Chattanooga Times Free Press music reporter Casey Phillips spoke with L.A.-by-way-of-Nashville country-rocker Shooter Jennings about growing up on the road and his love/hate relationship with Nashville.

CP: I read that you lived on a tour bus during your early years. What was that like?

SJ: I traveled a lot with my dad when I was young, from when I was an infant all the way until I was in school. When I wasn’t in school, I was traveling with him.

CP: What was that like? What kind of impact did that have on you as a young person and music lover?

SJ: For me, it was a way of life, and it’s pretty easy for me to get back in that way of life. I guess I’ve never been locked into one place. Music was always around me and was a big part of me and is always going to be big part of my life, but it really gave me a nomadic disposition. I feel like I was lucky to get to experience as much as I got to at a young age. I’m bringing my daughter who’s five months old around with me, so she’s going to be doing the same thing I was.

CP: What’s your daughter’s name?

SJ: Alabama.

CP: Does she enjoy the music or does it bother her?

SJ: Let’s put it this way, she’s around the house a lot when I’m rehearsing, and it’s really loud, but she’s totally fine with it. I don’t put her in the room with it, since I don’t want to blow her ears out, but usually a baby would be disrupted by noise like that rumbling through the house. She’s gotten so used to it. She’s so used to traveling, too. She’s the best baby — she doesn’t get upset by all the moving around. We had her on the road for over a month moving around on bus and flying in airplanes, and she was just really good.

CP: What was it like growing up in the house with two musicians, Waylon Jennings and Jessi Colter, as parents? Were you guys close or did your relationship suffer since they were on the road a lot?

SJ: I was really very close to them. It was a very close family. They would leave at times, but we were very tight together. It was really great to grow up with people that loved music so much, and it really implemented that in me. We shared all our music. I still do that with my mom. A music family runs on music. They both toured, and when they went overseas, I would go with them whether I was in school or not. Being able to have me be so important to them allowed me to be really excited about what they did.

CP: What made you decide to leave Nashville for Los Angeles after high school and have you ever considered moving back?

SJ: I toy with the idea all the time. I’m a weird guy because I spend so much time in so many places. I don’t stay in one place for very long. Since I started dating Drea (de Matteo) six years ago, she was from New York, and we got a house together in L.A. and had a life set up there, kind of. Now, it’s like we’ve got a baby, and I go back between L.A. and New York a lot, and I spend a ton of time in Nashville because that’s where my business is. Whenever I get to Nashville, there’s always a feeling of nostalgia from when I was a kid and I miss it. There’s a sense of security and safety there that I love. I love the country, and I love being in the South. When I’m there, I’m just pining to live there because I miss it so much, but when I get to L.A. and I get off the plane, and I remember my last eight years running around there, and it makes me want to stay there for awhile.

It’s really strange. I do miss Nashville, but I was so ready to just get out when I was 18 or 19. I was 20 when I moved to L.A., and I was ready for that, to experience a lot more. I felt somewhat secluded in Nashville, and I wanted to experience the “Big City” and tough it. I did that and it was great. There will always be a place in my heart for L.A. No matter what people say, I’m not an actor — if I was an actor, I’d probably go crazy there — but I love that city. I know that city like the back of my hand, and I spent my adult years there. I grew up there in a way, but I hope we get a house in Nashville when we get some money. I want my daughter to grow up there because I grew up there and loved it. I hate to think of her growing up in L.A. or New York, but I guess if you can grow up in one of those places, you can handle pretty much anything.

CP: With a more country-rock or outlaw country-centered band like The.357s, does it ever feel like your music is coming back to Nashville, even if you’re not?

SJ: A little bit, but in a way, I’m getting jaded by it now. The point of putting a band like that together was to have a bunch of virtuosos that can handle any vibe or mood from high energy to soft. I love that my music is coming full circle, but Nashville has made me feel very unwelcome there, musically. They don’t play my stuff, and it’s been a very hard battle. In a way, I’m starting to come full circle with all of my influences. I got excited with a lot of the country with all these records. I know that there’s still some wild stuff left in me, and if they’re not going to play me, the next direction is definitely going to be wild. It’s funny. In some ways, I feel like Nashville has punished me for leaving but also for being an outsider. They definitely haven’t been warm with open arms in terms of my music.

CP: You must be pretty torn then between where you want to be artistically and what people expect of you.

SJ: It’s a weird feeling. It’s weird to be three records deep and have all the elements at play and have the Nashville system fighting against me when I’m being completely honest with my music and doing exactly what I want to do. They’re being like, “Oh, well he’s not a country guy,” or “He’s not this or that,” but I’m not trying to say that I am. I’m trying to say that I’m playing music I believe is good Southern music. They don’t see it that way, and I’m black sheep material for them. It’s a weird place to be, but it also drives me to succeed and to shove it in their mouth, which I will do, whatever it takes. I’m too young and too good looking to let that get in my way.

CP: You say Nashville has shunned you, but what about audiences in L.A. and New York? Do they embrace the music and not attach those expectations like Nashville does?

SJ: Yeah, they do. The audience in Nashville is totally different than the system. When I play there, we pull in 2,000 people and slam dunk a room. That’s an awesome feeling. The fans in Nashville completely embrace me as one of their own, as someone who came from there, went out on their own and brought what I learned back. They get that. It’s the country music industry and the radio that don’t. They’re so lame anyway because they’re dealing with such a crappy system that it’s the nature of the beast that they’re going to fight off stuff that’s independent and different. Fans in L.A. and New York are the same. They feel blessed to hear music that’s in its own genre or breaking out. Big cities appreciate that just like small towns. They see it for what it is and don’t try to say that, “You’re different from these other guys,” because they don’t even listen to those other guys.