mike lawson

Kris Kristofferson August 15th, 1995 Online Interview
From Gibson USA in Nashville, Tennessee
Interviewed by Mike Lawson, Gibson's Interactive Marketing Director
Moderated by Nancy Worthington, Justice Records
and brilliant technical support by The Gibson Web Guys
with questions from people online across the world

Moderator Welcome to the Kris Kristofferson online interview live from Gibson Guitar Corp. in Nashville. Today is the release of A Moment Of Forever, Kris' new album on Justice Records.

The online interview will follow the following rules:

• If a user wishes to speak, (s)he must present their question to the moderator. If the question is deemed suitable, then the user will be given a position in the queue.
• To present your question, send a message directly to the user named Moderator (using the /MSG command or its equivalent in your client).
• When a user's time has come the speak, (s)he will be notified by the moderator and given the floor to speak. Once the user has completed their question, the floor will be given to the next user in the queue.
• The moderator reserves the right to suspend any user from the conference for any reason.

The Video Portion of the live event will be sent over CU-See Me. 

ML The announcement has been made, lets have our first question. What amount of time do you spend writing songs?

KK About the same as always. I think I'm always writing. I think its running through my computer. I don't sit down and write regularly, but I feel like I'm writing all the time. I feel like I'll be doing it till I die. My brain just does that. Its the way that I think. Its the way that I sort out my experience and try to make sense of it. That's the best answer I can give. I'm writing more songs right now than I have been in several years. I find that Willie is too.

ML Do you guys write together?

KK No, I've never written together with Willie. He played me six new songs he wrote and they're the best things he's written since Angel Flying Too Close To The Ground. He's got one called Waiting For Ever, its classic. He's one of the best songwriters there ever was.

ML Do you think you'd like to write with him?

KK Well, I don't know that we'll ever write together. I don't co-write much and he doesn't co-write much. But I like to listen to him anytime.

damon@mail.eden.com What cd's and records are you currently listening to?

KK Bob Dylan's Unplugged, the one that has "John Brown" on it. Reminds me what a good picker he is,

ML He is. People don't give him enough credit

KK They just forget. He's such an action painter he does things differently every time he does it. Takes me back to those old kind of Woody Guthrie days, when he was playing harmonica. And John Prine, Neil Young. I've really not been listening to a whole lot lately because I've been working every day since May. Working every night. Stephen Bruton. Stephen played guitar with me for years. We did two of his songs in the Highwaymen. He's got two albums out of his own.

ashcraft@204.177.166.2 Do you still have ties to the Rio Grande Valley?

KK Yes I do. There's a woman named Juanita Cantu who was kind of my mother, who raised me. She and her daughter just came out and visited where I live in Maui to attend my oldest daughter's wedding a few weeks ago. I haven't been back to Brownsville for a long time. The last time I was there, I was a sophomore in high school and that was '56. But I love Brownsville. I wanted to go down there when, I just did a film on the Rio Grande with John Sayles up in Eagle Pass. But then I had to go on the road with the Highwaymen and I couldn't do it. But I'll be back, I'm like the Terminator.

Stoney In all your ramblings with the Highwaymen did you ever fool around with songwriting together? if you did how did it go?

KK We haven't really successfully written anything together. One time Willie and I started a song once and we got as far as "Hello, he lied." We didn't get much past that. The thing is the Highwaymen, Willie and Waylon and Johnny Cash are all such individual, loner types.

ML Really the Traveling Wilbury's of country isn't it.

KK Well, its such an odd thing to have. I remember when you couldn't get tours in the same arena. To have all four of us on the stage at the same time is kind of remarkable. Fortunately, they're the funniest people on the planet.

Gizmo@gizmos.demon.co.uk Any new films or does Kris just concentrate on music now?

KK I just did a film called Lone Star that was written and directed by John Sayles, whose work I respect. I got to play the part of a redneck racist sheriff. Real bad guy. That's why I shaved my beard. It was a great experience. Working with him was as much fun as working with Don Was.

Stoney What was it like working with Don Was? How would the album have been different without him?

