I can only imagine some of the stories Waylon Jennings and Johnny Cash didn’t tell about when they lived together…
The country icons shared an apartment during their early days in Nashville, and Waylon has joked before that Cash lived up to his “Man in Black” nickname, as he’d make breakfast in a full black suit… which could’ve been “what got [him] on cocaine.”
But in a vintage interview, they discussed living together in more detail, which was fascinating because I’ve never seen them talk about it with each other, it’s usually only been in one-on-one interviews for the most part.
Anywho, this looks to be from sometime in the late 80’s or early 90’s, where Waylon admits that they “kicked the doors down a lot” and were both doing drugs:
“We kicked the door down a lot… you know what’s fun about me and him, though? In those days, we were both pretty well hooked on pills, but we can honestly say we never gave each other drugs.”
Johnny added:
“Never. We hid it… we thought we were hiding it from each other, but we never did.”
Waylon also joked that they tried to hide the drugs because they were trying to protect each other, but it was really no big secret:
“See I knew he couldn’t handle it, so I had to protect him… I think he thinking about the same thing.”
Waylon and Johnny each had a very bad drug addictions that lasted for many years, and ultimately, both were (thankfully) able to successfully kick the habit as they got older.
Johnny goes onto say in the conversation that he was a very fine biscuit maker, which Waylon agreed with, though he did point out that he got the bad end of the deal in terms of their roles in the apartment.
Waylon was supposed to be the maid and clean everything, while Johnny was the chef… but they only ate “about every two weeks”:
“See, my job was cleaning up the apartment, and his job was to cook. Well he got the best deal ‘cuz we didn’t eat but about every two weeks.”
I think Waylon definitely refined those negotiating skills as time went on…
Turn it up:
