Jeff in Uncut - text

[FixedBayonet]

Morning all! Here's the interview with Uncle Jeffro from the June 2007 Uncut magazine for your coffee and danish perusal.

 

HAPPY...ME?

Jeff Tweedy has been addicted to alcohol and prescription drugs, and fought bitter wars with his bandmates. Now, on his sixth Wilco album, he's facing yet another great challenge - contentment. At least he's still got Babyshambles to rant about...

Words by Alastair McKay

 

Followers of Wilco have grown to expect a rude surprise. "We put out a record and people say it's a big change," says Jeff Tweedy. "I always have to remember, you piss somebody off every time."

On Wilco's last album, A Ghost Is Born, the curveball was "Less Than You Think", a musical approximation of a headache. Three years on, Sky Blue Sky offers a different sort of shock. The discord is goine, the melodies are mellow. There is of course a melancholy air but in the main, Jeff Tweedy sounds happy.

Happier, anyway. When I meet him in a Soho hotel room, he is on his third Diet Coke. His clothes have suitcase creases. He sits on the edge of the sofa, cracking his knuckles. The record, he suggests, "is geared toward expressing some sense of acceptance. Trying to find some comfort in music, my relationship. Trying to allow that comfort is there in your life."

If that sounds melodramatic, Tweedy can be excused. His travails have been well-documented, but in recent years they included checking himself into hospital to overcome his dependence on the painkillers he took to alleviate debilitating migraines. On last year's solo tour, he turned his misfortune into comedy, comparing the heckles to the discordant voices in his head, and noting, with weary disdain, how his visit to rehab made the news ticker on cable television.

Sky Blue Sky is about recovering, but its gentle poetry contains a kernel of bleakness. "Oh, I didn't die," Tweedy sings on the title track, "I should be satisfied".

"Sky Blue Sky is a pretty trite title for a lot of people, I'm sure," he says. "The album cover is this peregrine falcon chasing into a flock of starlings; there's all this kinetic energy and violence, it's such a life-or-death moment. I read into it a lot of ideas about how the starlings are staying together and moving as one - that's an interesting way to survive. The falcon's just taking what he needs - that's an interesting way to survive. But right behind that is this serene, peaceful sky - and it's always there, throughout all the moments that are bad in our lives. This may sound like some armchair guru or something, but it's a fact of nature, a fact of life."

It sounds a bit Californian.

"I know that's an insult," Tweedy says, "and I'll roll with it. But how is that not true?"

Tweedy's defensiveness comes from his awareness that peace of mind has rarely been a fashionable notion in rock'n'roll, which has preferred to celebrate rebellion, aggression and being fucked up.

"It's ludicrous. It's absurd. It's unfortunate. It's a sad thing for a lot of people to cling to, in my opinion. It's a very limiting and ultimately unrewarding mythology." He laughs. "It certainly prevents a lot of deep thought. It prevents a lot of emotional growth. It's like being a teenager forever. God, what could be fuckin' worse than that?

"But that's what people want to hang onto, those bad feelings. They don't like hanging onto the wonder, and the openness, and the feeling that you can be transformed."

He shoots off on a tangent. "I can't for the life of me understand how 50-year-old rock critics can pretend to like Babyshambles. It just drives me nuts. I'm like: how can you pretend to like that? What the fuck - are you serious? There's no way . You can't. You have to be young. You have to be that age to do that, becuase you should know better by now."

What is it about Babyshambles that Tweedy finds so offensive?

"It seems like a lot of people have gone out of their way to rationalise this obsession with fame, with celebrity and destructive behaviour. The artistic side seems to be exalted as a way of justifying voyeurism. Somebody called Pete Doherty the greatest English artist since William Blake or something. What?! That's insane!"

Have you heard William Blake's first album?

"Exactly! William Blake's first album ruled! But we're talking about something more widespread than the mythology around rock music. We're talking about the mythology around artists: the common belief that you must suffer for true art. Or that there's always gonna be some attendant misery with the act of creation. Even when I was acting that out in my private life, I was suspicious of that. That was one of the reasons I didn't want to get help, because I didn't want to acknowledge that that could possibly be true. I hated that fuckin' cliche so much that it prevented me from getting help. I would rather pretend that I was happy."

His resistance to the cliche of the tortured artist did him no favours.

