Credit this one to RockyMountainNews.com:

Jim Cooper © AP

Shooter Jennings tries to avoid musical labels, but abandoned his rock band to return to his outlaw country roots.

Shooter rides outlaw image

Waylon Jennings' son shuns Nashville glitz for country-road grit

By Rachel Sauer, The Palm Beach Post August 12, 2005

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. - First, a word about the name of Shooter Jennings' debut album, Put the O Back in Country: It means what you think it does, if your dirty little mind runs that direction.

The notion that the "O" stands for "outlaw" is merely "what we said to get the Wal-Marters off us," Jennings explained.

And that, in itself, is pretty outlaw - sly without being over-the-top, because there's nothing less outlaw than a dirty joke that screams "Look at me!" It flies in the face of all that is glossy and inoffensive about Nashville these days. And if there's one thing Shooter Jennings dislikes, it is Nashville's glossy inoffensiveness.

"Everything's so slick there," he said during a telephone interview. "That whole system down there makes it hard to fit in, and it does grate on your nerves." Jennings, 26, the only child of Waylon Jennings and his fourth wife, singer Jessi Colter, is mounting a one-man offensive against what he sees as Nashville's country music machine - one that cranks out fiddle-flavored bubble gum.

On his debut album, released March 1 by Universal South, Jennings lays out his vision for country music on the very first track, Put the O Back in Country: Well, I'm rollin' like a freight train, comin' straight at you / Playing playing hillbilly music like I was born to do. / You know that ain't country music you been listenin' to.

Further into the album, in Solid Country Gold, he sings:

Now I was born in Nashville but I left there long ago / 'cause they built a music city by sacrificing soul.

It would be easy to write all this off as empty words inspired only by the Dixie Chicks' Long Time Gone and a sense of country royalty entitlement.

And yet Jennings (born Waylon Albright, nicknamed Shooter) is, somehow, the real deal: a long-haired musician who looks like the missing Allman brother, who has a voice that's rough like cheap whiskey, who prefers the road to standing still.

His father was a notorious country maverick, whose music was soaked in booze and tears and the dust of country roads. Teaming with Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson and Kris Kristofferson, Waylon Jennings was one of the infamous Highwaymen, self-proclaimed guardians of all that is wild and pure about country music.

And Shooter's mother, Colter, also is considered a musical maverick.

"Music is such an important part of my family," he said.

"It's so important to my mom and my dad, so I found it natural to focus (on music)." He started playing drums when he was 5, then piano and guitar as a teenager. His multi-instrumentalist inspiration? Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails.

"What really intrigued me is Trent Reznor played everything," Jennings explained. "I realized it didn't take a bunch of people."

When he was 18 he formed a rock 'n' roll band, Stargunn, and at 20 moved to Los Angeles to play the rock club circuit like Guns 'N Roses, one of his inspirations.

However, something changed after his father died in 2002. He disbanded Stargunn and began dipping into the music he grew up with.

"I didn't make a decision to go country," he said. "I just started playing the music I wanted to play. I'm a big fan of old country music - my dad, Willie, Johnny and all that, and I really wanted to be able to tap into all that.

"But I don't believe in delineating it (between country and rock); that just makes no sense to me," he said.

He acknowledges the pressure of being Waylon's son, of the expectations, of carrying the outlaw torch - not that he has much use for labels.

"I've never felt like I was working against anything," he said. "The pressure's there, but hell, there's pressure to make a second good record."