KK The album would never have seen the light of day without him for openers. Don called me four years ago and asked me if I wanted to make a record. He liked my last album which few people even heard. It was in '90, it was called Third World Warrior. Well it got me dropped off the label. But Don liked it anyway. Don not only got the thing done, he had me write extra verses on five of the songs which I've never done before. That's like saying I should put another arm on my child, or another verse to "Bobbie McGee", but he was right in every case, it lifted the song up to another level. He's like a good director. He's like Alan Rudolph, or John Sayles, or Scorsese. He brings together people that they're there for the right reasons because they believe in what they're doing and they put their heart into it. They're not just out there clocking in. Even the technicians were listening to the words. When the drummer listens to the words you know you've done something.

Rivers Tell us how "Worth Fighting For" came about.

KK That was when I first started working with Danny Timms alone. Danny and Stephen Bruton and Glen Clark who were with my band went to work with Bonnie Raitt after I couldn't afford to keep working with the band. My manager said I had to go out like the Vietcong instead of the American Army. And so Danny called me up to say he was leaving Bonnie's band and we talked about going out together just the two of us. So he came out to my house out in Maui and we wood-shedded in there. He had the melody for that. We had written a couple of songs together on the album before, usually where he would do the melody and I would do the words. On "Worth Fighting For" the images were just, to me it was almost like "Bobbie McGee", that many years later. I guess it was kinda' like the way we were both feeling at the time. Are we anything like anything we used to be.

ML "Bobbie McGee" was such a big song. Everybody's done that thing from Janis, to the Dead.

KK I was laughing the other day when the Grateful Dead did it they sang "Freedom's just another word for nothing much to do." That's such a hippie thing. That's so Grateful Dead I couldn't believe it. "Nothing much to do."

Stoney How do you feel about the passing of Jerry Garcia?
ML Did you know him well?

KK Hit me right in the heart. No I didn't know him well. I had met him through Janis. To me, Jerry and the Grateful Dead were, I felt a real brotherhood with them because I felt like we were doing the same kind of music. They always seem to have a certain kind of integrity to truth, to faithfulness, to the music, to the people they were playing for and I love that. To me the 60's are being rewritten today by a lot of revisionist historians and conservative people who didn't like what happened in the '60s. And to me the '60s are the best thing to happen this country.

Axeman What is your most prized possession?

KK I'm not really into possessions. I guess it would have to be my old guitar, the one that everyone's written on. I'm not really too attached to much of the material things. The best things in my life are my kids, my wife, and things I don't own like the songs, they're just out there.

ML Was "Bobbie McGee" the first thing you had cut by someone else?

KK No I think, I had song cut when I first came to town here called "Vietnam Blues", but not another one for many years. Then I think old Roy Dreske cut "Jody And The Kid", then Farren Young cut "Your Time's Coming" then Jerry Lee did one that Shell Silverstein and I wrote. We wrote a couple of songs together, pretty good ones too. Waylon did one called "Take Her", then the one that I just mentioned that Farren did we wrote together, and the one that Jerry Lee did, which was dynamite, "Your Time's Coming", no, "Much More Of A Feeling". It was the first time that I ever heard someone take something and just transform it into something better than it was. Jerry Lee, what a man.

ML What was Janis like?

KK Janis was a lot of fun. Janis was a heartbreak close to the surface. She made you laugh a lot. She looked like a little girl running around the house in dress up clothes with feathers and a little heart tattooed on her chest and high heels, God bless her.

GizmoUK Does Kris use the net?
ML Do you use the Net?

KK No, I haven't used the Net since I started using the tightrope walk.

Danny Timms enters room.

Axeman How long have you been in show business?

KK I think I first was on stage at the Troubadour in June of 1970 and I haven't had to quit.

ML So twenty-five years as a performer. That's a long time.

KK You think I'd get good at it.

ML Do you enjoy writing more or performing more?

KK Well I wouldn't be doing either performing or acting if I weren't a writer, I don't believe. When I started to perform my own songs in 1970, I started getting offers to do films. I enjoy it and appreciate the craft. I hope I can continue to do it. But I'll never stop songwriting. As long as my brain's bubbling I imagine I'll be writing till I die, I hope. Its not something I can turn on or off. God knows what it is. I've come to really appreciate the craft of songwriting because if you're a sculptor or a painter or something you can do something, but people can't carry it around in their own brain like a song. A song becomes part of their consciousness and their emotions.

