NASHVILLE -- Justin Townes Earle laughs when you try to label "The Good Life," his debut album. It's a vintage-country, almost burlesque kinda folk-blues singer-songwritery cocktail of songs, written with the same thin but deep slices of emotions favored by legendary Texas songwriter Townes Van Zandt -- from whom the 25-year-old gets his middle name.
"I don't know what 'Americana' means," Earle says, tossing a shock of dark hair off his forehead and leaning closer. "And 'indie' used to mean you were on a label that didn't have any money. . . . So, it's not that. It's not your daddy's country -- it's your granddaddy's country.
"Then lyrically, some of those diminished chords, there's a lot of Chet Baker and Willie [Nelson] in there too."
With a porkpie hat perched on his head and long legs folded under a patio table of a sports bar in hip East Nashville, Earle is ready to start his tour -- which includes a stop Tuesday at the Echo -- to support the raw collection of songs that make up his first record.
Whether it's the quiet piano and string-lonesome ballad "Turn Out My Lights" punctuated with hollow Springsteen harmonica, the almost Dixieland swing of "Ain't Glad I'm Leavin'," the classic neon-jukebox Hank Williams-esque title track or the stumbling ace of movin' on "Faraway in Another Town," this is a drifter's repertoire.
Clearly they are the songs of one who has seen and done far too much and the appeal of excess is now lost on him. Earle acknowledges that his songs have been road tested. "Look, I was 20 years old, a junkie on the street. . . . If you don't think that's a dose of reality. . . "
It's in his blood. Not just the music, but also the penchant for big appetites. He is, after all, the son of Grammy-winning Texas rock-country iconoclast Steve Earle. "I figured out pretty quick that nothing's owed me 'cause of the name I carry."
Unlike some children of the famous, Earle has an even-keel relationship with the reality.
"Sure, it may get the door open," he concedes, "but then it's a pretty heavy door, 'cause it comes with expectations. I'm not intimidated by [the family name]. . . . And I've always been a fighter -- I've got the two fake front teeth to prove it -- so I'm not worried about it."
He consciously made a record that would be his, something one wouldn't be tempted to compare. It's a lesson he learned from his father.
