The Loneliest Man I Ever Met: Kinky Friedman on New Album, Touring & More

In addition to the signature black cowboy chapeau that sits atop his head, Kinky Friedman wears many hats. Animal activist, outlaw, novelist, outspoken politician, cigar aficionado and singer-songwriter. After more than three decades without a new studio album, Friedman returns on October 2nd with The Loneliest Man I Ever Met, a collection of new songs as well as interpretations of older tunes from Zevon, Cash and Haggard. Ahead of the release, Friedman kindly took the time to talk about the album, touring and much more.

Your last album was released over three decades ago. What made it the right time to release a new one now?

Life gets in the way sometimes, especially if you suffer from the curse of being multi-talented. I have an animal rescue and am involved with a lot of other stuff that takes up my time, but Brian Molnar, the producer, really badgered me about doing a record. So if it doesn’t do well, I’ll blame him. We recorded it down here on the ranch which was fun to do; and really, I never thought it would sound this good. It sounds better than anything I’ve ever done and I think that’s attributable to Brian. Most of the cuts are just guitar, harmonica and vocal. There were very few moving parts: Joe [Cirotti] on guitar, some of the Jewboys, and Michael, the engineer. Mickey [Raphael], Willie’s harmonica player, also made an important contribution to the record. These guys decimated my liquor cabinet, but other than that it was really fun, and pretty easy.  

There really is a quietness, maybe even a reflectiveness, to the whole album. 

You’re right. It’s stripped down to the soul and it is rather opposite from where most of the trends are. Writing for today’s market must be weird; we all have cultural ADD and political correctness has done its damage, but this record doesn’t sound like the music coming out of Nashville for sure.  

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It certainly doesn’t and that’s quite refreshing. “Pickin’ Time” was a favorite of your father's, but out of the catalogs you could cover, why did you choose these specific songs, such as “Christmas Card from a Hooker in Minneapolis”?

You know, Elvis and Frank never wrote any songs at all and Willie didn’t write a word on Stardust, so I didn’t feel that I needed to write all of the songs on the record.  That one [Christmas Card] is a Tom Waits’ song. He is an old friend and we spent a lot of time together in LA with Chuck E. Weiss….and I just miss those guys. That was one reason and another is that it’s absolutely a great song. You know all of us are more like that hooker than we suspect or acknowledge. In other words, the entire song is a fabrication until the last line. Everything she’s saying is a lie. She’s pretty transparent and we’re kind of the same. If I ask you “How are things going in New York” you’ll tell me, you know, something that isn’t quite accurate.

I wanted to mention “My Shit’s Fucked Up” because I think it’s an important song as well as a challenge to promote since you can’t even say the title to most newspapers, radio and television. It’s a significant song because Warren Zevon was not just writing a song about his own life and dying of cancer. It’s an apt description of our country and the world today. It’s possible that our shit’s fucked up and it’s not fixable. You can be as optimistic as you want about the future, but in the field of politics we suck pretty badly, especially in terms of one of the most important things about politics, which is inspiration. If we can’t draw inspiration from elected officials then they should have term limits: one term in office and one in prison. Mark Twain felt the same way. He said there is no criminal class except Congress….and you can add the executive branch to that 100%. You look around the world and you see the same damn thing. You don’t see a lot of Nelson Mandelas popping up all over Africa, and it’s the same in Europe and the U.S. Our political leaders, for the most part, are cowards. The guy who wrote me from Pakistan when I lost the Governor’s race in 2006 said don’t feel bad the crowd always picks Barabbas. That’s what we’ve done down through the ages and we’ve done it pretty damn successfully. You won’t see a Winston Churchill or an Abraham Lincoln showing up; they won’t make it, people won’t vote for them.

True, times and politics have certainly changed. Some songs though stand the test of time. You also put your mark on two American classics, “A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square” and “Wand’rin Star.”

"A Nightingale Sang" is kind of an international thing, with it taking place in England during World War II. Twenty-five to thirty years ago I was with Miss Texas 1987. She and I were travelling to England and that was our song. I think we went to a lot of places, but in England, Little Jewford [who plays keys on the record] played that song for us.

We used the Frank Sinatra method on this record. That is, if we didn’t get the song right in one or two takes…..tear up the song and throw it in the fire. There was one song though that took about eighteen tries and that was “Wand’rin Star.” It’s hard to follow Lee Marvin.

You are about to embark on a tour that will keep you very busy throughout October and the beginning of November. Have you done a tour like that recently?

I am about to embark on a tour of the Hank Williams' level. There will be long drives at night and more than thirty back to back shows with no nights off - not that I’d know what to do with a night off anyway. I did it in Germany about a year ago, sixteen shows consecutively. It’s an idea of Willie’s I’m testing out, which is if you’re out there you might as well work, and that if you do consecutive shows like this, you will start running on pure adrenaline, and feeling a certain kind of energy which will result in purer, raw performances. What Willie didn’t mention is that you start hearing Johnny Appleseed and Lenny Bruce and people like that talking to you when you’re on stage…..nothing wrong with that though.

You can also expend a lot of energy meeting people every night which I do, and I like it. I mean I could be a Walmart greeter if my career goes south. This particular tour we’re going to have some great shirts, books and cds, so I’ll meet everybody that I can and sign anything I can, except bad legislation. I really like doing that and I like what people tell you. Like this kid, a teenager, on the last tour, he told me it was nice to see someone enjoying his life. I thought that was interesting, because I wasn’t really enjoying my life. I was in a tailspin of black despair, like the hooker in Minneapolis, and this young kid didn’t know it from being at the show.

That’s a pretty heavy statement. And now? Are you past that?

Well, I strongly recommend that happiness be the enemy if you want to be an artist, if you want to create anything you damn sure better fight happiness at every turn, which I have done. The romantic nature of this record is due probably to the fact that I’ve never been married. If I was married and had kids I don’t think I would have a romantic view of life, and by romantic I mean tragic. I’ve been in love a number of times, but true love usually winds up in a hostage situation--you really gotta avoid it. Honest to God if Romeo and Juliet ended happily we wouldn’t even know their names or know who they were.

Maybe I’m ready for the retirement village, but I really think that the great classical music and the great country music do have a linkage between them and I think it is melancholy. I think the greatest work created by most of these people was done when they were drunk or stoned, when they had no direction, home or job and were brokenhearted. I have always said an artist is someone who is ahead of his time and behind on his rent which is probably true, but I don’t know.

I'm mentioned in a German book called The Crazy Never Die along with Abbie Hoffman, Hunter Thompson and Gram Parsons. That’s the group I want to belong to. I want to belong in the Shel Silverstein, Iggy Pop, and Tom Waits category. I don’t really want to function in a Miley Cyrus world. There’s nothing wrong with that I suppose, but a lot of the people who have been significant are not very important and vice versa. Celine Dion, Garth Brooks and Barry Manilow. They make you feel good for a short time and make more money than God, but that’s how Nashville works right now. The music coming from there really does sound like background music for frat parties—and that’s what we’re up against. One thing I like about a stripped down record like this is it that it gives you time to think, use your imagination and think between the lines a little bit. Early signs indicate it’s looking pretty good for us and this record, so we’ll try to enjoy ourselves in the process.

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Order The Loneliest Man I Ever Met here

Kinky Friedman will be in NY for two shows. One at B.B Kings on October 27th and the other at Daryl's House on October 24th. Click the links for more information.

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