Willie Nelson: ‘I drank too much, I smoked too much. I took too many pills’

The legendary country singer says he did everything wrong. Yet now, at 93, he’s music’s last man standing. What’s the secret of his longevity?

B efore the interview, Willie Nelson’s publicist warns me that there’s only one thing the 93-year-old country music legend doesn’t like to discuss: the past. Which rules out talking about the 150-plus albums he’s made; the Highwaymen, the supergroup he formed with Kris Kristofferson, Johnny Cash and Waylon Jennings; writing On the Road Again on an aeroplane sick bag. It also rules out talking about paying off a $32m tax bill with a double album called The IRS Tapes; co-founding Farm Aid with Neil Young and John Mellencamp; taking $40,000 off Woody Harrelson in a single poker session; or breaking up a massive brawl in a parking lot with two Colt 45s before signing autographs for cops.

No, the publicist says, it’s all about the future for Willie. And what does that primarily consist of, I ask. Gigging and his cannabis business, Willie’s Reserve, she explains. After an extensive vetting process, the publicist tells me my chat with Willie will be one of my life’s highlights. We normally ask a minimum of an hour for an interview. The publicist offers 10 minutes. We eventually negotiate an extra five minutes. Fifteen minutes with Willie will do me.

I already adore Willie Nelson, so even talking about talking to him is exciting. He has a wonderful Carver-esque ability to tell pared-down stories in song (the concept album Red Haired Stranger is about a heartbroken preacher exacting revenge on his wife and her lover). Few songwriters have ever written with such raw emotion (Crazy, made famous by Patsy Cline, is one of the great songs about anguished love). Or such stoner humour (the title Roll Me Up and Smoke Me When I Die says it all).

Then there’s the way he duets so ego-lessly with any number of greats (Ray Charles, Dolly Parton, Snoop Dogg), and his extraordinary longevity. Recent albums Last Leaf on the Tree and this year’s Dream Chaser are magnificent reflections on ageing and mortality. Now he has written a memoir, also called The Last Leaf, in which he relates conversations with beloved collaborators who have recently died and recounts stories from his life so minimalist, they barely take up a paragraph.

In The Last Leaf, Willie admits that he is a man of few words. He says he’s never happier than when sitting down with friends, spliffing (or now drinking and eating cannabis), playing dominoes or poker and listening to others talk. Willie is at home in Maui, Hawaii, today (his primary residence is still Spicewood, Texas). I suggest that we Zoom, but am told he prefers the more traditional way of talking across continents, so we opt for the phone.

H ow are you, Willie? “I’m good. How are you?” His voice is as honeyed when speaking as singing, though a little smokier these days. I tell him how much I like the book and ask why he wrote it. “Well, you know, a couple of people wanted me to do it.” When Willie has said all he wants to say, he comes to an easy stop and waits. Has he learned anything about himself when writing it? “No!” he says. “Hahaha!” It’s a lovely warm laugh that seems to ask how he’s going to learn more about himself at this age.

What does he think is the secret of his longevity? “I have a saying: imagine what you want and then get out of the way. And make sure that what you’re asking for is what you actually want.” What he means is once you know what you’d like from life, don’t push it, don’t overplan; if it’s going to be, it’s going to be. If not, life will take another course.

Willie is almost as famous for his prodigious weed-smoking as his music. In 2018 on Jimmy Kimmel Live, Snoop Dogg said, “Willie Nelson is the only person who has ever out-smoked Snoop Dogg. I had to hit the ‘timeout’ button.”

At the age of 86, Willie stopped smoking weed to protect his health. After years of dealing with breathing problems, pneumonia and emphysema, he thought he had better call it quits. But to stop us worrying, he clarified that he was still consuming the cannabis chemicals THC (to get high) and CBD (to fix his aches and pains) in food and drink. “I had a lung collapse, so I have to be really careful. I do edibles at night,” he tells me. His fourth wife, Annie D’Angelo, is famous for her cannabis chocolates. He says it gives him more pleasure than ever because now it comes pain free. Does he think cannabis has made him a better writer? “Yeah, I do. It relaxes you to a point where you might think a little different.”

In 2015, he and Annie launched Willie’s Reserve, with the motto “My stash is your stash”. In 2018, he started Willie’s Remedy, cannabis products for non-smokers, ranging from coffees and teas to black cherry limes and alcohol-free mocktails. How is the business doing? “From what I hear, it’s doing real good.” Is he a good businessman? Again that chuckle. “ No ! I have some good folks around me. Annie, my manager Mark Rothbaum. They do my heavy thinking for me.”

