If you don’t care for Bucknell, a simple, “not my thing,” would have sufficed. I think Earle is a really talented musician and songwriter, but I tend to avoid his interviews and radio show, even though he plays some great music, because he just seems like an opinionated blowhard.
June 9, 2017 @ 2:43 pm
If you actually read what he has been saying about the album, he his whole point is that the outlaw idea is “out of hand”. and what it was really about is artistic freedom.
And I read a lot of his interviews. This kind of negativity to another artist is rare for him. I thinkhe got irritated by the reporter.
June 9, 2017 @ 1:40 pm
Drugs aren’t a defining trait of outlawism, but I’d like to know what their effect has been on Steve Earle’s brain chemistry.
June 9, 2017 @ 2:47 pm
“Steve Earle also accurately points out in the interview that being a country music Outlaw was never just about dressing in leather and doing drugs, but about wrestling for creative freedom of your music.”
He doesn’t say it was not “just” about drugs and getting in trouble… he says it wasn’t about that, period.
June 9, 2017 @ 7:36 pm
Oh I saw JTE in a small club where I live in Valdosta, GA (same club from the infamous Kip Moore “scandal” Trigger posted about, Ashley Street Station; locally called ASS) and Earle told the crowd that he and his girl at the time had recent “threats” and that if anyone approached him in the parking lot for photos, autographs, etc that he was basically going to pull out his .45 or 9mm that he traveled with. And he seemed pretty damn serious.
June 9, 2017 @ 7:58 pm
not that it matters at all…but i wonder if steve knows about colters dad…robbing the good folks of Saskatchewan.
June 10, 2017 @ 6:18 pm
Colter Wall’s old man is a thief and a bigot
June 9, 2017 @ 8:13 pm
“Where has Steve Earle been the last 10, 15 years?”
Being a hyper-political, self-important douchebag, mostly. Moving from Nashville to New York to keep from getting pummeled by a man whose woman he stole. Lecturing. And I mean, lecturing every time somebody asks him a question.
Hosting a show on Sirius/XM 60 where he talks the whole time, and interrupts the guests he has on so he can talk about himself some more.
“Guitar Town” changed my life, and Steve Earle inspired me to learn the guitar. He was the first songwriter to sign my guitar (in Jackson, Mississippi in 2000, on the Transcendental Blues tour. Got to go on his bus. Walked on air for a week.) And he’s just an asshole.
I’ll say this, though: Having listened to an advance copy of “So You Want to be an Outlaw,” It’s by far the best record he’s done since “The Mountain” with the Del McCoury Band. It’s a great country album, free of his noxious condescension and politics. Fabulous.
But what a dick. Opinions of Richard Buckner aside, why take that cheap shot? Why not be the bigger man and say “Yeah, whatever.”
What a dick.
June 13, 2017 @ 7:56 pm
Exactly. Buckner works a day job. Has to take time off to tour. Just retired a pickup truck with 600K miles on it. To say nothing of the amazing body of work he’s put together over the years. And he does all of this, to the best of my knowledge, without having to slag anybody else off. Earle’s contribution to music is unimpeachable, but success seems to have spoiled him. What a dick, indeed.
June 15, 2017 @ 11:51 am
I promise you, Buckner’s no angel.
June 9, 2017 @ 8:17 pm
Not a huge Richard Buckner fan, but the only Steve Earle album that can hang with “Devotion + Doubt” is “Guitar Town.”
June 10, 2017 @ 3:43 am
I’m not sure I’d put Guitar Town in Earle’s Top 3.
June 10, 2017 @ 7:18 am
I wouldn’t put it in my personal top 3 (mine would be the first three after he got out of prison) , but it’s a recognized classic.
June 11, 2017 @ 5:48 am
I have been listening to Guitar Town this morning. It still holds up well. I also remember seeing MTV playing the video for “Someday” Did MCA try to market Steve as the next Springsteen or Mellancamp while also promoting him to country radio? It was 13 or 14 when Guitar Town was released. It just grabbed me. I wasn’t into country music at all, but I loved that record and Guitars, Cadillacs, Etc., Etc. I don’t remember all the singles from it, but imagine “Goodbye’s All We’ve Got Left” on country radio. It was!! I am rambling here, saying that Guitar Town, IMO, is one of the most important records of the last 40-50 years.
June 9, 2017 @ 10:03 pm
Earle says no one used the term ‘outlaw’ at the time in connection to this music and that the term was invented in retrospect? I wasn’t around then but that surely cannot be true. For christ’s sake Waylon’s album ushering in this era was called “Ladies Love Outlaws” and the cover has him dressed up like a damn cowboy with a gun on his hip. Seems pretty on the nose.
The comments about Buckner are a shame. Of all the songwriters who don’t need or deserve the bad press. I saw him play a show in Houston in the lobby of a shitty new condo complex built for oil and gas ‘young professionals’ and about 4 people were there. No hipsters just some old die-hard Buckner heads. He was a super nice guy and played a great set anyway. I think he’s written some great songs over the years and his early albums did some pretty cool things sonically.
