John Hiatt Sings About Some Freaky Stuff On His New Album "The Open Road"

John Hiatt, the singer/songwriter who, among other claims to fame, appeared on the Imus Ranch Record, Volume One, was just 11 years old when he caught the music bug.

"My older brother brought rock-and-roll records into the house, and I just caught the bug," said Hiatt, whose most recent album is "The Open Road."

He picked up the guitar around the same age, and benefited from friends with similar interests. "A couple of kids in my class picked it up around the same time I did, and we started a band about six months after we learned three chords," Hiatt added.

Not long after he learned a few chords, Hiatt, who just finished up a European tour with Lyle Lovett, began writing and singing songs.  Imus, a longtime fan, noted that some of the songs on "The Open Road, " Hiatt's 19th album, are edgier than his usual fare.

"I sat home, I took a year off from the road, and I think I just got a little antsy, Don," said Hiatt. "I wanted to rock and roll. I drove my wife crazy."

In the track "What Kind of Man," Hiatt references stealing morphine, which he said he actually did. "I stole my mother's morphine," he admitted. "My sisters had to remind me, that's how much of a mess I was."

But that was back in the early 1980s, and Hiatt promised Imus he's since straightened out. "Some of this is fiction," he said of his song lyrics on "The Open Road." "Some of it is so fictional, it's true; some of it is truer than fiction."

He praised his friend and tour buddy Lovett, saying he thinks the world of him on personal and professional levels. "Artistically, he's unbelievable," said Hiatt. "He's just got a certain slant on things. He studied journalism in school, and I think it shows in his thoroughness in his songs, the way he can kind of tell a story and get all the little details of the situation."

Hiatt will perform March 10 at Irving Plaza in New York City, and later this year he'll appear with The Levon Helm Band for some dates in Virginia.

"He's a saint," Imus said about Levon. "I can see this aura around him."

Hiatt's praise for Levon was equally spiritual. Shortly after Levon got his voice back a few years ago, Hiatt went to see him perform at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville and was blown away.

"He opened his mouth for a song, and it was as if the phoenix had arisen from the ashes," said Hiatt, who is no slouch himself.

-Julie Kanfer