"To be honest, it had to reach a point where there was no art. So the bargain I was willing to make when I went into the hospital three years ago was: I don't care if I write another song the rest of my life, I can't feel like this. Anything is better than this. As I started to get better, I realised it wasn't a trade-off between one or the other. Not only do I feel the same way about creating, I have way more energy for it. I'm actually able to sit and participate in it. I'm not isolated from my bandmates."

Tweedy can talk intelligently about the nature of creativity, but he only gets really animated when I mention the importance of marketing. Unprompted, he trains his guns on Kasabian. "I don't even know how you could put a spin on this music as being new or fresh or exciting without it being beautiful guys. Sincerely, my belief is that it's not my place to figure that shit out."

There's also an awareness that his tendency to criticise can leave him looking pious. He documented this in one of his simplest, sweetest songs, "Heavy Metal Drummer"; a lament for the years when he would visit the late-night tourist haunts of St Louis to keep drinking , while the cover bands played Kiss songs. Tweedy would lurk in the shadows wearing a flannel shirt, feeling alienated. "I wrote that song after realising I was probably a bigger idiot than anybody on stage wearing spandex, having a fuckin' blast. I realised there was a lot more to be enjoyed about life than feeling superior standing in the corner, isolating yourself from experience. It would have been nice to have been able to participate, and to enjoy things. That's been a constant struggle in my life, to engage with the world as it is."

He recently collaborated with one of the heroesof his adolescence, Ian Hunter. "You know his book, Diary of a Rock'n'Roll Star? That's one of my favourite rock books. That's about as direct and myth-busting as you can get about rock. They're just talking about feeling fat in their spandex, and not trying to eat too much pizza. It's the human side of things."

If Sky Blue Sky doesn't have the air-punching qualities of Mott The Hoople, it does reflect the music of the early 1970s. It's a more traditional rock record than Wilco's recent efforts, and while Tweedy has travelled far from the punky folk of Uncle Tupelo, there are faint melodic echoes of alt.country. "Hate It Here" is slow and soulful, but it's not hard to imagine George Jones singing the verse. Tweedy looks baffled but pleased at the suggestion. "You'd like to hear George Jones sing: "What am I gonna do when I run out of shirts to fold?" Speaking of George Jones, what is he? Just an unbelievable voice. He could sing any style and would be something remarkable to hear.

"But people tend to think that because you have this beautiful voice, you have to have a completely coherent philosophy to go along with it; some manifesto that puts this voice into context and explains its importance. It should always be good enough to have a nice voice."

Needless to say, Tweedy isn't really talking about George Jones. "I just wanted to make a record that was nice to listen to. What's wrong with that?"

 

BREAKOUT BOX

Take me to your turntable...

It's something we all wonder about - but which records would Tweedy play if aliens landed and asked him what it's like to be human?

"I always think of that when I'm listening to records. It's just a fantasy. The one record that I always mention is the Alabama Sacred Harp Singers. Those types of music that are purely vocal-driven shape-note singing - that's the most purely human music, no instruments involved. It's like you're listening to the DNA strands or something. Sacred harp singing is what's beautiful and terrifying about being human at the same time. It's beyond me to express it.

"But Dancing Queen by Abba is the perfect pop song. It's joyous, it's crushingly sad at the same time but it's an intensely beautiful melody. And they were smart enough to put the chorus right at the beginning. Right off the top. It's just a glorious piece of pop music. Ninety per cent of what I listen to is archival music. We live in the greatest time ever for that. If you're into music and records, you're going to find more now than ever before. It's hard to really focus your attention on all the bands that are current when you can go back and discover whole chunks of music that aren't being forced down your throat and you can make your own context for. Imagination-wise, that's much more appealing to me. I know that I'm getting it wrong when I listen to old stuff but misreading is a big part of inspiration. That's why it's so hard to swallow anyone's opinion about a record when it comes out. The true impact it's going to have over anybody's life will be over a much longer time than a marketing cycle."

[cryptique]

BREAKOUT BOX

Take me to your turntable...

It's something we all wonder about - but which records would Tweedy play if aliens landed and asked him what it's like to be human?

