Kinky Friedman Talks Music, Texas and a Trump/Sanders Ticket
“I’m just concerned that we’re both going to hell,” Kinky Friedman says, answering the phone on the morning of Rosh Hashanah. “I guess if we’re practicing Jews, we need to practice a little more.”
At 70, Kinky Friedman has lived several lifetimes – as the playful, provocative country songwriter and leader of Kinky Friedman and the Texas Jewboys in the Seventies; as the reclusive author of mystery novels and non-fiction musings like Texas Hold ‘Em: How I Was Born in a Manger, Died in a Saddle, and Came Back as a Horny Toad; as the founder of an animal shelter in his hometown of Medina, Texas; and, finally, as the screwball politician who finished fourth in the 2006 Texas gubernatorial race. “It’s the curse of being multi-talented, and it is a curse,” he tells Rolling Stone.
Now, Friedman is returning to his first love – music – with a collection of songs largely written by his heroes and contemporaries: Warren Zevon, Tom Waits, Willie Nelson, Bob Dylan. The Loneliest Man I Ever Met, out October 2nd, is Friedman’s first studio album in over three decades, and the Kinkster hopes his latest record brings about a late-life change in spirit. “I’ve been miserable for 68 years, and things are starting to look up,” he says.
Rolling Stone caught up with Friedman on the Jewish New Year to discuss his new album, life lessons from Willie Nelson and why he’s rooting for a Trump/Sanders ticket in 2016.
Most people assume you’re a lifelong Texas, but you were born in Chicago, right?
Where you’re born has a lot to do with who you are. You can check this – I can’t check it because I don’t have a computer, and I don’t have the Internet – but I think that Shel Silverstein, Steve Goodman, Warren Zevon and I were all born in Chicago – Jewboys born in Chicago at the Michael Reese hospital. [They were all born in Chicago, but Zevon and Silverstein were born at different hospitals. –Ed.]
Do you feel kinship with them?
Warren, definitely. Shel and I were friends in New York. He said, “Let’s write some songs together.” The next morning I overslept so I didn’t make it. I was kind of fucked up and Shel wasn’t. Shel was writing great songs in those days, and he was furious. He called me and said, “That’s why you are where you are.” Handling failure is very easy. But, like Willie [Nelson] told me: If you fail at something long enough, you become a legend. It’s just getting out of your own way that’s important. Success is difficult to handle. The first half of Willie’s life he was struggling, scraping by, and the second half was very successful. And I think the second half is the toughest one.
Do you think Willie Nelson sees his career that way?
I think he does. And I think Winston Churchill did and John Lennon did, and some very great men. I’ve seen it that way. Paul McCartney doesn’t interest me much – he does only for his proximity to Lennon and the Beatles. I asked Ringo earlier this year when he came to Austin who his favorite Beatle was, and he told me John.