James McMurtry is a man of few words, but you wouldn’t know it from his music. The Texas singer-songwriter has spent his career writing lyrics filled with complex stories and characters. His best-known song, “Choctaw Bingo,” the closing track on his 2002 album Saint Mary of the Woods, stretches for eight minutes and thirty-three seconds and without repeating a verse. The song, long a staple in his live sets, tells the story of a family involved in the north Texas methamphetamine business. It involves a cast of characters and real life locations across Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Kansas, and is so descriptive that it seems like McMurtry had to have experienced some of it to even write the song. But, like his father, the great novelist Larry McMurtry, James is a true writer, a creative force able to build an entire narrative around one melody he hears in his head. In a certain sense he is the truest of narrators, bringing his vivid stories to life through his detached, dead-pan delivery.
On Complicated Game, James McMurtry’s first studio album since 2008’s Just Us Kids, the stories come front and center once again. The songs drift across an American landscape inhabited by working class people making the best of circumstances beyond their control, ranging from a story of an illegal fishing operation in “Carlisle’s Haul” to a veteran’s poor luck in agriculture in “South Dakota.” Interspersed throughout the tales of hardship are heartfelt songs of love, giving Complicated Game an emotional balance. Ultimately the album is a welcome return to new material from one of the most intriguing songwriters making music today.
Though his lyrics invite many questions, mainly about how he gathers his tales and sculpts them into songs that demand close listening, James McMurtry is not one to get deep into his creative process, and maybe that’s what makes his music so fascinating. Nonetheless, as he geared up for the release of Complicated Game and another year filled with tour dates, McMurtry took some time to offer some brief and at times vague insight on these things he’s come to know.
It’s been a little while since you released an album. What’s it like to be going through the motions of everything that comes with a new release?
It’s a little different this time. I got a little higher profile than I had last time. I’m doing a lot more interviews and I put out a single ahead of the release, which is doing pretty good [on the] Americana [charts] I hear.
Do you enjoy doing all this press or does it just kind of come with the territory?
Yeah, I’m working [laughs].
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There seems to be a focus on fishermen on the new album on songs like “Carlisle’s Haul” – what drew you to that topic?
Well, I fish. But the commercial fishing song just sort of happened. I witnessed something like that when I was a kid. I write songs a line at a time basically. I get a couple of lines and a melody and do enough to keep me up at night and then I finish the song. I happened to finish that one so it’s going on the record.
With songs like “Carlisle’s Haul”, is there research involved?
Up in Virginia a friend of mine had a summerhouse down near where the Potomac River goes into the Chesapeake Bay. We were down there in the off season, it was like winter and we might of been duck hunting or something, but somebody was running an off season seine one night and we went out there and helped him drag the seine in. That’s where I got the song.
Can you talk about the role of geography in the album, specifically your focus on places like South Dakota and the Long Island Sound?
I didn’t set out to focus on those places. That’s just where the songs happened to be set.
Do you spend time in the areas that you write about and get to know characters that are in the songs?
No, not really. We do a lot more road [shows] than we used to because of the way the music business has kind of turned upside down. It used to be that we’d tour to promote record sales, and now we make records to promote tour gigs because you’re not making a lot of money off record sales. Most of the money is from the road, which is part of why I didn’t put out a record for so long. I didn’t need to because the draw held up pretty good for a while and then it started to fall off so it was time to make a record.
Is the goal this time around to do a record and be able to tour off it for a while or do you see yourself getting into more of a regular album cycle again?
Yeah, that’s what we do records for now. So we can work.
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Going back to the songs and the lyrics and specifically characters. You tend to write songs from the perspective of characters in low places. How do you take on these roles and put yourself in their shoes?
I don’t. I make up the characters and put them in those shoes.
So it’s like coming up with an actual story?
Well, I get those lines, a couple lines in the melody, and then I have to make use of that. Then I develop a character around the lines and then the character tells a story.
Your songwriting has always presented interesting narrative conflicts in the lines. Is this something you consciously aim to do?
Well, if you’re writing about fisherman they kind of have a rough go of it. The narrator doesn’t necessarily agree with me. I happen to think we need to regulate fisheries so we still have fish, but if you’re in commercial fishing you might have a different attitude about that, so I try to let the narrator stay in character. With fishing and ranching and farming and that sort of thing, you’re kind of stuck between the government and the weather, and the market as well. Those are tough things to be stuck between. I can imagine it’s pretty frustrating.
What about a line like “washing down my blood pressure pill with a Red Bull” on “Howm’ I Gonna Find You Now”? Is that something that just pops into your head or are you presenting a contrast with an intention?
That one is set to meter, and I had a couple of nurses tell me that was their favorite line in that song because they’ve done it. Gotta work those long shifts, you need your Red Bull.
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You’ve said this album is mostly about relationships, but there are also songs about the struggles of working class folks. Are there challenges to presenting both of those things and did you write those at different times?
I just write one song at a time and one line at a time. I’m not thinking about what I’m trying to say, I don’t have a goal in mind specifically other than to finish the song. So that’s just how it turned out.
Did recording your album in New Orleans with C.C. Adcock have any impact on the tone of the songs?
Certainly, because [producer] C.C. [Adcock] used a lot of New Orleans musicians on it so it flavored the album a little differently.
It’s looking like you’re going to be playing a handful of gigs at South By Southwest (SXSW) this year. What are your thoughts on playing that event as it’s grown so big?
SXSW has always worked well for me. I live here so I don’t have to travel halfway across the country to get here and do it. I imagine it’s pretty hard for a lot of bands because they have to route their way down here and everybody’s on the road at the same time so they’re fighting for club dates. I played the second SXSW back in the 80s when it was really low-key before it blew up, but I don’t mind that it blew up. I got a record deal off it basically. Two years ago Francois Moret came into one of my solo gigs and said, “I’ll sign that guy!” That’s the guy that started Complicated Game Records.
So it’s not something that you see as growing bigger than its britches?
To some extend, but it’s still a fun party. I don’t usually play the sanctioned showcases because those things will radius you out; they pay very low and they make you sign a clause that you can’t play anywhere else. If I do those again at all I’d say you gotta waive that one, you know, I gotta play as much as I can.
I’ve always wondered, are you sponsored by Lagunitas Brewing or is that a cause you’ve taken up on your own?
They did give me some tour support, and the last couple of years it’s really helped when fuel prices got so high.
Can we expect to see any more billboards around Austin?
I don’t have one in the works.
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