The October issue of Mojo (with Kate Bush on the cover) features an interview with T Bone Burnett by David Fricke. A list of T Bone's current project includes "writing new songs for a Coward Brothers project."
The interview includes:
Elvis also contributes a sidebar:You were an opening act for Elvis Costello before co-producing and playing on his 1986 album, King of America. Why did the two of you bond so quickly?
Elvis and I both have the streak you were talking about. He writes with a great deal of moral authority. But first of all, we bonded over loving the same music. He knows more about American music than 99.9 per cent of the people in this country. So we were able to DJ for each other, hip each other to things. We have the same taste. And he's an artist — an honest-to-God solo artist.
When I interviewed you in 1986 for a Rolling Stone story on Costello, you said this about him: "My main criticism is that some of what he's done is too facile. He has to be careful with his brain." And when I mentioned that to Costello, he replied, "I know how to write songs already. What I learned from T Bone was when to leave them alone."
That criticism doesn't ring true today. He's way past that now. It's been fascinating writing these new [Coward Brothers] songs together. We're both operating at complete autonomy. Neither one of us has any objections to anything the other does, which is the way to collaborate. The thing I can't stand in collaboration, the thing I try to head off at the pass, is when a person says, "I feel very strongly that…" (laughs) As soon as a person says that, I usualy, say, "This isn't a time for strong feelings."