ML Are you going to perform in Nashville?

KK If they ever ask me to. I would love to. I had to leave town to get to work.

ML I want to know about this helicopter myth. Was Johnny home, was he not home, did June come out with a shotgun?

KK I'm not gonna' due to, I haven't got a clear enough memory to really dispute what either one of them says. I did land a helicopter there. I'd known them both for a year and a half before that I'd been a janitor at Columbia and I had already pitched them every song I'd ever wrote. But I did think that would be a novel way to get them to do something. In my memory he never cut the song that I brought him. John remembers it differently and by God I'll take his word for it. I landed an old National Guard helicopter there and I almost landed it on the roof. The house there was built around the cliff. Well it used to not have the second story and the lawn almost went over the top of the house, so I almost landed right on the house. I was lucky he didn't drop me out of the sky like a bird.

Axeman What did you do before you were in show business?

KK I went to high school and I held a lot of jobs in construction when I was working summertime in high school and college. I worked in California, Wake Island, Alaska. I was a firefighter, I was in the army for four and a half years. I was an Airborne Ranger. Then I went to flight school then did a three year tour in Germany. When I came to Nashville, I wanted to start at the bottom and learn what I was doing. And, fortunately that's where they wanted me to start. I got a job and worked for about a year and a half as a janitor at Columbia and then I was a bartender at the Tallyho Tavern. Then I went down to Louisiana and flew petroleum helicopters for PHI, out of Morgan City for almost two years working flying to the offshore oil rigs. I'd work a week there and then a week back here in Nashville trying to pitch the songs. It eventually caught up with me and they said I had to choose between my careers. I left that job April 15, 1969 and I never have had to work for anybody else since. Because Johnny Cash had a TV show up here that was really an important show. Bob Dylan was on the first one and all these people like Graham Nash and Joni Mitchell and Buffie St. Marie. All kinds of people who were coming through there we'd never seen before. Mickey Newbury and I hung out at the Ramada Inn where they were and just pitched songs and we became like their mascots. Before the show was over, John had cut "Sunday Morning Coming Down" on the show and Sammy Smith cut "Help Me Make It" and Roger from meeting me on the show did "Bobbie McGee", Roger Miller. Actually, he did three songs on that album and it was just like having Bob Dylan do it. He did "Darby's Castle" and "Best Of All Possible Worlds".

Rivers Where do you think country music will go from where it is now? Back to traditional country or farther pop?

KK I really never have been able to understand trends or what was popular. I could never have told you that singer-songwriters would go in and out of fashion. Or that country music would become what it has today, which is so highly marketable. If we had thought back even when Roger Miller was getting all those Grammies for being caught in country music, if country artist would be hitting the album charts like Garth Brooks and people like that, we would have been amazed.

ML Do you think it is more pop oriented now?

KK Of course it is. There's drums and strings and things that they didn't even have on the Opry, or didn't allow. That's good and bad. I think what will happen is the good stuff settles out. When I came here, there was a bunch of us who never had a song recorded, but we took it so seriously and respected it so much we just hoped that someday the rest of the world would respect it and understand how heavy Willie Nelson was, how heavy Johnny Cash was and that's happened. I think once the train has left the station, like they said over in Russia, its hard to get it back. Now that people know what the good stuff is they will want some of it.

ML Well we had another question about the passing of Jerry if you don't mind. Do you think they played a big role in bringing the music of Johnny Cash, and your music and other writers like that to a whole new generation? And Merle Haggard and Jesse Fuller, and the list could go on.

KK The Grateful Dead, well for me, they made a generation aware of "Bobbie McGee" that had never heard it. My kids came up to me and said "Did you write that song the Grateful Dead did?" But to me Jerry Garcia, I love him even though I didn't know him. The fact that he was true to his school. He never changed. He never compromised. It was unique the way that they held their ground and the world came around to them. If you could look at how successful the Grateful Dead was. In this time now, they're the total opposite of what you were talking about the new popular country kind of stuff. They're the real thing. It's hard to put into words. The loss of Jerry is like the loss of Janis. Its deeper than something I can talk about right now. Its something that you feel in those early morning hours.

