Willie Nelson: ‘I drank too much, I smoked too much. I took too many pills’

The legendary country singer says he did everything wrong. Yet now, at 93, he’s music’s last man standing. What’s the secret of his longevity?

Before the interview, Willie Nelson’s publicist warns me that there’s only one thing the 93-year-old country music legend doesn’t like to discuss: the past. Which rules out talking about the 150-plus albums he’s made; the Highwaymen, the supergroup he formed with Kris Kristofferson, Johnny Cash and Waylon Jennings; writing On the Road Again on an aeroplane sick bag. It also rules out talking about paying off a $32m tax bill with a double album called The IRS Tapes; co-founding Farm Aid with Neil Young and John Mellencamp; taking $40,000 off Woody Harrelson in a single poker session; or breaking up a massive brawl in a parking…