Soldiering On

Spencer Patterson

Friday, Aug. 27, 2004 | 8:44 a.m.

Country star Toby Keith was flipping through TV channels recently when he heard his name in a strange context.

"Two movie producers were doing an interview with E! or 'Entertainment Tonight' or somebody, and they said, 'The project we're working on is about a Toby Keith character who blows up Europe,'" Keith said in a phone interview from Albuquerque's Journal Pavilion prior to going onstage.

"It's funny to me that they'd use my name and isolate me like that."

Keith has earned a reputation as something of a warmonger since he penned 2002's post-9/11 anthem, "Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue (The Angry American)," a song that included the controversial lyric, "We'll put a boot in your ass / It's the American way."

Since then, Keith has exchanged barbs publicly with the Dixie Chicks, released two more politicized tracks -- "The American Soldier" and "The Taliban Song" off latest album, "Shock'N Y'All" -- and played to U.S. troops on several occasions, including a summer United Service Organizations (USO) trip to Iraq and Afghanistan.

But the 6-foot-4-inch, 240-pound Oklahoma-born singer, songwriter and guitarist insists he's not the conservative ultra-patriot he's been painted to be.

"First of all, I'm a registered Democrat, have been my whole life," Keith, 43, said. "I'm in the middle somewhere, and I think that's where we need to be. We've got hard right-wingers and real liberal left-wingers right now. We're so divided."

Keith plays the Mandalay Bay Events Center tonight. Opening act Terri Clark is scheduled to go on at 8 p.m. When Keith last visited the venue, he left with four Academy of Country Music awards, including entertainer of the year and album of the year.

The event marked a major breakthrough for a man who has dominated country charts, but not its honor roll.

"Before that, I was like 1-for-34 at the CMAs (Country Music Awards) and like 2-for-31 at the ACMs, and I had been the most nominated cat two or three years in a row," Keith said. "But the jester finally overthrew the king."

Keith -- who has hit the top of Billboard's Country Singles chart 14 times with such popular barroom singles as "How Do You Like Me Now?," "Who's Your Daddy?," "Beer For My Horses," and "I Love This Bar" -- expressed pride at being a rare singer-songwriter on today's country scene.

"I'm probably dissing the hell out of somebody by saying this, but you get past me and Alan (Jackson) and Shania (Twain) and there's not very many artists in our business who are true singer-songwriters," Keith said.

"Ask someone who appreciates country music up and down through the years who their favorites are, and they'll say Merle (Haggard), Willie (Nelson), Dolly (Parton), Loretta (Lynn), Hank (Williams) Jr. and Johnny Cash. And they all wrote their own stuff."

This afternoon Harrah's Las Vegas was to hold a press conference announcing a new joint venture between Keith and the hotel. The performer will be involved in a bar, restaurant and entertainment venue at the property.

Mostly, though, Keith spoke little of music and business during his Sun interview. Between albums and satisfied with his concert ticket sales -- nearly every show he performs sells out -- Keith enthusiastically discussed world affairs.

He was unapologetic about his response to the events of 9/11.

"There should be peace every night, but if someone attacks New York City or the Pentagon, they should be exterminated, immediately," Keith said. "Are we supposed to just sit back and diplomatically put these embargoes up and stuff? You can't. They win. You've got to go."

But Keith drew a distinction between supporting the conflict in Afghanistan and supporting the war in Iraq.

"I didn't ever say I was for the Iraq war," Keith said. "I said I never made up my mind.

"And then the L.A. Times puts it out, 'Oh, he says he's not for the Iraq war. He's protecting his career.' I ain't protecting jack, man. If I'm protecting my career, I'd have never touched this patriotic stuff. The last thing you need to do is get involved politically."

While Keith remains somewhat torn on the issue of Iraq, his devotion to the U.S. soldiers fighting there is indisputable.

In May, Keith headed overseas on a USO tour. And the one-time semi-pro defensive lineman went where he thought he was most needed.

"I told them, 'If I go, I want to go in forward," Keith said. "I don't want to just go into Kosovo and Bosnia and Naples (Italy) and Germany. I want to go into some forward areas. So we went to (Iraqi cities) Taji, Fallujah, Baghdad, (Afghan cities) Kandahar, Kabul, (and U.S. installations) Camp Phoenix, Victory North, Victory South ..."

Keith described his descent into one Iraqi hot zone.

"In Baghdad we got on a Blackhawk (helicopter) and flew up to Fallujah. That was a big dose of reality," Keith said. "It was like, 'Holy (expletive), I'm in a helicopter 200 feet above Baghdad, going 150 miles an hour to Fallujah. Are you kidding me?' It was just so overwhelming."

Even more powerful was the scene awaiting Keith when he met with the troops.

"We land in Fallujah in a dirt field and armored Humvees come up and get us and rush us off into the darkness," Keith said. "And we come up on a big concrete bunker and there's 3,000 or 4,000 marines waiting for us. And we get in there and play for 'em.

"It was definitely a spiritual-type thing. It just grabbed your soul and made you feel like you were doing one of the most important things you'd ever done in your life."

Though Keith said he was thrilled to brighten soldiers' spirits, he said he won't be used as a political tool for the Bush administration, even though he intends to vote for the president in November.

"I get calls all the time to do stuff for the White House," Keith said. "The ones that make sense I go do. But I'm not gonna be their Whoopi Goldberg or whatever. I'm not gonna be that person."

As for his spat with the Dixie Chicks, Keith expressed regret for allowing the war of words to go as far as it did.

"I really let myself down because I let my emotions get on me," Keith said of the flap that began when Dixie Chicks vocalist Natalie Maines called "Courtesy of the Red, White & Blue" ignorant.

"But you don't bash another artist for what he's doing. Usually if it's a critic or something, I just laugh. But to get hammered by another artist ..."

Keith said he wrote "Courtesy of the Red, White & Blue" in response to critics of America's response in Afghanistan.

"I'm watching the news and all I'm hearing are these talking heads saying, 'Oh, it would be so the American way to go bomb everybody,' " Keith said.

"And I was like, 'No, that's not the American way. That's the frickin' terrorists' way, to bomb.' My (lyrics) weren't ignorant. It's ignorant to say that's the American way to go bomb somebody. We'd just been attacked."

Nearly three years later, Keith still sings the song with pride. And his message remains the same for those who attack the U.S.

"If it had been up to me, though, those two movie directors would have been right, in Afghanistan" Keith said. "Because they would have had a 24-hour window to get everybody out of there. And then I would have been coming after some ass. I would have, man."