The Tim “Napalm” Stegall Substack Interview: Jesse Dayton, The Conclusion
Our epic chat with the Austin country/rock/blues maverick comes to a complete stop (for now) with a discussion of Nashville sugar shaker songs and how greed is killing everything.
Sadly, Napalm Nation, this installment concludes the epic conversation with Jesse Dayton conducted August 2, 2023, which we began serializing here at The ‘Stack December 20, 2023. As detailed in Part Three, he has a stack of records coming out over the next few months, with the Shooter Jennings-produced The Hard Way Blues arriving May 31st.
But as emphasized in Part Four, we did not have this conversation to promote anything. We did it because he had a lot on his mind. Which he always does. Yes, along the way, we discussed what was then his focus, the blues album he did with Samantha Fish, Death Wish Blues, which damned near won them a Grammy. But we did this simply because he wanted to. The music business has become so centered on promotion, squeezing out the last dollar from fans, then paying artists pennies, even fractions of pennies. In the day, Creem never needed an album release to find a reason to talk to any artist they wanted to. Sometimes, it’s just good to talk.
So, Jesse and I talked, as the recorder ran. And it’s been fun. Thank you for this, Jesse. We begin the end with country music’s biggest problem nowadays….
TIM: The sound that I keep referring to is hick hop.
JESSE: Yeah, it's terrible. God, I can't look the other way. I can't, I can't, I don't spend a lot of time thinking about it, but when I do think about it, I kind of laugh and think it's silly.
TIM: How can anyone take seriously all those fucking songs about sugar shakers?!
JESSE: Oh, my god! Yeah! Hip hop has taken a huge portion of the market share. Now it's become something completely different. But when the first gangsta rap came out, they were all sampling records that we grew up on. So there was some familiarity there, Biggie and Tupac and all the Dr. Dre stuff. I mean, it was all those great songs. Plus, they were saying things that really, legitimately scared the shit out of parents. Which is always a great thing, man. It's the way we keep our checks and balances on authority.
Greed is really hurting our country. And it permeated everything. It's taken over our movies, our music, definitely our government. And it's all about these huge, big, unregulated corporations. I got a new single coming out in September called “Talking Company Man Blues.” And it's a real funky kind of ‘70s Dylan thing. But it's about all this. And my problem has always been more about the corporations first and the government second. That's where I differ with a lot of my friends and fans, because it's just very obvious who owns who. They should make these politicians like race car drivers, where we see everything. All the dark money that they've gotten, we could just see it, like patches on their suits.
TIM: That would be fantastic!
JESSE: And there's no political equivalent to that. It's a false equivalency if you disagree. It just is the way it is, and it doesn't matter if it's the most far right. I mean, it’s all of them to a certain degree. I mean, Bernie wears hundred dollar seersucker suits. He inherited some money from his wife's father. But he still has to operate within that system. So really, this is all systemic.
I'm hearing it in music, I'm hearing it in everything. It's kind of refreshing to see a grumpy Neil Young interview, and it's not dance-monkey-dance: “Yeah, sure! I'll do whatever you want to, as long as I can be famous!” You know what I mean? That kind of thing that permeates social media. And I'm glad that I grew up with people who were cautiously suspicious.
TIM: I had some artists turn down interviews for my book, because they didn’t have something to promote right now.
JESSE: It's crazy. I mean when I had my radio show, I won't say who, but I had people that I'd known a very long time who wouldn't come on the show. You know, I just never never would talk about culture wars or politics during interviews. I just think at some point, you can be as guarded as you want, but I think the people who are especially guarded are always not that bright. I think sometimes they're scared about what they're going to be asked and if they're going to look dumb or not. Because there's a lot that goes into this whole political publicity thing now. I'm sure his publicist has a little buzzer that she can buzz and it'll sting if he starts saying anything too logical. Anyway, it's a glorious thing to have real freedom, my friend, and I don't mean that in the silly way.
This Week at The Tim “Napalm” Stegall Substack: The new Rolling Stones singles box set, Austin’s Jefferson Trout, Bob Marley: One Love review!
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