There's no chance of making Ian McLagan a permanent Heartless Bastard, is there?
No, he's got his own record right now that's coming out soon, so he's got a full plate right now.

Are you pushing any particular song or songs for radio play?
Yeah. "Just Us Kids" is a single and it's already number one on the Americana format. R&R has a chart for Americana and we've been number one there for the last two weeks. Since the record isn't even out yet, we're doing all right with radio.

You have a certain degree of fame, critics love your work, you've got a sizable group of hardcore fans, other musicians respect your music, but are you ever tempted to sacrifice some artistic integrity and try to write some standard issue, corporate country album with a couple of hits with catchy hooks, just to make that huge financial score?
I used to be tempted to do that and I even tried. In the 80's I had some friends in Nashville that I tried to co-write with for exactly that, but it just never worked. I didn't have whatever you need to get that done.

That's not something that just anyone can do, but we thought you might be able to figure out a way.
Yeah, I mean, if I could pitch a song to one of those hats and make a zillion dollars, I'd do it.

Many of your songs don't follow the formulaic verse-chorus-bridge template. Have you ever gotten pressure from one of your labels to write in that style?
I've never gotten much pressure. In the Columbia days I'd get pressure from managers sometimes to try to write a hit, because that's what you really needed. But on independent labels, I've sold enough records to suit 'em, so they haven't griped. It's worked out for me because you get a better royalty rate with those guys. You don't have to sell quite so many records to make a living.

You're headed out on tour in mid-April. How do you feel about getting ready to go out on the road again? Are you excited, nervous or do you just want to slit your wrists at the thought of touring again?
It's exciting, but I've been most of the places that we're going, so I see it as a job, as well as an adventure.

What kind of support will you be getting from your label on this tour? Will you still be loading up your own gear after the show?
Oh yeah, definitely. Indie labels just don't have the money to pay. You're not going to get tour support in the traditional major label sense, because they don't have it. And even if they did have it, you'd have to pay it back. So I'd just as soon load my own gear. If I have to get a label to pay somebody else to do it, then that's a few more dollars I have to pay back before I get anything in my account.

Will anybody be handling the McLagan's piano parts and mAcdonald's harmonica parts in the live shows?
No, we restructured the songs for a trio.

Any chance of seeing your son Curtis playing with you at any shows?
No, he's doing his own thing. He doesn't tour. He prefers to make money, so he gets a job in the summer.

When you're on the road and you have some down time in a big city, how do you kill the time?
Well, there really isn't any down time. If you get a day off, you sleep. It's really pretty hectic. I mean, guys that have buses, they might have down time because they drive after shows. They got a driver, so they can sleep on the bus after the show. With us, we're in a van, and I don't like to drive after a show. I prefer to get up in the morning and drive. You get up early and drive 300 miles, then you might have an in-store performance or a radio appearance to play. You almost always have something to do.

On a good day you don't have any of that. You go to the hotel at check-in time, you go to your room, you have a glass of wine, then you go to sound check. Then you go eat, then play the show, then get up the next day and repeat the same process.

So that's the glamour of touring, huh?
Yeah, there's not a lot of down time. There's one stretch on this tour where we play 15 days straight. That's gonna be kind of tricky. You gotta be careful because you can't drink too much. You don't want to play hungover. I'd rather play drunk.

What's the setlist looking like for this tour?
We're thinking of trying to put the whole record together in sequence, then put in some other stuff in the second hour. I don't know if that'll work out.

When people have yelled out requests at your shows, you have answered by saying, "He knows what he wants to hear, but he doesn't know shit about putting together a setlist."
(Laughs.) I stole that from David Bromberg. But now I modify it. Now I say, "Yeah, you know what you wanna hear, but you don't know what you're gonna hear." That pretty much says it.

Do you ever think your live audiences are a little too reverential at times?
Oh, sure! There are some places where it's still like that.

At times, you are rocking out and people are just standing around.
Yeah, like they're waiting around for the literary masterpiece.

How do you feel about where you are career-wise right now?
Better than I did six year ago. It seemed like it was really going nowhere and my agent was really having to pull teeth to get gigs. Fortunately, he hung in there and now he's pretty jazzed up because we've turned a corner. So there are some prospects now. I got a European licensing deal for this record. You gotta have a licensing deal for every market because they're all different. Maybe we can get over there and make some Euros this time.

In 1989, you appeared as Jimmy Rainey in Lonesome Dove. Any chance we'll ever see you in another movie?
If the part comes along and somebody wants me, I'd love to get some Screen Actors' Guild ... they've got some really good health insurance. That'd be cool.

If they made the James McMurtry biopic today, who would play you?
I don't have any idea. I'm not old enough to worry about that yet. And I'm not big enough to worry about that either.

What would you do if you could no longer be a musician?
Well, I'm outta luck now because the trucking industry is going down. I would have figured I could always drive. That's pretty much what we do anyway.

Tell us something about James McMurtry that most people, especially your fans, might not know about you and that might surprise them?
(Pause.) No, I don't really wanna tell you anything about that!

Interviewed by S.R.C., April 2008. Just Us Kids was released on April 15. To hear several free tracks from this album, visit James McMurtry's MySpace page. Tour information can be found at JamesMcMurtry.com.