Letter from the Editor: The Jason Isbell Cover Story
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The post Letter from the Editor: The Jason Isbell Cover Story appeared first on Consequence.
“Everybody dies, but you’ve got to find a reason to carry on,” Jason Isbell sings on “Death Wish,” the opening salvo of his scorching new album with The 400 Unit, Weathervanes. Within the world of these songs, darkness is always on the verge of winning. Sometimes it does. In the seventh edition of the Consequence cover story, Isbell tells us about fighting back.
Over the course of our wide-ranging conversations, Isbell muses about “that hope” — the hope that the world can get better even as evidence mounts that it won’t. Maintaining a hold on that belief isn’t always easy, but it’s what drives Isbell to write the stories and characters he does, channeling his frustration with how things are into haunting odes that remind us how they should be.
Isbell traces this desire to believe in a better world back to his teenage political awakening, which involved lousy food and an even harder-to-stomach Newt Gingrich. He also shares the mark that his wife Amanda Shires has left on his songwriting, while Shires weighs in on the “tougher” tone of Weathervanes compared to his previous record, 2020’s Reunions. Elsewhere, he reflects on the lessons Isbell took from being directed by Martin Scorsese in Killers of the Flower Moon, and Derry DeBorja of The 400 Unit offers insight into the recording process as Isbell stepped back into the producer’s chair.
Now with eight records of original songs to his name, Isbell has proven to be one of our most consistently dazzling songwriters. Weathervanes only burnishes that reputation. Read Jason Isbell: Man on Fire here, and check out the cover story artwork below.
— Wren Graves
Features Editor
Letter from the Editor: The Jason Isbell Cover Story
Wren Graves
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