Jason Isbell and George Saunders have a lot in common. They’re both Southerners: Saunders was born in Amarillo, Texas and Isbell in Green Hill, Alabama. They’ve also both had career-defining years. Isbell’s sixth studio album, The Nashville Sound, came out to critical acclaim and a top-five spot on the Billboard chart, and is up for CMA album of the year. Saunders, long one of America’s most celebrated short story writers, released his hotly-anticipated first novel, Lincoln in the Bardo, which this afternoon won the prestigious Man Booker Prize. They’ve both privately dabbled in the other’s line of work. Isbell, who wrote hits for the Drive By Truckers before going solo, has tried his hand at fiction; and Saunders, who plays a little guitar, has taken stabs at songwriting (and even performed on Stephen Colbert). They’re both meticulous about the creative process, and are avid fans of each other’s writing. But Isbell and Saunders had never met—until we introduced them in Oakland, CA, before Isbell’s sold-out swing through the city. The hour-long meeting of the minds—an excerpt of which is below—touches on everything from the writing process to the problem with the American Dream. Watch the full video above.
George Saunders: I’ve heard you talk about this distinction between entertainer and artist. What is art supposed to do? Especially at a time like ours, which is a little nutty.
Jason Isbell: That’s a tough one. You know, I didn’t consider myself an artist for a long time. I think I was thinking of it as art is just really, really good entertainment, and when you get really good at entertaining people, all of a sudden you’re an artist. But that’s not exactly true I don’t think. I feel like art exists because it is needed. And I think a lot of it has to do with how you aim the work that you’re doing, and if you don’t aim it at all, if you’re just throwing chickens out the window, then I think in some ways you’re making art. Because if it’s more important to you to say something, even if that something is convoluted and hard to understand, than it is to attract something, or to sell something, then I think you might be making art.
GS: I tell my students sometimes, at least in fiction, there’s a little bit of an aversion to the entertainment idea. And I always feel like if a person has ambition, and I certainly have comically, comically high levels of ambition, like embarrassing to think about—
JI: Me too, me too.
GS: But if you have it, you’re either going to spend a lot of energy denying it or suppressing it, or you’re going to say alright, I accept you. Come on, let’s go have some fun together. And then you can purify that intention by being grateful and aspiring to higher things. But if you deny it, then it’s like you had true love and didn’t show up.
JI: Totally, totally. And I’m sure you’ve probably had points in your life where you’ve felt like, this is a moment when I have to rise to the occasion. And I’ve had a lot of those. And I have them most nights on stage. It’s kind of a long series of that.
GS: To be held to your best self is kind of a lovely opportunity.
JI: It’s really good for a certain part of you. If you don’t get bored by the gifts, if you work hard to keep yourself from ever getting too used to it, I think that’s the huge thing for a performing artist. It’s very, very easy to get used to it and think that you’re owed that, and think that because you’ve made great art—even if it is great art, which is probably not for the creator to say—but even if you feel like you’ve done something that goes to that next level, it’s not a right. Just because you made thing x, doesn’t mean you deserve all this.
When we introduced K-Dot to Double-R at Shangri-La Studios in Malibu, conversational fireworks flew. Hit play, and come away inspired.
