Interview with Jeff from The Age

[whiskeygirl]

Wilco aboard

May 20, 2007

 

Don't think you know what to expect from him now that Jeff Tweedy has cleaned up his act, writes Guy Blackman.

 

 

 

'This idea that it's all about life and death - it's not. There's life, and there's death."

 

Jeff Tweedy is a man who struggles against misconceptions. The 39-year-old singer has led his roots-born, rock-raised group Wilco through six studio albums since 1995, but has felt pigeon-holed and misunderstood at every turn.

 

He was an alt-country hero after Wilco rose from the ashes of Uncle Tupelo, a band whose sound and style virtually launched that modern country rock genre. Then he was a traitor to the cause, when Wilco began to cast aside narrow definitions and explore its experimental side on 1997's Being There.

 

Next, he was an erratic addict, hooked on painkillers and booked into rehab just before the release of the fifth album, A Ghost Is Born, in 2004 (the band's first US top-10 hit).

 

Now Tweedy is battling with a different myth - that of the artist as tortured soul.

 

"Art can come out of anything, not just suffering," he says patiently, backstage at the Palais Theatre during Wilco's recent Australian tour. "That's something people seem to have a tough time comprehending. The myth perpetuates itself in the celebrity-driven culture we live in, because it makes really good ink.

 

"What people don't seem to get is that everybody suffers. Even people who are doing well, they have moments when they suffer."

 

Because Tweedy is now a not-so-tortured artist: the tumultuous period of line-up upheaval and record label limbo captured in Sam Jones' 2002 documentary, I Am Trying To Break Your Heart, is far behind him. The daily migraines, which Tweedy says were the result of an undiagnosed anxiety disorder, are likewise a thing of the past. Just months shy of his 40th birthday, the singer has entered a steady, balanced phase of life, and wants to keep it that way.

 

"It's an ongoing process, but I feel good," he says. "I haven't smoked in two years, and I haven't had a migraine in almost three years. I feel really good about the changes I've been able to make in my life."

 

Sky Blue Sky, therefore, is an intriguing proposition - the first Wilco record since Tweedy cast aside his demons. Therefore, in some ways, its steady, stripped-back simplicity is just what you'd expect, but in the end, it's another album to confound narrow-minded listeners.

 

After avant-garde guitarist Nels Cline (who has worked with the likes of Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore and jazz legend Charlie Haden) joined in 2004, many fans of Wilco's experimental side hoped the new album would continue in that direction, and so the comparatively straightforward Sky Blue Sky has left them disappointed.

 

"We're getting the same reaction from those people as when the band introduced its experimental elements, and the folk contingent was outraged," Tweedy says. "I think Nels, like a lot of people that play that style of music, is a little bit misunderstood. People believe that that style is a dismissal of all other things, and it's not. There's plenty of people, like myself and Nels, that really enjoy a record by (Japanese free noise artist) Merzbow, and at the same time can appreciate the Byrds."

 

Tweedy says the new album was made by a band who just love to play together (as heard on last year's live album, Kicking Television), six guys sitting in a circle in their own studio, playing without headphones all in the same room.

 

"It's something we've always attempted, but I was more successful at it this time because I had a lot fewer issues regarding health or addiction," he admits.

 

Accordingly, Tweedy's lyrics, which were growing more abstract and poetic with each album, are again disarmingly direct. And this is another misconception that Tweedy feels the need to correct, the idea that simple lyrics are somehow artless or easy to construct.

 

"A lot of people seem to be responding to it as 'The lyrics are simple'. There's some judgement being made about the idea that it's direct," he says. "I would argue that it takes a lot more courage to come directly to some topic and say, 'I care about this, so I don't want to be misunderstood'."

 

Sky Blue Sky sounds like a record addressed to just one person, and Tweedy admits that the album is in part a gift to his wife of 11 years, Sue Miller. It's a symbol of his new-found commitment to the simple, steady and positive things in life.

 

"There've been many songs that people have read a lot into over the years, songs that sounded very dismal," Tweedy says. "People took them to be autobiographical, and there were certainly things that would be painful for anyone's wife to contemplate. So it was a chance for me to be able to say to my wife, 'No, these are the songs that are actually directed at you'."

 

And in turning away from conflict and turmoil as artistic inspiration, Tweedy holds up pre-punk hero Jonathan Richman, who rejected the prevailing '70s atmosphere of hedonism and self-indulgence, as a role model

 

"That's really one of the boldest, bravest rock'n'roll stances anyone's ever taken," he says. "Like, 'I'm straight, I'm not going to get high, I'm eating health food'. It's beautiful, and that's what expression's all about."

 

Sky Blue Sky is out now.

 

http://www.theage.com.au/news/music/wilco-...8995322656.html

[So Long]

there was another article on Google news earlier today which showcased a rather grumpy Tweedy...

[froggie]

thanks for the link rebecca! - the Age is too big to hold so i stick to the herald-sun down here

 

i noticed in the interview they jumped from being there to YHF with no mention of summerteeth, though