By Brad Hundt, Staff writer

bhundt@observer-reporter.com

It's usually noted in the first paragraph of every story on Justin Townes Earle that he's the son of iconic rocker Steve Earle, but the 25-year-old doesn't expect to breeze through on his name alone.

"No matter who you think you are, this is still hard work," Earle said from his Nashville home two weeks ago. "It has to be earned."

The only child from his father's third marriage - he's racked up four more marriages since - Earle grew up in Nashville and played briefly in his father's band. He's the latest member of the family to jump into music industry - his aunt, Stacey Earle, is a musician, along with his uncle, Mark Stuart, and stepmother, Allison Moorer.

Growing up in a musical family "does breed a certain kind of alternative lifestyle," Earle noted with a laugh. "Life around my house was definitely not like many people's."

Earle may have his father's last name, but the 10 songs on his debut album, "The Good Life," are somewhat more reminiscent of the alt-country made by the late singer-songwriter Townes Van Zandt, for whom Earle was given his middle name. Anything on "The Good Life" wouldn't have sounded out of place on the "Grand Ole Opry" 50 years ago, and Earle's musical inclinations have always leaned in that direction.

"The old-timey, bluegrassy stuff has always been it for me," he explained. There was a brief period where he was thinking of following his father into rock, "but I just didn't have any fun doing it. There are very few people out there who are capable of plugging in an electric instrument and making it organic."

Alt-country and bluegrass got a big boost thanks to the Grammy-winning "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" soundtrack album earlier this decade, but Earle caught on to old-time music much earlier than that.

"I started with Nirvana, which led me back to Leadbelly, which led me to Woody Guthrie, and I went from there. My dad definitely listened to such things, but he wasn't avid about it ... He was more into a hard-rocking kind of thing."

"The Good Life" clocks in at a brisk 30 minutes, a rarity for a compact disc. The no-frills, no-filler approach is because most of Earle's favorite albums were first released on vinyl and had only 10 songs "because that's all they could put on them."

Many critics have assumed that one song on the album, "Who Am I To Say?" is directed at his father, with its references to drinking and drugging, but it's actually about several friends and "my father's not included in that." Aside from making music, the father and son have both had grueling battles with drugs. The senior Earle was out of commission for two years in the 1990s thanks to a ferocious heroin habit, while the younger Earle endured multiple overdoses and homelessness before entering rehab in 2004.

He's been clean and sober since, with a backstage routine that now includes coconut water and tea.

"I'd been on the streets for a couple of years, living in the s---tiest hotels in Nashville with two of the dirtiest hookers in middle Tennessee. And that's where it finally put me. It put me in the hospital, fighting for my breath."

It's not like Earle has kicked every vice, though.

"I still smoke a pack of cigarettes a day and still eat at Waffle House like it's going out of style. I'm not a health freak, but I try to eat a little better than I used to. With the way I used to live, eating period is an improvement."

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