A Paste Conversation: Jeff Tweedy

When Jeff Tweedy cobbled together Wilco in 1994, nobody expected much. But from the release of raggedly disarming 1995 debut A.M., and Wilco’s earliest performances, there was clearly something special about the low-key former second banana of Uncle Tupelo. And in the decade since that surprising first chapter, Tweedy and his ever-shifting lineup have consistently been one of rock’s most fascinating, beloved and creatively restless bands—who would’ve believed 10 years ago that Wilco would become Radiohead’s shaggy Heartland counterpart?

Wilco’s appeal has always been rooted in Tweedy’s utterly convincing persona, an unlikely amalgam of artistic provocateur and shy guy for whom the very act of performing involved struggling his way through a deep-seated reticence. It added up to a bizarre sort of charisma. If Wilco fans find Tweedy lovable no matter what he does, his cohorts have frequently found him maddening, and some of those with whom he’s parted ways continue to harbor bitterness. But their deep dismay at being cut loose is yet more evidence of Tweedy’s improbable magnetism—indeed, his appeal might be the most intriguing and complicated since Neil Young, an artist to whom Tweedy can readily be compared on a number of musical and psychological levels.

I’ll admit to a certain degree of ambivalence about a number of Tweedy’s stylistic and personnel shifts over the years, fearing he’d veer far off what I’d seen as his natural career path—as a tradition-honoring American writer/artist in the manner of Tom Petty—and choose instead a sort of aberrant Alex Chilton-like course. But 2004’s A Ghost Is Born, while still knotty in places, suggests Tweedy hasn’t abandoned classic songcraft. Since then, along with kicking the painkillers he’d abused, he’s stabilized his band’s lineup with the addition of virtuoso guitarist Nels Cline and sound-manipulator Pat Sansone to the core of bassist John Stirratt (the only other Tupelo alumnus or remaining original band member), drummer Glen Kotche (in place since 2002’s Yankee Hotel Foxtrot) and keyboardist Mike Jorgensen (who joined in time for Ghost).

The first documented evidence of this new, chopped-and-channeled Wilco is the recently released double-live album Kicking Television, a record I play and admire, despite the fact that my wife—who went to many Wilco shows in the early days and adores Tweedy—asks me to play something else whenever the dissonance overrides the beauty. This is what it means to be a Wilco fan; one has to continually shuffle perceptions of where the band has been, where it stands at any given moment and where it may go next. Perhaps one reason Tweedy challenges his fans to such a degree is that he is, at heart, a fan himself. That’s probably also why he has never underestimated or patronized them.

The following is my first official interview with Tweedy since we met at Hollywood’s Cello Studios in 1996 during the mixdown of Being There—Wilco’s interior-epic second album and the first clear evidence of Tweedy’s extensive ambition. He was noticeably more at ease this time, and certainly more upbeat.

So why a live album now? Does it have something to do with Wilco being 10 years old?

It had more to do with feeling really, really good about this lineup of the band, and feeling like it would be fun to record some shows on 24 tracks and be able to mix it and have a little bit better-quality document of what the band sounded like. And I think the other justification in our minds was that we felt like the material off the last couple of records, which is what this band has been focusing on, is a lot more vibrant, and a lot of the songs have really evolved and are just better live. I mean, the live record is kind of brutal in some ways, but in other ways, I don’t know… One of the things that people have said about our last few records, a lot, is that they’re experimental and weird, and we don’t feel that way at all. And maybe playing the songs live illustrates that a little bit better—that they’re rock songs.