A Paste Conversation: Jeff Tweedy

illustration by John Hendrix

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.

You just used the term “brutal” in describing the performances on Kicking Television. Are you referring to the way so many of the songs get distressed in their codas?

Yeah, basically the way the noise sounds—the abrasive qualities of sections of certain songs that incorporate noise elements, to me, sound a lot more violent than on the records, which is cool. I think they’re just a lot more visceral. It’s people making a bunch of noise in close quarters with each other [laughs]. In the studio, most of the time that’s not really what’s happening when there are noise elements; they’re being added or arranged into songs.

And Kicking Television isn’t an actual set but an idealized set.

I think each disc plays out as kind of following the same arc as a Wilco show might. They generally end in a much, much more rockin’ place than where they begin; the introspection seems to go out the window. I always kinda think of it as the mist evaporating, and it becomes a lot clearer that we were put on this earth to play rock music and jump around and act like idiots and not think so much.

Yet, the very last song on the album is the Charles Wright cover, “Comment,” which is not a raucous song but a message song.

I just adore Charles Wright—it’s just the best shit I’ve ever heard. I’ve listened to more Watts 103rd Street Rhythm Band records than almost anything else in my life. It’s just my favorite shit. I mean, I think “Express Yourself” is the best song ever written. I don’t really think there’s anything else that music needs to say other than that. I think it’s a miraculous recording. I really love the spontaneous quality of his records. I mean, he’s definitely got some half-baked stuff like anybody, but that song is just beautiful. I think he’s a pretty overlooked piece of the puzzle.

You really put yourself emotionally into the heart of that song. In fact, it could be argued that you sing “Comment” with more passion than you sing your own stuff on this record.

[Long pause]… There’s definitely something pathological there [laughs], you know? That’s very familiar to me in the past as a self-criticism. I think it has a lot to do with feeling a lot more autonomy as a fan than as the focus of attention. I love being able to put my full hundred percent into something like a Charles Wright song or a set of Woody Guthrie lyrics. And I think most of my music, lyrically, is kind of driven by this idea that, uh, why is that? I think most of my lyrics are about wanting to feel as comfortable in my skin as I do as a member of… fandom.

That’s fascinating. It’s something I’ve always suspected about you as a performer. There’s a certain fundamental reluctance about you that becomes part of your dynamic, psychologically, as a performer.

Well, I couldn’t beat it [laughs]. I mean, I’m still intent on beating it—it’d be great. I look forward to the day. I’d sing hallelujah. Y’know, shedding all of this self-consciousness and being uncomfortable is something to aspire to. I’m certainly working towards that, and I think I’ve gotten a lot better at it—being more comfortable as a performer and as a songwriter. And it’s kind of been through acknowledging something that I can’t really change. Look at the last few records—every song is like, “I’m a Wheel,” I’m this, I’m that, I’m not this, I’m not that. But it really takes other people’s music in a lot of ways for me to be comfortable.

That leads to an obvious question: Where do you see yourself pointing this vehicle next?

I really don’t know. One of the things I have gotten comfortable with is not knowing. Because it’s been really f—ing fun. And I’m much healthier than I’ve ever been in my entire time making music; in my life I think I’m about as healthy as I’ve ever been. I’ve been able to enjoy a lot of things much more than I ever have, and I really don’t care where it goes [laughs]. I used to not care because anyplace had to be better than where I was. Now I don’t care because I think that it’s kind of not really up to me, ultimately, where it all goes. I’ve been able to feel a lot less troubled by the illusion that I actually have some kind of control over it. I have control over some things that I’m happy with and I enjoy doing and I get better at as I get older. But the other things, I’m pretty firmly committed to the idea that I don’t have any control over what people think of my music or what the world is gonna say about it. All of those things will drive you f—in’ insane.

You have the continuation of one ongoing relationship, with John Stirratt; he’s got his guy in Pat Sansone; and all the pieces now allow you to not have to exert control over every little detail because you’ve got the guys who will automatically do what you want to do to begin with, right?

Well, yeah, that’s definitely true. I don’t think I ever really had the energy or the interest in really exerting that much control. I mean, I know a lot of people have this idea of that being the case, and there’s certainly elements of truth to that, but one of them is not in being very dictatorial about what I want played. More often than not, where the controlling factor for me came in was in the post-playing assemblage of records—mixing and putting together something out of what I got that I felt was aesthetically pleasing. Now, I think I’ve got a lot more confidence that that’s not necessary. I mean, that sounds crazy but, really, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot to me all centered around this performance that is the mix of the record, and it’s a very kind of esoteric deconstruction of some pretty straightforward folk songs. That was really interesting and exciting for me to do, and it was really only because what was happening otherwise wasn’t as exciting to me as it should’ve been, or it felt like it should be. Now, I don’t really have as much interest in studio manipulation. With A Ghost Is Born and now with this lineup, I’d really much rather let the music do whatever it’s gonna do. There’s kind of a clear vision that doesn’t require a whole lot of maintenance. It feels like everybody’s really comfortable and pointed in the same direction.

Let’s take this puppy for a drive and see where it takes us.

That’s kind of what we’ve been doing. We’ve been recording new stuff, and it’s really fun. It’s really exciting to sit in a circle and hammer out these songs all day long. Everybody has such an amazing amount of energy and attention to give to it. We can work on one song for eight hours and not get bored. That’s pretty f—in’ fun.

So you’ve been working on something that could become an album?

Yeah, we’ve been working on some stuff. If we had to finish what we have now, it would be kind of… I don’t know what to say about it. It’s definitely got kind of an early-’70s feel to it again. I don’t think there’s much beyond that that I like too much.

I neglected to ask you one question. You originally recorded the song “Kicking Television” during the Ghost sessions, but why did you wind up using it to title the live album?

Originally, we’d filmed all the shows, as well, and the idea was to make a DVD/live CD. And when we would listen to the mixes of the shows, we’d all get excited and happy and energized about going forward with the project. But every time we would look at footage of the shows, we’d get bored and bummed out. And I thought, that doesn’t seem like my memory of it. So, ultimately, we decided to scrap the DVD for the time being, and Kicking Television seemed like an appropriate title.

I think this is an example of a difference in how we were brought up to appreciate music versus the world we live in, which seems to rely upon much more going on simultaneously. Very rarely is there an audio element without a visual element, with computer games and even with iTunes and things like that, people are sitting there doing something else. And I just think there’s much more mystery to listening to this live record and trying to figure out what the hell’s going on, especially since the crowd is such a part of it, with these seemingly random cheers happening—why?

I think Wilco is never going to accomplish this goal, but I would love for more people to listen to music as a sole activity. I think it’s a really transformative way that that art form can touch you. Aside from live music, which I think is really important to being human—to be a part of a crowd experiencing music—recorded music is like literature when you allow yourself to sit and listen. I mean, you know. That’s all you did when you were growing up; that’s all you needed to do. You found friends that could sit and be quiet and not f—in’ ruin it; those were your friends, you know? If somebody couldn’t do that, you couldn’t hang out with them. I don’t care how cool they were; they were not cool.

Maybe it’s some old-fogeyism coming out, but I think that title kinda represents that. It’s definitely tongue-in-cheek regarding being a militant statement against television. I hate TV, and like a lot of snobs I would love to say that I don’t watch any and mean it. But I do watch some TV, and I don’t really think that there’s any chance that I’m gonna kick television in my lifetime. And in this political climate, if I can watch The Daily Show once or twice a week, I can feel a little bit saner.

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