"I always think of that when I'm listening to records. It's just a fantasy. The one record that I always mention is the Alabama Sacred Harp Singers. Those types of music that are purely vocal-driven shape-note singing - that's the most purely human music, no instruments involved. It's like you're listening to the DNA strands or something. Sacred harp singing is what's beautiful and terrifying about being human at the same time. It's beyond me to express it.

I'm going to have to go ahead and disagree with the Jeffster on this one. My parents are obsessed with Sacred Harp music -- they started a group in Kalamazoo, and they drive all over the freakin' country to participate in singings (they think nothing of driving to Alabama for the weekend). It has become the thing that their lives are centered around.

 

And in my opinion, it's godawful. I mean, truly horrible, unlistenable crap. I loves me some vocal music -- I have sung in choirs most of my life, some of them very good -- but this stuff, ugh. Strident, grating, and annoying to be within earshot of.

 

However, if Jeff ever wants to sit in on a Sacred Harp session close to home, my folks can hook him up.

[FixedBayonet]

Even though it took me almost an hour to type that article in, the whole time I was doing so, I was thinking, "This McKay bloke is kind of a pillock". he's clearly gone into the interview process with a mindset that typifies English music journalism at the moment - shoddy, slipshod and prone to generalisation (my own sweeping generalisation about English music journalism notwithstanding). It wasn't always thus - in fact, some of my favourite music writers of the past 40 years have been English. But really - Jeff is one hundred per cent correct about the shitty Babyshambles and the ludicrous mentality that allows Pete Doherty to be feted as some kind of Albion poet god when in fact, he's just a crackhead with a decent turn of phrase. No Jeff Tweedy, in other words.

Moreover (beware, pontification getting louder here), I was annoyed by the unnecessarily fatuous idea that Hate It Here could be covered by George Jones. It's a poorly thought-out article that smacks of a tight deadline and a partial ignorance of what Tweedy and Wilco have achieved with their music in the last 7 years of the new millennium. They haven't made an 'alt.country' album in 10 years and why should they? Jeff of all people would know what works for his music, and the band that he has pulled together reflects his burning desire to 'serve the songs'. So what if Tweedy is defensive? This journalist wouldn't have asked questions like this of Van Morrison or Lou Reed and if he had had the temerity to do so, he would have half-expected to have his head swiftly placed in his own ass.

I think Tweedy was very forthcoming about this new phase of his life and music - he is 40 this year after all, and I can't think of a single artist who reached that landmark age bracket and could still be relied upon to turn out such a fine, thoughtful album. You can't go through the experiences that Jeff has been through in the last three years (though by Jove I'm heartily fuckin' sick of hearing about the rehab thing from journalists) and not be a little more reflective and philosophical about where the music is going. Peace of mind or not, Tweedy is on the money when he describes the idea that people 'cling' to a "limiting and... unrewarding mythology" about suffering for your art. Everyone suffers in life, and not everyone can or does make art that addresses it. To my mind, Tweedy has grasped the concept of survival in spite of the removal of comforts. That to me is what Sky Blue Sky is about - it's about lives (for surely JT is not referring only to his personal life? Isn't it just as likely that he's like Raymond Carver or Richard Ford, working in a medium where he can write in the first person or the third person and not be assumed to be talking solely about his real internal life? I mean, we can probably assume the guy's not living alone, newly divorced or widowed? If anything, maybe the death of his mom informs the more contemplative aspects of SBS? Which in itself throws a contextual spanner into the works of Please Tell My Brothers...).

My assessment as a fan of Wilco is that it doesn't matter what the reality of Jeff's life is - his art, his words, his melodies are what please me so greatly and I wish him peace and happiness. What makes me even happier is to think that maybe he's really starting to find those things now. It also pleases me that Jeff is an ABBA fan. I love 'em too I confess!

[jff]

Uncut is probably the worst of the british music magazines.

[Dreamin']

Great interview though. I really loved this:

 

"Sky Blue Sky is a pretty trite title for a lot of people, I'm sure," he says. "The album cover is this peregrine falcon chasing into a flock of starlings; there's all this kinetic energy and violence, it's such a life-or-death moment. I read into it a lot of ideas about how the starlings are staying together and moving as one - that's an interesting way to survive. The falcon's just taking what he needs - that's an interesting way to survive. But right behind that is this serene, peaceful sky - and it's always there, throughout all the moments that are bad in our lives. This may sound like some armchair guru or something, but it's a fact of nature, a fact of life."

