It’s been 35 years since the release of Clint Black’s breakthrough album Killing Time, and whether that time has gone by quickly or slowly can depend on when you ask.
“Some of the aches and pains I get tell me 35 years is about right,” Black says. “And if I go down memory lane and try to track all the miles I’ve covered and all the events I’ve been a part of, it feels like it. But in so many other ways, it’s a blink of an eye. … I was 40 yesterday in my mind.”
He’s been performing the album in its entirety on this year’s tour, and while hits such as the title track, “A Better Man,” “Walking Away” and more have been staples of the setlist for a long time, Black says the reception for the album tracks has been a pleasure to see.
“We’d been doing ‘Straight From the Factory’ here and there — that was an album cut. But ‘You’re Gonna Leave Me Again’ — we hadn’t done that for at least 34 years, and I forgot how much I enjoy singing that one. I was a little worried that the audience might not be so into hearing all the songs, but everyone around me convinced me to do it and I’m glad that the audience reaction has been just what we hoped for.”
Black says he was especially struck by the reception at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville, “when it’s so intimate that I could actually tell how much of the audience was singing along, and not just with the hits.”
Even though the aches and pains may add up, Black says there’s something to be said for experience.
“I’m a much better musician now than I ever thought I’d be,” he says, adding that his command of the technical side of recording and performance is better than ever. “I see a difference [going back] even 10 years in who I was as an artist.”
Even after this many years, there are still new sensations, including Black’s recent first-ever performance at Stagecoach. “That was a thrill,” Black says. “They’ve got other shows to be at; there’s other places they can be at the site. So coming out and seeing it packed, and with people outside the tent—that’s rewarding.”
The show was also notable for a guest appearance by his daughter, Lily Pearl Black, as well as a cameo by Drake Milligan on “Killing Time.”
“That’s something that we didn’t do a lot of back in the day,” Black says, and in the age of social media, the ability to preserve and broadcast such a moment means “We all want to do it more. Standing back while someone else sings the second verse of ‘Killing Time’ — you know, that’s a fun new thing that I’m not used to doing.”
‘A Professional Amateur’
Black’s latest project is the talk show Talking in Circles With Clint Black, which puts him in the interviewer’s seat asking questions of stars from country music and more.
“I’m a professional amateur,” Black says about the show. “It really started [with thinking] ‘Boy, if people could hear the conversations we had backstage, or in the green room.”
During the pandemic, Black began conducting Zoom interviews with fellow performers he’s been friends with for years, but after five seasons, “The greatest thing I’ve found that I get out of it is new friends,” he says. “I’ve spoken to so many artists I don’t know, who I’m a big fan of.”
The show runs on the Circle network, which Black says gives him the freedom to nerd out. “They really encouraged me to go as far out into the weeds as I wanted: guitar cables, string gauges — all the things that you normally wouldn’t be asked about in an interview because you think no one cares. So it really made me feel a lot more comfortable, just going where I wanted to go.”
He’s been writing new songs for a follow-up to 2014’s Out of Sane, “but I don’t have that drive yet, to get back in the studio. It’s a great job, and I’d never want to sound like I’m complaining, but making an album is a different kind of work.”
By the end of the recording process, Black says, the process becomes obsessive: “Everything is churning around in my head, so after five hours sleep, it comes on like a radio, and I can’t turn it off. And there’s no mojo left — at that point, it becomes science. Which … I don’t love science, but I want to get it right.”
So while new songs are in the works, “I can’t bring myself to start a project yet. Although my managers and the marketing team are starting to ask questions.”
Until then, Clint Black is staying on the road, with a 76-date tour that brings him back to Wolf Trap on July 3, where, to his recollection, he hasn’t performed since 2001.
“Wolf Trap is a special place,” Black says. “It feels, in a way, like a small, intimate venue, but it feels big when the crowd is there.”
Feature image of Clint Black courtesy Wolf Trap
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