Culture
‘Spend Less Time Looking Into a Glowing Screen’: a Chat With Tim Easton
By: Emily Votaw
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Earlier this month Nashville-based singer-songwriter Tim Easton released American Fork, an album that attacks apathy with much the same purpose that Woody Guthrie’s guitar famously “killed fascists.”
“There was a lot of apathetic behavior that led us, as a country, to where we are now,” said Easton while on the road just a few weeks before taking his tour to the Ohio Pawpaw Festival (Sept. 16-18) in Albany, OH. “Our choices led us here, to choose between what many people refer to as ‘the lesser of two evils.’ But we’ve got no one but ourselves to blame for having to pick from the bottom of the barrel.”
Easton firmly believes in the power of the individual, something that is illuminated both by his firm adherence to the belief that involvement with one’s community is key to a healthier nation and his furious touring schedule, working a job that he says isn’t quite like “working.”
“I’m lucky because I just get to drive around and play music,” he said while traveling through a portion of the United States that he referred to as “Carter family country.” “I’m traveling around Bristol, VA and southern Kentucky, listening to the Carter Family and Jimmy Rodgers,” said Easton, who said that his older brothers were the first people who encouraged him to look into the past for musical inspiration. “They taught me about the music that came before the Beatles and The Stones; the blues and country music. Specifically, Doc Watson, Muddy Waters, Elmore James and John Lee Hooker. When I was pretty young I went off the beaten path, so far as music, and I still kind of reach backwards today.”
Easton, who was born in upper-state New York and eventually moved to Akron with his family, has lived all over the world. His father worked for Goodyear, which led his family to move frequently when Easton was a child – to Japan, Europe, Canada. The youngest of a large family, Easton said that it was perhaps “because he was a little spoiled,” that he has been able to follow his dreams as a musician, something that he has been pursing since his success with his first band, The Haynes Boys.
“Success sounds and looks different in print than it is in actuality,” said Easton of the band, whose full-length, Guardian Angel, was re-released on Re-Vinyl Records last year. “The Haynes Boys had a regional hit that was popular in a few spots, and we only toured for a very short time before we broke up. But we did get some road miles in, for sure, and it set me off on a path of meeting more music makers and sound engineers and people that release records.”
Easton said that he will be touring for the rest of the year throughout the United States and Europe. Although American Fork does reflect the current political landscape, Easton did say that it contains its fair share of “sex and rock ‘n’ roll.’
“I just wanted to tell people to spend less time looking into a glowing screen and more time talking to each other face to face,” said Easton. “And people also just need to get off the couch and participate in their community, whether that’s by volunteering or simply just voting. If you’re going to participate in this election, I encourage you to bring a friend or convince a friend who was not going to participate; I’m not telling people who to vote for, just to participate in the election.”
Easton played the Ohio Pawpaw Festival a number of years ago and expressed a real excitement about coming back to Appalachia.
“I’m very happy to get back to the region of Ohio that is certainly the most beautiful part of the state,” said Easton, who mentioned that the relatively newly penned tune “The Old New Straitsville Blues” directly references the town that lies only 40 minutes outside of Athens. “Southern Ohio is quite different from where I grew up. It’s a big state.”