 

It sounds a bit Californian.

 

"I know that's an insult," Tweedy says, "and I'll roll with it. But how is that not true?"

 

Tweedy's defensiveness comes from his awareness that peace of mind has rarely been a fashionable notion in rock'n'roll, which has preferred to celebrate rebellion, aggression and being fucked up.

 

"It's ludicrous. It's absurd. It's unfortunate. It's a sad thing for a lot of people to cling to, in my opinion. It's a very limiting and ultimately unrewarding mythology." He laughs. "It certainly prevents a lot of deep thought. It prevents a lot of emotional growth. It's like being a teenager forever. God, what could be fuckin' worse than that?

[bedbug]

Even though it took me almost an hour to type that article in, the whole time I was doing so, I was thinking, "This McKay bloke is kind of a pillock". he's clearly gone into the interview process with a mindset that typifies English music journalism at the moment - shoddy, slipshod and prone to generalisation !

 

Yes, but Jeff's gotta be the most awesome guy in history! Thanks for typing. I enjoyed it.

[peqger]

Uncut is probably the worst of the british music magazines.

I think you misspelled 'best'.

[Edie]

Calling baab.... did you see the dancing queen reference????

[jff]

I think you misspelled 'best'.

 

Are you serious?

[Chendizzle]

Uncut is probably the worst of the british music magazines.

 

Uhhhh NME?

[you ever seen a ghost?]

>Calling baab.... did you see the dancing queen reference????

 

yeah. methinks there is something to that.

 

-justin

[uncle wilco]

Even though it took me almost an hour to type that article in, the whole time I was doing so, I was thinking, "This McKay bloke is kind of a pillock". he's clearly gone into the interview process with a mindset that typifies English music journalism at the moment - shoddy, slipshod and prone to generalisation (my own sweeping generalisation about English music journalism notwithstanding). It wasn't always thus - in fact, some of my favourite music writers of the past 40 years have been English. But really - Jeff is one hundred per cent correct about the shitty Babyshambles and the ludicrous mentality that allows Pete Doherty to be feted as some kind of Albion poet god when in fact, he's just a crackhead with a decent turn of phrase. No Jeff Tweedy, in other words.

Moreover (beware, pontification getting louder here), I was annoyed by the unnecessarily fatuous idea that Hate It Here could be covered by George Jones. It's a poorly thought-out article that smacks of a tight deadline and a partial ignorance of what Tweedy and Wilco have achieved with their music in the last 7 years of the new millennium. They haven't made an 'alt.country' album in 10 years and why should they? Jeff of all people would know what works for his music, and the band that he has pulled together reflects his burning desire to 'serve the songs'. So what if Tweedy is defensive? This journalist wouldn't have asked questions like this of Van Morrison or Lou Reed and if he had had the temerity to do so, he would have half-expected to have his head swiftly placed in his own ass.

I think Tweedy was very forthcoming about this new phase of his life and music - he is 40 this year after all, and I can't think of a single artist who reached that landmark age bracket and could still be relied upon to turn out such a fine, thoughtful album. You can't go through the experiences that Jeff has been through in the last three years (though by Jove I'm heartily fuckin' sick of hearing about the rehab thing from journalists) and not be a little more reflective and philosophical about where the music is going. Peace of mind or not, Tweedy is on the money when he describes the idea that people 'cling' to a "limiting and... unrewarding mythology" about suffering for your art. Everyone suffers in life, and not everyone can or does make art that addresses it. To my mind, Tweedy has grasped the concept of survival in spite of the removal of comforts. That to me is what Sky Blue Sky is about - it's about lives (for surely JT is not referring only to his personal life? Isn't it just as likely that he's like Raymond Carver or Richard Ford, working in a medium where he can write in the first person or the third person and not be assumed to be talking solely about his real internal life? I mean, we can probably assume the guy's not living alone, newly divorced or widowed? If anything, maybe the death of his mom informs the more contemplative aspects of SBS? Which in itself throws a contextual spanner into the works of Please Tell My Brothers...).

My assessment as a fan of Wilco is that it doesn't matter what the reality of Jeff's life is - his art, his words, his melodies are what please me so greatly and I wish him peace and happiness. What makes me even happier is to think that maybe he's really starting to find those things now. It also pleases me that Jeff is an ABBA fan. I love 'em too I confess!

i think i liked your response about as much as the interview.

good thoughts and thanks for sharing the article.

