A Conversation with John Kruth (continued)

PM: Did you find with this tough Texas crowd that not only being a Yankee but a New York City journalist was like an ever-recurring hurdle on the track?

JK: Yeah, pretty much. But also being a musician broke down an awful lot of barriers. I thought that maybe that would have broke down a wall with me and Guy. But you know what happened in the book, because he comes downstairs, and I'm playing his guitar, and he's like, "All right. So now you're a musician." It's like, "Hey, I've been a musician all my life, man."

PM: Oh, no, I understand. Guy was the toughest interview I ever did. Of all the hundreds of interviews I've done, he was the hardest and the least gratifying, really.

JK: Yeah. Well, I can't say that it wasn't gratifying in a sick way.

[laughter]

JK: I knew that I got a story. When you're a journalist, when you're writing, you want a story.

PM: Yeah, you can't get the story about Townes without talking to Guy Clark, no way.

JK: Yeah, so those are the ones that come to mind. Fran, his first wife, was a fantastic interview. And J.T. and I became pretty good friends, though J.T. is always a guarded character--because so many people have attached themselves to Townes, to try to get famous through him. And he's got his own relationship with his father, and I tried to respect that as much as possible in the book. And I think that J.T. actually comes off as one of the few real voices of reason in the book. I would say that Darryl Harris and Rodney Crowell and J.T. were like the most reasonable voices in the book--and Fran, his first wife. Other than that, I think most people were too emotionally invested in Townes one way or the other.

So it's been great. It's been opening more doors for me as a writer. I've got a couple different projects that I'm working on right now. But I'm absolutely positive it's not going to be another biography, that's for sure.

PM: How long did this one take to write?

JK: Well, I started it right when the towers came down. I'd say it took about five years. But I did quit at one point because I was just too fed up. I was fed up with dealing with all these crazy people.

PM: I can believe it.

JK: I got to tell you that I met some really wonderful people. And look, I enjoy hanging out with the crazies, too. It makes a good story. But at the same point--and I didn't have an advance, I just did this out of my own pocket, driving down to Austin, and down to Nashville, a couple of times for each, at least. And I loved how one of the reviewers said if I'd ever spent any time in Texas then at least I'd know what I was talking about. But maybe they don't consider Austin to be Texas. I don't know. But I sure did spend some time down in Houston, too--and Galveston, that was great. I went to Rex's annual--

PM: The wake.

JK: Right, the wake. I was doing this all out of my own pocket. I had no advance on the book. So at one point I just sort of had to quit and go back to just getting my life together, because it takes over your life. You mortgage your life for a project like that.

PM: For instance, since readers have no way to know, describe a little what else was going on in your life as you worked on this book. I mean, you had jobs, you had gigs, you made records--

JK: Well, my mother died while I was making this book, too. And that was a plane crash in slow motion; over a four-year period, I was taking care of my mother. So it was a very bizarre time around the time of 9/11, because my mom was dying, the towers came down, I'm listening to Townes. [laughs]

Townes had a fantastic sense of humor; I love what Eric Anderson says in there about how when a new Leonard Cohen record would come out, they would sit down and listen to it together. And like Rolling Stone used to judge new albums with up to five stars, they would give this song or that song ten razor blades. I love that. It's like the only way to be able to fight the darkness is with that kind of humor.

So yeah, my mother died in that time period. I started teaching school. And on top of it, of course, I'm making records and going out and gigging as much as I can, trying to keep that aspect alive. And touring is not what it used to be. The club scene is so tough--CBGBs is gone in New York, the Bottom Line is gone in New York. Tonic just closed. Gas costs more than ever. And old clubs close. If you don't go out and play a city for five years, nobody remembers who the hell you are.

PM: Yeah.

JK: So I mean, I'm working on my ninth album right now. My eighth album just came out in December of 2006, and right before the book came out in March 2007.

PM: It's a shame that that eighth release, which I want to talk about now, probably got somewhat eclipsed by the book.

JK: It really did. I mean, that happened once before, years ago, when the Rahsaan book came out, I had an album called Last Year Was a Great Day, which Gadfly Records put out. And yeah, I got schmeered. It was like all the attention went to the book because it's a much larger work, and a more important work, and Rahsaan is infinitely better known than I am. It might appear at the bottom of the piece--"by the way, John Kruth has a new CD out." [laughs]

Here's the thing, Frank--in 1995 I wound up in intensive care with tubes coming in and out of my body, and I had a hyper thyroid. And I was laying in the ICU for five days. I went down to 118 pounds, and I laid there. And I said to the universe, "Okay, here's my deal. I will no longer just be the curator of the John Kruth museum. If I can live through this, I will serve others."

And I've been serving others ever since. I still keep my own thing going, but I've been serving others ever since.

PM: Ahh.

JK: And that was my deal with the universe, because I wasn't so sure I was getting out of the ICU in 1995 there.

PM: Well, that was a good deal to cut.

JK: It just seemed like that was what came to me at that point, was that I had to start serving others instead of being--let's face it, some of us artists can be rather self centered.

PM: Exactly. And when you run into artists that are not, it's truly amazing, because it's not just a characteristic, it's a huge problem among artists, megalomania.

JK: Oh, yeah.

PM: It's the thing that makes big people small.

JK: Beautifully put. Another thing I want to mention, too, is Imagine No Handguns, which started back in Milwaukee with a transplant to Nashville for many years. And your Nashville readers will know all about this.

PM: John Sieger, sure.

JK: John Sieger and I used to play at Imagine No Handguns in the very beginning when it first started in Milwaukee. I mean, I had been held up at gunpoint right around the same time. I think what happened was that Sieger's neighbor's son was playing with a gun and shot his brother. And I think that's how it all began. But I was asked to play at the first one. And then when I moved back to New York in '96, and I eventually became friends with Bob Holman over at the Bowery Poetry Club, he asked me if I had any ideas for big shows. And I said, "Yeah, this is what we used to do in Milwaukee." So I think around 2001, that was the first one that I did in New York. I started doing Imagine No Handguns, producing shows to raise money for our fair city, to try to get rid of a couple of pistols and raise a little consciousness.

PM: Yeah, that's a city of a few pistols.

JK: Yeah. And I've had some really wonderful people involved in it, all down the line--Mark Ribot and Steve Ture, the jazz trombone player, and Lenny Kaye, and Gordon Gano from Violent Femmes, and Steve Bernstein the great trumpet player. I'd have for go back and look at the list, but it's really been something.

PM: Absolutely, yeah.

JK: So I've been doing that one. I found that, in order for me to pay my rent on the plant now, my deal with the universe is that I'm not just going to make John Kruth records and write John Kruth stories and write my poetry and stuff. That's where I really started to feel like I have to start working on a grander scale. And I am an educator, I am a teacher. And at gigs for years I've always talked about Roland Kirk or Bill Monroe or Townes Van Zandt. So this is just another step in all of that.   continue

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