Lyle Lovett performed Friday evening in Stagecoach\u2019s Palomino tent with the group of killers he calls his Large Band. After the show, I sat with the singer and actor in the front seats of what I\u2019ll call his Large SUV. \u201cIt\u2019s a rental,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
We\u2019re in here because you want to protect your voice?
You know, I don\u2019t smoke marijuana.<\/p>\n
Anymore, or period?
Period. I have no moral judgment for other people, but I don\u2019t think it\u2019s good for me. When I smell it, I get concerned that it\u2019s going into my body, and so I just try to stay away from it. In the artist tent, there were plumes everywhere. In fact, at our set, two songs in, I called over our assistant tour manager and I said, \u201cCan you put some fans blowing back out into the audience?\u201d<\/p>\n
To send the weed back from whence it came.
Well, I don\u2019t want people to waste it either \u2014 they paid good money for it. Jackson Browne asked me once in the parking lot of Conway [Recording Studios] \u2014 we were doing \u201cThe Road to Ensenada,\u201d and he said, \u201cIs it true you\u2019re not cool with weed?\u201d I said, \u201cYou know, I\u2019m not.\u201d<\/p>\n
Where do you live these days?
In a couple of places, but in Austin, mainly.<\/p>\n
People from Texas have strong opinions about the hierarchy of its cities. What\u2019s the best city in Texas?
I can\u2019t answer that.<\/p>\n
You wouldn\u2019t deign to.
It\u2019s your thought, not my thought. The cities in Texas are distinct \u2014 wildly different from one another. Houston is one of the most international cities in the world. Austin is the most liberal city in Texas but it\u2019s also being transformed by tech money. What\u2019s going on there is analogous to what the oil business did in Houston and Dallas. San Antonio is the gateway to South Texas \u2014 it\u2019s like 85% Hispanic. You feel the difference in culture there, and that\u2019s wonderful. That\u2019s my answer.<\/p>\n
Did you ever have a move-to-L.A. moment?
I leased houses three different times. The first album I made in Los Angeles was \u201cJoshua Judges Ruth,\u201d in 1991, and the house belonged to a college professor who took a job at New Mexico State. It was on a street called Multiview, one switchback down from Mulholland \u2014 between Laurel and Nichols Canyon on the Valley side. I had a beautiful view of Universal City and the 101 as it came in. I remember this professor, when he was showing me the house, he called it \u201cthe river of lights.\u201d So I lived there and then later rented the same house two different times, years apart, on a street called Torreyson, right below the Lautner [Chemosphere].<\/p>\n
You\u2019re set to get a star this year on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
I don\u2019t know if that\u2019s true. I think I\u2019m eligible.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s true \u2014 I checked.
We\u2019ll see.<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s say it happens, which it will. How\u2019s that strike you?
I think it\u2019s always an honor to be recognized by any official organization. But that sort of stuff seems completely separate from the work I\u2019m concerned with. What\u2019s important is the work and how you get to do it.<\/p>\n
Which of your albums would you say is your best?
It\u2019s impossible to say. I\u2019m proud of the Nashville records \u2014 the budgets were smaller and I had to record those records more quickly. But when I went to Los Angeles and spent too much money recording \u201cJoshua Judges Ruth,\u201d that was one of the most expansive creative experiences I ever had.<\/p>\n
Define \u201ctoo much,\u201d right?
It was too much. Instead of recording three or four songs a day, we recorded two songs. Two weeks later, you didn\u2019t love the take, let\u2019s record it again. There was time to search for ideas, not just document ideas \u2014 that was the biggest difference for me. The natural way of doing things \u2014 just knocking it out \u2014 is absolutely valid. But from my point of view, I was more comfortable spending more money [laughs].<\/p>\n
Where\u2019d you like to eat when you were working in L.A.?
When we worked at Conway, we\u2019d have lunch every day at Lucy\u2019s El Adobe to the point that I gave them a credit on the albums.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lyle Lovett performed Friday evening in Stagecoach\u2019s Palomino tent with the group of killers he calls his Large…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":285783,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[5994,1409,100573,217,122449,122450,9172,48,52,51,47,50,49,63,122448,39002,10390,122447,1291,564,72],"class_list":{"0":"post-285782","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-austin","9":"tag-city","10":"tag-college-professor","11":"tag-day","12":"tag-different-time","13":"tag-first-album","14":"tag-house","15":"tag-la","16":"tag-la-headlines","17":"tag-la-news","18":"tag-los-angeles","19":"tag-los-angeles-headlines","20":"tag-los-angeles-news","21":"tag-los-angeles-times","22":"tag-lyle-lovett","23":"tag-other-people","24":"tag-song","25":"tag-stagecoach","26":"tag-street","27":"tag-texas","28":"tag-year"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285782","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=285782"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285782\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/285783"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=285782"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=285782"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=285782"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}