[you ever seen a ghost?]

i thought he was supposed to talk about meeting Dylan at Bonaroo '04. was that a different interview?

 

-justin

[blindgonzo]

i thought he was supposed to talk about meeting Dylan at Bonaroo '04. was that a different interview?

 

-justin

 

i thought that was supposed to be in the Paste interview, which i've yet to find...

[jff]

Uhhhh NME?

 

I consider NME a tabloid.

[you ever seen a ghost?]

>i thought that was supposed to be in the Paste interview, which i've yet to find...

 

oh yeah. my bad.

 

-justin

[welch79]

this is the second time i've heard tweedy mention "dancing queen" in an interview as being the "perfect pop song." interesting i find it.

 

i'm also pretty tired of every interview talking about rehab. i'm sure tweedy is too.

 

at least this one didn't go down jay bennett boulevard.

 

thanks for posting this...i don't mean to sound ungrateful. i did enjoy the read.

[Welsh Rich]

I, unfortunately, picked up the mag this week and just finished reading it. Certainly the best thing in Uncut this month...

 

Liked the dig at Babyshambles, a well deserved one at that, and it's nice that Tweedy just wanted to record an album he wanted to record. Who can blame him for that.

[jenn]

i thought that was supposed to be in the Paste interview, which i've yet to find...

 

The article in Paste is just a quarter page blip about them playing Bonaroo this year. If I had it with me I'd type it out right now. If some one else doesn't I'll do it next time I'm on in the next couple of days. He does mention meeting Bob Dylan and compares it to him being the Chris Farley character who did the bad interviews "Remember when you were Bob Dylan... That was awesome." Pretty funny. Otherwise he just talks about playing festivals and how he is more comfortable with that now.

[baab]

Calling baab.... did you see the dancing queen reference????

Lady With Boots, all my research is like the water on your duck's back. I make little cry at this. You did not see first news I bring of this Abba segment?

 

http://forums.viachicago.org/index.php?showtopic=28159

[blindgonzo]

The article in Paste is just a quarter page blip about them playing Bonaroo this year. If I had it with me I'd type it out right now. If some one else doesn't I'll do it next time I'm on in the next couple of days. He does mention meeting Bob Dylan and compares it to him being the Chris Farley character who did the bad interviews "Remember when you were Bob Dylan... That was awesome." Pretty funny. Otherwise he just talks about playing festivals and how he is more comfortable with that now.

 

i'd definitely appreciate it if you, or someone else with the article could type it up for those of us who missed it. i'd like to hear more about his meeting with dylan! thanks!!

[WaronWar]

"If you're into music and records, you're going to find more now than ever before. It's hard to really focus your attention on all the bands that are current when you can go back and discover whole chunks of music that aren't being forced down your throat and you can make your own context for. Imagination-wise, that's much more appealing to me."

 

From the interview

 

 

This is how I feel today as an 18 year old. Thousands of people are yelling that I should buy this or that nowadays. All this hype while I can just back and find all these great releases that are not being shoved down my throat.

[peqger]

Are you serious?

Yes. However, I'm only familiar with Uncut, Mojo, Q and NME. Also, it's true that Uncut has been on a steady decline for awhile, but then again so have most music magazines.

[jff]

Yes. However, I'm only familiar with Uncut, Mojo, Q and NME. Also, it's true that Uncut has been on a steady decline for awhile, but then again so have most music magazines.

 

I would rank Mojo as the best of the ones you listed (those are the same ones I'm familiar with). I had an Uncut subscription for a year (2005, I think) and was fairly pleased with their feature stories (they had a good Van Morrison interview). Other than that, their coverage was nothing to write home about. Their cds were awful. Out of the 12 cds I received, I'd be lucky if I could compile one cd worth of songs I enjoyed. The Mojo cds I've heard have been much better.

[Calexico]

I must say I feel the complete opposite concering the cover cds. I find Mojo's ones to be mostly terrible while I have discovered a hell of a lot of great music thru Uncut's cover mounts.

 

 

 

Uncut started out so bloody great but has declined over the last year or so. Allan Jones is a great guy but maybe he needs a fresh editorial voice.