Folk-rocker Steve Earle says he wishes he had never gone along with the Sound Strike artists boycott of Arizona over the controversial anti-illegal immigration bill SB 1070.
“The fact of the matter is, in retrospect, I really regret missing coming to Tucson ... because I think I would have been more effective coming to Arizona and running my mouth off,” he said as he prepares to return to Tucson's Rialto Theater for a show with Shawn Colvin Tuesday. “I have decided that boycotts don’t really work. For me, I’m better off to show up and be really loud."
Members of the Chicago punk band Rage Against the Machine launched Sound Strike with a coalition of artists in spring 2010 after the state approved a wide-sweeping anti-immigration law that many felt violated the rights of not only immigrants but Hispanics in general. Earle joined that summer. A year later, believing the strike had ended, he signed on to play a July 4, 2011, show at the Rialto only to cancel after he was told the strike was still on.
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Earle played his first post-Sound Strike concert at the Rialto last October.
“I think my heart was totally in the right place because the people I knew in Tucson were just as concerned and just as embarrassed about the immigration laws being passed in Arizona,” Earle said. “It’s one of those things. I’m human and I made a mistake and I’m correcting it in the future.”
See the full interview in Thursday's Caliente.
