Conversation with Steve Earle

He wanted Earle to join the growing list of artists boycotting Arizona over its anti-immigration law SB 1070.

It felt like the right thing to do at the time.

“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 recently. “It was based on the idea that a boycott would keep dollars from coming in.”

A year into the Sound Strike, Earle signed on for a July 4, 2011, show at the Rialto Theatre only to cancel before the ink had dried. At the time, he said he had thought the strike was over.

It ended not long after that as artist after artist returned to Arizona stages. Earle played his first post-boycott Tucson show in October.

The first thing he did when he got on stage, he recalled in an interview from home in New York City last week, was to apologize.

“The fact of the matter is, in retrospect, I really regret missing coming to Tucson on that tour because I think I would have been more effective coming to Arizona and running my mouth off,” he said. “I have decided that boycotts don’t really work. For me, I’m better off to show up and be really loud. ... I love Arizona. I especially love Tucson and Flagstaff because that’s where my audience is. Any place where every dog has a bandanna around his neck and a Frisbee in his mouth, those are the places I play.”

On Tuesday, he returns to Tucson for a co-headlining show with fellow folk-rocker Shawn Colvin at the Rialto.

During a far-flung interview, the 59-year-old Earle, a protégé of the late Texas singer-songwriter Townes Van Zandt, talked about life in New York, his memoir, writing a musical based on his 2007 album “Washington Square Serenade” and sharing the stage with Colvin, who he’s known since the 1990s.

Turning the mirror on himself: “Writing the memoir is the hardest thing I’ve ever done, mainly because I feel like I’m (expletive) myself out of material for some other form. I’m already in a lot of the stuff I write. I feel like, god, I need that material. The memoir is almost like giving it away for free.”

Earle expects to finish his memoir by September. It is evolving into a book about his recovery from drug addiction; he’s been clean nearly 20 years.

Why write it now? “I’m getting a lot of money for it. And I have to admit that’s the reason I’m writing it.”

Earle was writing his second novel when his now 4-year-old son John Henry with wife Allison Moorer was diagnosed with autism at 18 months old. He and Moorer are in the midst of a divorce.

“I’m not rich; I make really good money, but I’m not. And what he needs is really expensive. He just stopped talking when he was 18 months old. He’s just beginning to pop out with a word here and there so we’re hopeful. He makes eye contact, he loves people. The city doesn’t seem to bug him. There’s some things that overwhelm him; you have to sort of not have TVs too loud, kind of watch how jacked up he gets in certain situations.”

Love affair with New York: “I’ve never been homesick before I moved here. Nothing against Tennessee or Texas, I went to more interesting places than Nashville and San Antonio to tell you the truth. I didn’t mind; I liked it. It was cheap and easy and it was home and I knew it. But since I moved here, I always feel like I’m missing stuff when I leave town. Not many cities you can say that about.”

Forever home? “I moved here when I was 50, so I don’t rule anything out. But where do you go after this? I couldn’t live in Paris because there is not enough oxygen in Paris for someone who is writing and speaking in English. A lot of the material is stuff you overhear. I don’t understand people who ride the subway with headphones on because they are missing the song. It’s one of the reasons I live here. I needed the input; I needed someplace that was like sticking my finger in a light socket, basically.”

Getting older: “When you get older, it gets harder. I’m having to do things I didn’t have to do when I was 25 to write. I use a rhyme dictionary and a thesaurus now. I thought that they were for (wimps) when I was 25. You just have to do whatever you do to find something to write about. Keep yourself interested because an audience is not going to remain interested in if you’re not.”

A kinship with Colvin: “We’ve known each other a long time. We’re kind of the same graduating class. When she did ‘Cover Girl’ (1994), she recorded my song ‘Someday.’ It was one of a couple teeny, tiny points of light out there from a very dark place that I was and I’ve always felt a very strong connection to her because of that.”

What we can expect on Tuesday? “She’ll do some of her songs. I’ll do some of my songs. Then we’ll do some stuff together like ‘Fearless Heart’ and ‘Someday,’ which we will sing in harmony. … We sing really well together. And it’s kind of special. We’re going to make a record, we decided.”