Dale Watson keeps alive a sound that doesn’t fit into what is called country music today
Q. You’ve taken to using the term Ameripolitan to describe your music. What do you mean by that?
A. The reason I use it is to separate myself from what is called country music today, because I don’t fit in their category or any of their subcategories. For people that like the kind of music I do, it’s very misleading [to call it country]. And it also misleads the people that like the new country music; they hear the word “country’’ and come out and hear us, they’re not going to like what we do. They’re expecting something different.
Q. So it’s kind of truth in advertising on your part.
A. Exactly. I tried to think of a name that really didn’t mean anything in particular. If you heard it, you wouldn’t have a connotation in your head, anything that would connect it to what country music is today. If you hear Ameripolitan, you know what you’re getting. It’s original music with prominent roots influence. Alison Krauss is a good example; you can hear her roots, you know exactly where she came from. The same with Dwight Yoakam. John Anderson, you can hear the Lefty [Frizzell] in him.
Q. How would you say that your music has changed over the course of your musical career, or has it?
A. Oh, sure, it has. I’ve grabbed some influences along the way that probably weren’t there to begin with. You’re meeting people and hearing their music, too. I think you can’t exist in this world without being influenced by something that’s out there. The acts I play with, I’ll hear somebody that’s doing a real beautiful song and I’m influenced by that; I take that with me and somehow it seeps into my music later, I’m sure. I’m not doing a retro thing that just focuses on one era of music and stays there and doesn’t want to grow. Ameripolitan is brand-new music. I’m doing original songs about contemporary subjects and life now.
Q. Your recent record, “From the Cradle to the Grave,’’ was recorded in an interesting venue. Where was that, and how did it come about?
A. Johnny Knoxville owns this log cabin that used to belong to Johnny Cash. And Johnny [Knoxville] had been telling me, “You need to go up there and hang out, write some songs and record them.’’ I was just getting back into things after taking a seven-month break, and I called the band and had them meet me up there at the log cabin, and called Knoxville and said I was going to take him up on his offer. So I asked him what kind of studio was up there, and he says, “Oh, no, there’s no studio up there, just a cabin.’’ So we ended up recording with a laptop. I spent the first three days up there writing the songs and the next two days recording them. And when I first started writing I thought well, every song I’m writing has got a “boom-chick’’ to it, that train thing that Johnny Cash had, and I tried to not write like that. And then I realized, why was I fighting it? Because the spirit of Johnny was definitely in that cabin. So I just decided not to fight it. I was in a cabin that Johnny Cash spent a lot of time in. What would I come up there to write - Texas shuffles?
Q. If you had to name the two or three artists who are at the top of your list of musical heroes, who would you pick?
A. I would say Johnny Cash, Merle Haggard, and Hank Williams, because they write and sing their own stuff. I would have thought about putting Ray Price in there as a singer, but if I were to have just three to take it would be those three.
