Jeff Tweedy’s musical career spans three decades, as the recognisable face of Uncle Tupelo, (most famously) Wilco and now Tweedy, the band he started with his son Spencer last year. He answered some questions in advance of the their gig in Vicar Street at the end of January.
It seems like Wilco is a band whose members benefit from the freedom to explore other musical projects; side projects, solo albums, collaborations. With other bands, a solo album may be an indicator that a member has the desire to leave and be apart from the group; why is it so vital and how does it work so well for Wilco?
I don’t really know, I think it’s just a leap of faith. This band has learned to trust each other over the years and I think a part of that trust is built around the notion that if somebody has something better to do than they should go do it. If they don’t come back, then that’s probably OK. We’ve gone through a lot of line up changes over the years. I don’t know really. Nothing is that precious, it’s just a rock band. I think it’s good for people in a band to be musical outside of the band that they play in. It’s actually been really instrumental to the band’s longevity and the band’s creativity for people not to have Wilco be their exclusive receptacle for creativity. I’m trying to look for the right words; it’s a little early here! I just think it’s good for there not to be that much weight on Wilco to gratify every musical urge.
Does this time spent to external projects bring back energy after a long time spent together and rejuvenate the atmosphere in the rehearsal room? Would spending time apart without any focus on musical output actually be detrimental to Wilco?
Well I think, yeah, definitely, anything you do musically or creatively outside the band. I don’t even think it has to be playing music. I think anything you do artistically or by taking inspiration from other people’s work can contribute to the overall artistic environment. I think on a simpler level, going out and doing other things anything enhances our appreciation for what Wilco has, what Wilco has become and what we have together.
Do you notice people returning to Wilco with a different attitude or mentality that they have learned outside of the band, in the same way that when you bring an entirely new member into a band, there will always be inevitable changes, both sonically and in atmospherically?
I think it’s a much more simplistic thing than that. The band seems to have been able to sidestep a degree of complacency with this practice. People don’t leave the Wilco environment, go do something and come back a changed person! I think there is an overall level of happiness in the band and the members of the band are a more satisfied group of folks since they’re free to make other things. It sounds very simplistic; maybe it is.
Where along the lines of the creative process album did the idea of Spencer performing on the album Sukierae solidify? When did he begin to contribute to the songwriting?
He didn’t really contribute to the writing process, but definitely the arranging was a part of our musical conversation that happens every day. I think it all grew out of making Mavis Staple’s last record together [2010’s Grammy Award winning You Are Not Alone]. He and I put that record together instrumentally; just the two of us. After that, everybody else in Wilco was pretty busy and I wanted to get started on something. I thought it was just a good time to do something, I don’t know. I guess the theory was to do a solo record, but I was never comfortable with the idea of calling something a solo record. I just don’t feel like I’m in a desperate need to find an outlet for my material. I don’t know, we were just having such a great time making music in the studio we just didn’t take a break after the Mavis record because we just continued to explore. We also both have the same last name! Mavis has never called me anything but ‘Tweedy’. I thought it was a pretty appropriate way to put out the record.
So carrying on from the sessions with Mavis Staples, when did the idea of the album actually come to be?
I think right after the Mavis record when we just kept doing the same thing we were doing, but I had many notions. Is this solo record? Are these demos for the next Wilco record? Are we just having fun because I own all this gear and a recording studio? I think in general, that’s a good place to be. Wilco starts most records with that same attitude; not really sure what it’s for, not really sure what the songs are going to be a part of.
One of the things that attracts me to Wilco the most is that we seem to share the belief that an album should be a whole, greater than the sum of its parts. I think Wilco puts this idea into practice better than almost anyone else; each album is so cohesive sonically and thematically, each album is so different to the one before it. How much do you think about that, how much of it occurs naturally?
Certainly, a lot of stuff is going to be impossible to shift. If I’m doing it and I’m singing it, it’s going to have some thread through it that has that connection. But to be honest, there’s usually very little intent. I’m very process driven. I’m very satisfied by the process, maybe even more so than actually finishing anything! I really enjoy getting lost in the process of not knowing where it’s going, but trusting that it’s going to end up somewhere that I’ll be happy to stand behind. I don’t look at it like I have some identity that needs to be supported by some art or that I have some goal or agenda that needs to be reinforced. In other words, I love going to the studio and I’m pretty confident on any given day I can start with something, even just a chord progression, musical sound or a lyrical idea and at the end of the day, I can have something that wasn’t there before. It’s interesting enough to me to feel like it was worthwhile and whether or not it ends up being good to anyone else is not important. I try and make a judgement on that way later. I don’t care to make that judgement for a long time. The process is just really for me. As a band I think we all enjoy that process. At the end of the day, we usually end up with a group of these songs that have some connection or some identity that has its own internal logic. The goal is to have it be something that you couldn’t have intended. I’m not interested in showing off some intellect or ego by claiming to have some overall masterful vision of what things are supposed to be. I’m much happier when it surpasses whatever intent I had.
Like happy accidents, I like to call things like that.
That would be a much simpler way of saying what I just said, yes.
Previously there had been a very straightforward way of releasing records on major labels. Wilco has a famous history with using the internet – putting Yankee Hotel Foxtrot on your website for free (half a decade before anyone else had thought of the idea). When Wilco has a finished product, do you try and think up new strange ways of bypassing the standard model of releasing a record in the modern era?
Not really, no, I think we have done that. Allowing people to listen to our record for free a long time before they are released has been beneficial to us and supports the main way we exist as a band – and that’s to tour and have people be excited about the music. We’ve embraced the modern musical landscape in ways that many artists have not. But I think what we’re taking about is less important than the music. I don’t think they’re going to find a new way of putting music into people’s ears. You still need a set of ears at the other end and a consciousness to put it all together, that’s what my main concern is! What we’re talking about here is marketing, and if there are novel ways of marketing your record, I’m not opposed to that. I think you should be creative in every aspect of your band but it’s not the priority to me. It’s not groundbreaking in any other sense than marketing in my opinion.
Did you enjoy compiling the new Wilco compilation (What’s Your 20) and do you enjoy looking back at things you have done in the past?
I didn’t really participate in that very much at all. I figured if I was the one who picked my favourite music from the past 20 years of Wilco’s recorded output, it would be a dour ballad-fest, probably most of the things people left off of that record. I did pay some attention but I didn’t steer the ship on that.
Tweedy play Vicar Street on 28th January 2015.
Words: David Tapley
