A Conversation with Jules Shear (continued)

PM: Are you finding or making time to read? Is that part of your lifestyle?

JS: Yeah, it kind of is. Yeah, but I've been--I don't know, kind of dissatisfied with what I've been reading. I'll show you.

PM: The artist rises to grab his book.

JS: Yeah, I was thinking about this, actually, Tobacco Road by Erskine Caldwell, because--

PM: Wow. What's that?

JS: Well, Erskine Caldwell was a southern writer--it's real southern. And it's really good, but it can get you a little depressed, I suppose. It's about poor folks. I'm living in the South now, and that might have pointed me toward it.

PM: You are? Where you living?

JS: Yeah, I live in Asheville, North Carolina.

PM: Oh, wow. That's a favorite town of mine. A bit of a hippie town.

JS: [laughs] Yeah, it can be.

PM: That works for me.

[laughter]

PM: So how long have you been there?

JS: A year and a half, year and three quarters, something like that.

PM: And what brought you down there?

JS: Well, I'll tell you, I was living in Woodstock for a long time, and I thought, "I got to get out of here, man."

PM: Yeah.

JS: "I got to do something else." So I thought, well, I'd move to the West Coast, but I didn't want to move to Los Angeles, exactly. I thought, well, I'll try Ojai. I went to Ojai, and I stayed there for like seven or eight months, and that was it. I'd had it.

PM: Yeah. I saw Krishnamurti speak there one time.

JS: Oh, yeah, that'd be right.

PM: Yeah, that was pretty cool.

[laughter]

JS: And I thought, nah, nah, nah, I'm not going to live here. And I'd spoke to somebody who was a manager who lives in New York now, but who had lived in Asheville. And she said, "You should try Asheville. You should just go there and see if you like it."

PM: Wow.

JS: And I thought, "I've never been there, never in my life." So I rented a house on the web and just started living there. And after a year, I then sort of had the town scoped out a little more where I could find a place I liked, and I did. That's where I'm living now.

PM: So have you chummed up with any of the songwriter types down there, or the musicians down there?

JS: No. I've been--well, yeah, a few, actually, a very few, I'd say--not really too many. There's a guitar player named Tyler Ramsey. And Tyler is a really good guitar player, and he's a really nice guy.

PM: Is he kind of young?

JS: Younger than me, but I wouldn't call him particularly young. But he's a really good guitar player. And who knew he could write songs as well? And he's got an album himself, and it's a really nice album, indie record. But he's a really good guy. I don't know too many people, because I stay at my house, I write songs, I go to the store.

PM: Right.

JS: When I have to go outside of Asheville for anything, I realize, "Whoa! I'm in the South!"

PM: Yeah.

[laughter]

JS: And when I'm in Asheville I don't really think about it.

PM: Yeah, Nashville is the same way. You go outside Nashville, you get it right quick. All of a sudden, wow, that truck is loud.

[laughter]

PM: Is there a place you like to get away? When you want to get away, where do you go?

JS: Well, where I've been going is New York or L.A., actually, so I can get a little of the real city life.    continue

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