“What made Waylon different than just about anyone else of that era was that it was kind of the Country equivalent of Riff Rock — everything was built along a strong Country guitar line, which Waylon played himself,” Earle says by phone from a tour stop in Texas. “That’s kind of what I tried to do in writing most of these songs.”
The title track opens with Earle playing a loose riff on the back pickup of a Fender Telecaster, employing the same low guitar tone Jennings favored in his 1970s Outlaw Country heyday. The second song, “Lookin’ for a Woman,” seems to overtly tackle the breakup of his marriage with singer Allison Moorer, who, according to an interview Earle did recently with The Guardian, left him “for a younger, skinnier, less talented singer/songwriter.”
So You Wannabe an Outlaw toggles back and forth between these two poles — from Telecaster-driven Country rockers like the rollicking “Fixin’ to Die” and more pensive tunes about heartbreak and loss like “The Girl on the Mountain.” In fact, ironically for a guy who has never shied away from controversial hot-button topics, the new album is Earle’s least political to date.
“We started less than a month after the election,” Earle says. “I thought about banging together some songs that dealt with that, but then it was like, ‘You know what, let this record be what it is.’ Musically, it’s a look back, but also the future of this band and what we’re going to be doing for the foreseeable future. I kind of think we have one of the best Country Rock bands that’s ever existed.
“So the next record is probably going to be just as Country as this one, and waaaay more political.”
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