"Open up, it's the police!"
Turns out the police really do say that when faced with a closed door that they want opened.
It's 1:30 p.m. on Nov. 8, 2013. It's 50 degrees out, and the only cloud in sight is a haze of marijuana smoke filling the interior of an aged RV. One could be forgiven for assuming that cops banging on the door of a high-mileage RV permanently parked at a North Nashville Walmart is a sure sign that the owner's life is rolling in the wrong direction. But an impending encounter with the police notwithstanding, Vernon Rust's life is finally on an upswing.
"Shit! It's the cops!"
Turns out people really say that, too.
When Rust, a successful Nashville songwriter, fell off Music Row's radar in 1997, a renaissance seemed impossible. His drug-fueled collapse was so thorough that some industry insiders figured he was dead. Beginning weeks after a backstage blowup with Grammy-winning performer and current American Idol host Keith Urban, Rust spent 14 years homeless, smoking crack and generally not giving a damn about anything. But thanks to unexpected royalties in 2012 from songs he penned two decades prior, Rust is off the streets and positioning himself to be Nashville's next big thing ... again.
Rust is a good-humored middle-aged Louisianan with little use for social norms or volume control. He carries a swagger that can be off-putting. He speaks loudly, directly, and often. He is smart and has a whip-fast sense of humor. His first taste of country music success came in 1989 when Kix Brooks recorded a song he'd co-written with Rust, "Sacred Ground" — a get-your-hands-off-my-girl cut that peaked at No. 87 on Billboard's Hot Country Singles chart in 1989.
Having charted his first song just 18 months after moving to Nashville — pretty quick by Music Row's pay-your-dues standards — Rust's notorious ego was growing. He was a whiskey-soaked mainstay at industry happy-hour hotspots, and "snorted mountains of cocaine and smoked bushels of weed," he says, which he thought helped him to write songs.
"Every songwriter I knew did drugs back thenÂ," Rust says. "It wasn't just tolerated, it was encouraged."
In 1992, McBride and the Ride's cover of "Sacred Ground" became a certified gold record. That same year — as Rust's hard-partying reputation was increasing — Keith Urban moved to Nashville. The two met within weeks of Urban's arrival, and they soon began to collaborate. Rust had long spent his income on drugs and alcohol rather than housing — despite regular royalty payments, he often slept wherever the party had ended the night before. However, he soon made his home in a decrepit car parked on the lawn of Urban's first Nashville apartment, a rental in Melrose.
Rust says that in 1995, he and Urban went on a drug-fueled, hyper-productive songwriting binge. Urban's substance abuse is well-documented, as is his reported deliverance from such dependence. Urban's former band, The Ranch, released the songs on an eponymous album in 1997. Critics hailed the distinctive sound of Urban's use of a six-stringed banjo and Rust's powerfully visual lyrics, but sales lagged.
Soon after, as Urban's solo career blossomed, Rust's drug and alcohol abuse became rampant, even by his standards.
"I realized I was losing my standing in the music community, but I was so far gone I didn't give a shit," Rust says. "Most of the people I pissed off, I did it on purpose."
Rust's life-changing falling-out with Urban came in Australia in 1997, prior to Urban taking the stage at the high-profile Tamworth Country Music Festival.
"Keith watched as two of his security guards accused me of stealing a woman's purse," Rust says. "They dragged me past the front-row seats and literally threw me out a side door. I was politically crucified in front of God and everyone. Keith was tired of seeing me share the spotlight at the shows."
According to Australian biographer Jeff Apter, the men would not see each other again for years. In his 2009 book, Fortunate Son: The Unlikely Rise of Keith Urban, Apter writes, "Rust's last contact with Urban was several years after The Ranch record, when he dropped by Urban's house. Urban wasn't home, but Rust convinced Urban's girlfriend that Keith had asked him to collect one of his amps, which he duly sold. They haven't spoken since." Rust says he pawned the amp and later returned it, and that the last time he saw Urban was only a year after Tamworth, when Rust was checking out of a rehab facility and Urban was checking in.
"He said, 'How's it going, mate?' " Rust says. "Those were his last words to me; I didn't respond."
When Rust returned to Nashville, he had no money and no apartment — he was homeless and virtually blackballed by the industry. For the next 14 years, whatever little money trickled in went toward food, drugs and alcohol. Until 2011, that is, when he heard through an industry insider that the Oak Ridge Boys had cut a song he wrote more than 20 years prior, "Louisiana Red Dirt Highway." More good news followed almost immediately, as other artists had discovered other songs Rust wrote long before. American Idol winner Scotty McCreery recorded "Walk in the Country," and Steel Magnolia recorded "Homespun Love." Grammy nominee David Nail also cut "Desiree."
Rust saw this as a life-changing development. At the prodding of his girlfriend, Helen Bird — an expat artist from Britain — he completed an extensive rehabilitation program. Failure to do so, Bird emphasized, would mean that the forthcoming royalties would almost assuredly disappear — and with them, their last chance to build a life together and put a roof over their heads.
"She was right," Rust says. "I needed two things to happen to prevent me from squandering this blessing: One, I had to quit drugs and alcohol, and two, I had to get right with God."
Rust embraced Christianity, and he kicked alcohol and drugs (with the exception of marijuana, which he views as "harmless" and "God-given"). He also reconnected with his now-grown children. When the first royalty payment from the four songs finally hit in 2012, Rust had been sober for months. He used the five-digit windfall to purchase a dilapidated but functional 1988 TravelMaster RV that would serve as a home and a high-mileage mode of transportation when necessary.
Back to that day a month-and-a-half ago in that Walmart parking lot.
"Everybody be cool, I've got this," Rust says, waving his arms like spastic windshield wipers in a hopeless attempt to dissipate the pot smoke before opening the door.
"Is there a problem, officer?"
There is, in fact, a problem. Earlier in the day, a down-on-his-luck Afghanistan veteran tried to sell Rust a stolen battery. Rust, despite needing juice to get the RV running again, declined the purchase. The cop asks to search the RV. Rust locks the door and demands an attorney. He's bluffing.
The RV's tags are expired and the battery requires a jump every few days. But he and Helen are dry, warm and happy. Rejuvenated in spirit, Rust makes it a point to help those nearby who are experiencing a tough time. While he and Bird still live very much hand to mouth — the newfound royalties have tapered off, as they quickly tend to do when a song is an album cut rather than a heavily marketed single — they prepared Thanksgiving dinner this year for homeless people who camp in the vicinity of Walmart.
The apparent personal growth Rust has experienced since his sobriety also seems to have awakened his creativity: He is staging a return to Music Row. In early December, Rust and Bird recorded a six-song demo with Casey Davis, an ambitious unsigned performer — decidedly cowboy-hatless.
"With this demo, we'll be able to play any room in Nashville we want," Rust says. "We'll meet with the right people over the next few months, and we'll be on our way."
The demo is an opportunity for Rust — a man who has slept more than 5,000 nights on the streets, and whose drug dealer once told him that he was "smoking way too much crack" — to write songs again for the masses.
"I'm as surprised as anybody that I survived," Rust says. "But I did, and I'm thankful for that every day."
The police officer in the Walmart parking lot assures Rust that he only wants to confirm that the suspect is not in the vehicle. After a gentlemen's agreement that a little marijuana wouldn't be a problem, Rust unlocks the door and the cop steps inside. A minute later, he exits the vehicle, thanks Rust for his cooperation, and drives away.
"This is exactly the type of imperial entanglement that might have escalated into a much bigger deal a few years ago," he says. "It's nice to have come out the other side."
Email Music@nashvillescene.com.