Last side-note, Lee Clayton (who wrote ‘Ladies Love Outlaws’) released some great solo albums in the 70s. I always wonder if anyone listens to them still.
June 10, 2017 @ 9:46 am
Immaturity on Earle’s part. A man his age resorts to that? Shameful, indeed.
June 12, 2017 @ 10:45 pm
RB is a super nice fellow. Respectful, thoughtful, intelligent, in the true sense.
June 10, 2017 @ 2:09 am
He is absolutely right they were fighting for Creative Control of their own music
Musical Revolution great to be alive.
June 10, 2017 @ 9:47 am
My least favorite part of the alternative country scene is the constant need to take swipes at other artists.
Also I tried to listen to the npr stream of the album and literally couldn’t understand half the words (at least) he was saying. If you’re going to write good lyrics….I want to be able to understand the words.
June 10, 2017 @ 11:21 pm
I’ve been eagerly awaiting this album for a while now. Especially song number 1. Heard Steve say in the live video that he’d probably have Willie Nelson singing the second verse. I just listened to the stream on NPR, and I gotta say…I love Willie Nelson, but he just ruined the song for me. His voice just doesn’t fit. That and the song seems overproduced, like there’s way too much going on. The live version sounded so much better.
June 11, 2017 @ 6:09 am
Yep. Because Willie Nelson has an awful voice. Always has.
June 11, 2017 @ 7:15 am
Which brings me to my next point: Don’t. Smoke. Crack……
June 11, 2017 @ 11:59 am
That’s not even remotely true. He just didn’t fit here in my opinion. Go listen to Red-Headed Stranger and tell me his voice is awful. Best album ever right there.
June 15, 2017 @ 11:54 am
It’s hard for anybody to sing with Willie. He’s not at all a conventional singer. The only people I recall doing it halfway well are Emmylou Harris and Sheryl Crown. He just sounds better a lone. Not a great voice but a great singer.
June 12, 2017 @ 10:07 am
The only time I ever met Steve Earle was at Richard Buckner show in San Francisco mid 90’s Mr Earle was there to try to convince Mr Buckner that he was the right guy to produce Richards next album . History shows that Mr Buckner passed on that offer .
June 12, 2017 @ 2:28 pm
For those who haven’t heard Richard Buckner, check out his album “Devotion And Doubt”. I believe its a masterpiece and have for many years. Ripping on someone else in a public forum is weak and if he’s such a badass he should say it to Richard’s face.
June 12, 2017 @ 10:48 pm
And Dickie B could take him down but would shake his head in exasperation and walk away.
June 14, 2017 @ 9:18 pm
Steve Earle and his son can kiss my American A$$.
June 15, 2017 @ 8:12 pm
I used to be a pretty big Earle fan, but the more I read, the more disgusted I am by his words. First off, his last strong record was 20 years ago (“El Corazon”). Since then it’s been spotty at best, awful at worst.
Of all the songwriters he goes after, it’s Richard Buckner? Buckner has an amazing catalog, superior to Earle’s, and if anything, he deserves a ton more credit from the masses, not the disdain of this washed up hack.
Steve: You made some great records. A long, long, long time ago. To trash others right now just make you look, in the words of our great leader, SAD!
June 22, 2017 @ 2:39 pm
Anybody that says Buckner can’t write songs is a fuckin’ idiot. Whoever said they love Steve Earle for being an asshole is an idiot too. It isn’t cool to be an asshole. What the fuck kind of world does that leave us with if we laud people for being shit-heads? Is that kind of person you want to be around? You can speak your mind without being a dick.
December 11, 2017 @ 1:10 pm
Richard Buckner sucks? Steve talking like a man with a wooden head.
April 22, 2019 @ 9:37 am
The biggest shame of this whole thing is that it manages to pit Buckner and Wall against each other in the reader’s mind – something that benefits neither the fans nor the brilliant artists.
I understand the reporter’s framing of his response less than I do Steve Earle’s.
Couple years late to this party, I know, but I started listening to Wall about 6 months ago and that led me here – so I’m reading old articles on a (great) independent review site instead of working.
April 25, 2019 @ 9:51 am
Colter Wall seems to be influenced heavily by Townes Van Zandt, maybe too much so. I would like to hear Earle, “The Outlaw”, rehash his relationship with Freakwater. I had a dream once that I was walking in the woods and I could hear the Carter family singing a Freakwater song. Then, in a clearing I saw AP Carter and Steve Earle. Earle was laying across a log with his pants to his ankles and AP Carter was fiercely beating him with a switch.
November 1, 2019 @ 10:01 pm
I had no idea who Richard Buckner was so I looked him up on YouTube… what a fuching assclown hippy. Who the fuch would compare Colter Wall to him?
January 27, 2022 @ 1:34 pm
Richard Buckner is a much better songwriter than Steve Earle, and I’ll stand on Steve Earle’s coffee table in my Chuck Taylors and say that.
November 18, 2024 @ 12:33 am
I can’t believe I read through all these comments and not one person labeled Steve Earle as “Outlaw Country’s Steve Albini.”