GizmoUK I probably shouldn't ask but how old is Kris now? :)

KK 59 and holding. I was 59 in June. It beats the alternative.

ForumMast We will be taking questions for about 5 more minutes.

Donna Dirck There are three songs on "A Moment of Forever" from previous albums. I love the new arrangements. Why did you decide to include them again on the new album?
ML Is this something Don wanted to do?

KK Yes, he helped me select the ones, and I'm glad he did the ones that he did. Because "Casey's Last Ride" is one of my favorite songs but not well known. I think the only people who have cut it, was at least 20 years ago. I think John Denver might have cut it, The Country Gentlemen, and the Everly Brothers. And I'm not sure the Everly Brothers released it. But its nice that it would be exposed. "Shipwrecked In The 80s" was on an album that also didn't get a lot of attention, it was called Repossessed. A lot of the old fans were beginning to think I was crazy because I was writing about Nicaragua and things like that. So the album, I felt, I wanted this song to get exposure today because I think its as relevant in the 90s as it was in the 80s. In fact I ought to call it "Shipwrecked In The 80s And Still Adrift In The 90s". Sliding toward the brink.

ML Do you consider yourself a folk singer?

KK Yeah. Kinda.

ML If someone said you a country artist would you feel funny about that?

KK The only reason I would disagree with it is that I don't think Nashville ever considered me a country artist. You know I never worked on the Opry, in fact, I never worked in Nashville. I did have a job once in a place called Nero's Cactus Canyon and I got fired after singing for one hour. So I never really fit comfortably in there. I think I wasn't a good enough singer, to be honest, to be a country artist.

ML I've always thought of you as a folk singer.

KK Well, I feel more like Woody Guthrie, or a closer kinship to that. The only reason I would hesitate calling me a folk singer is folk singers got so precious for a while that I wouldn't have touched it. I didn't like the attitude. But I think that's probably the closest description. I feel like a troubadour. Anything I say sounds stupid now, troubadour, folk singer. But it certainly don't embarrass me, to be called a folk singer.

Stoney How did you come about writing "Under the Gun" with Glen Clark?

KK We were writing up at my house, and we just started playing with those chords. Glenn was in my band at the time. And actually, I think I wrote the words to it. We wrote the melody together.

ML Do you write more lyrics or music? More lyrical?

KK Yeah, all the collaborations I've had with Danny he's written the melody and I've written the words.

ML When you write words do you hear an idea of what you think the music should sound like in your head?

KK Hopefully, to me, the best its come together. Like "Bobbie McGee" came together, "Help Me Make It Through The Night", they happened at the same time. In the case of "A Moment Of Forever", I heard the tune, the melody that Danny was playing when we were over in Europe and it haunted me for months. Finally the words came to it.

ML What do you prefer, when they come together, or when you have to go back and think about it?

KK I hate to think about it. I probably would never gotten that one done, I've never been able to write on assignment, or by schedule. It just puts a writers block on me.

ML So you wouldn't be a staff writer for a publishing company, and have to punch the clock and write everyday.

KK There are good writers who can do that. Tom T. Hall did it. And Foster and Rice. I have a lot of respect for that, its just something that I can't do. But that one worked--"A Moment Of Forever", the melody was so good, I wouldn't settle for bad lyrics for it.

ML Well I guess its time to make closing statements and wrap this thing up. I know Kris wants to head to Memphis and get settled in before its too late. Got a big show tomorrow. I wish you luck on that. That should be great. I hope you can come here and play sometime.

KK I hope so too, because then they won't have to judge from my TV performance.

ML Well you know, the owner of Gibson is opening a place downtown. Not a huge venue, but a real cool coffee bar venue with state of the art equipment.

KK Well there's my road manager. Last time I worked here I don't know that anyone showed up.

ML We really enjoyed having you on this first cybercast. Thanks for helping us kick this off.

Moderator Well, I guess we should start to close this thing off. Thanks to all. Justice Records, Gibson USA, and All participants.

KK Good night all.