Earlier this year, Willie released his 79th studio album. Dream Chaser is a beautiful collection of songs, produced and co-written with longtime collaborator Buddy Cannon. He might not like looking back on the past in conversation, but here he reflects on the young kid who moved to Tennessee “with an old guitar and eyes full of stars chasin’ a crazy dream”. Over the past year, he has played 36 gigs, including the annual Farm Aid festival, which he co-founded in 1985 and which funds emergency grants and legal aid for farmers facing foreclosure or natural disasters.

Did he ever think that he would still be releasing new albums and gigging in his 90s? “No. The way I was going, I never expected to be here. I don’t think anyone expected me to live beyond 21, the way I was going.” Why? “I did everything wrong. If it was wrong, I did it. And if it was really wrong, I did it twice.”

What did he do wrong? “Well, I drank too much, I smoked too much. I took too many pills.” What kind of pills? “Oh, I don’t know. Little white ones.” In 1978, Willie stopped drinking. Whiskey was his main tipple, and he has said he was a “mean drunk”. The booze, combined with smoking Chesterfields, led to multiple bouts of pneumonia. In the same year, he gave up all drugs but cannabis. He is convinced sobriety saved his life.

I ask why gigging is so important to him. He is a little hard of hearing and asks me to repeat the question. “ Oh, oh, oh, ” he says as if he can’t believe that he misheard a question so core to his very being. “It’s what I’ve done all my life, I always feel good before, during and after.”

One thing that hasn’t made him feel good is the Maga movement in the US. In 2018, he criticised President Trump’s zero-tolerance immigration policy, calling the separation of migrant children from their parents “outrageous”. He said, “Christians everywhere should be up in arms. What happened to ‘Bring us your tired and weak and we will make them strong’? This is still the promised land.” He issued a challenge to President Trump, tweeting him directly to tour a Border Patrol detention centre with him to “better understand what’s happening down there”.

These must be strange times for you, living in Trump’s America, I say. “Well, you know, I’ve watched a lot of presidents come and go. We vote ’em in. And when we don’t like it, we vote ’em out.” He pauses. “I know Donald Trump pretty good. We go way back. I worked for him for two weeks at his resort in Atlantic City. The money was good. He came out and thanked me for doing it. I shook his hand. We disagree on politics probably 100%, but he likes music.”

What does he most disagree about with Donald Trump? “I disagree with a lot of the things he’s tried to do. Practically everything he’s tried to do,” he says. In 2018 Willie debuted a glorious romp of a song, co-written with Cannon, called Vote ’Em Out at a Democrat rally in Texas.

Many of his recent songs address death and loss, including Last Leaf, written by Tom Waits and his wife, Kathleen Brennan. And now the new book shares the same title. Does he feel like the last leaf on the tree? “Well, you know, I guess I probably am the last leaf on the tree. I’m lucky to be here. I’ve lost a lot of my good friends along the way. You know, Johnny, Waylon and Kris. I feel fortunate that I’m still here.” Does he think much about dying? “Well, you know, everybody’s gonna die, so it ain’t no big deal how long we got. We live and we die, and I believe we come back again.” There’s something endearing, comforting even, about the way he starts sentences with “well, you know”. It makes you feel he’s someone you’ve known your entire life.

Is Annie part of the reason he’s still here? “Well, you know, Annie is my best friend. She does everything that I need to have done. She makes sure I do it or she does it for me. Yeah, for 40 years we’ve been together.” Could the young Willie Nelson have imagined spending 40 years with one woman? “Hahahaha! No! ” So you’ve changed? “I’m sure I have. Whether it’s for the better or not, I don’t know.”

It’s time to finish. Before Willie goes, I ask what is the favourite song he’s written. “Well, you know, On the Road Again is probably my favourite song, and a lot of fans think so, too.” This joyous hymn to touring is as much about the journey of life as gigging, isn’t it? “Yeah, that’s why everybody sings along with it. Because they can relate.”

Does he think he will remain on the road till the end, or will he ever retire? He says life is such a doddle compared with the old days that he feels he did so a long time ago. “I have been retired for 50 years!” And he giggles like a little boy.