On Jason Isbell’s new album The Nashville Sound, the songwriter does not shy away from politics. It’s a move many prominent Nashville songwriters avoid in order to not alienate their audiences.
On the eve of Father’s Day Weekend, Isbell tells WPLN’s Jason Moon Wilkins that he feels it’s his duty as a dad to be brave for his daughter:
“I think a lot of people ignore it (politics) when they’re making records ’cause they’re like ‘I don’t want to get involved,’ you know. ‘I don’t want my audience to get offended. I got a family to support.’
“Well, I understand that but there’s more to supporting to somebody than just hoarding as much money as possible and selling as many records as you can.
“I think supporting my daughter means being the person that she will one day accept into her life. She’s always going to love her father — for better or worse — I think it’s my opportunity to be not the example for her, I think that’s probably more her mother’s job, but however I behave is going to be really OK by her in a lot of ways for a long time.
“If that’s something she has to deal with and get over, she probably will as an adult, but for a good long while there my behavior is going to be the line of what she will tolerate in a man.
“For me to do that, I think I need to be who I would want to see her with in a lot of ways. So I gotta speak up man. I gotta speak up. Whether it pisses people off or not, I gotta speak up.”
Jason Isbell’s album
The Nashville Sound was released June 16, two days before Father’s Day.
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