JT Gets (Interviewed in) Rhythm(s)

[Albert Tatlock]

Nice conversational one ...

 

https://rhythms.com.au/wilco-interview-jeff-tweedy/

 

Wilco Interview – Jeff Tweedy

 

Wilco are returning to Australia for the first time since the release of their latest record, The Whole Love. Jeff Tweedy talks about how the new songs have bloomed on stage and what it’s like to adopt Mavis Staples as family grandma.

By Martin Jones

We just interviewed Mavis Staples for this Bluesfest issue and she was telling us how she and her sister Yvonne have officially been made grandmothers to your children.

That is true! My children are very, very lucky.

 

In fact, she said she’d take that honour over being named as one of Rolling Stones 100 greatest singers of all time.

Oh that’s awesome that’s really sweet. They appreciate it, they love ‘em. They love spending time with Mavis and Yvonne.

 

So you’ve come around the side door and somehow become part of the family of true rock royalty!

Yeah! I don’t know how that happened exactly, but we just have had a real easy time working together from the first moment we started in the studio on the last record. I don’t know, there’s a real deep bond for some reason that I don’t know if I can explain exactly. It’s great to be around, great to be a part of.

 

Is that a little unexpected, how deep that bond has become?

Um, I don’t know, not necessarily. I mean it’s a feeling that you get generally when music is working. There’s an intimacy to making music together that requires a certain amount of that kind of bond. I don’t know it might be more surprising to people outside of the equation.

 

Having Mavis Staples as a grandmother… how far is that from your own childhood?

That’s um… yeah. My grandparents were not… no, I don’t know. Mavis is an angel so it’s really hard for people to compare.

 

I don’t know about you but I find it particularly rewarding if life choices you’ve made that you’re able to give your kids some of the stuff you didn’t have.

Oh yeah absolutely. Yeah it is really nice to reflect on things that instead of being bitter about something you didn’t have, being able to provide it in a way that is fulfilling and gratifying and maybe more so even if you had it and know of a world without it.

 

Who were your musical heroes when you were the age your kids are now?

Um, well, Spencer and Sam are 13 and 17 so my musical heroes were probably, I don’t know, a lot of punk rock musicians probably by this time. And Beatles, Stones, Dylan, you know, classic rock. My brothers and sister were all older than me so I had all of their records.

 

I have to tell you that Wilco is second only to the Beatles and Beach Boys to my five-year-old daughter. Her favourite song was ‘A Possum Called Jiminy’.

Oh that’s pretty good (laughs)! We should do that record.

 

That may sound trivial, but it’s a great litmus test if you can capture the imagination of a four or five-year-old who takes things totally on face value.

Well yeah I’ve always thought there’s something universal about The Beatles with kids, really you’re automatically born loving The Beatles, so any time any kids grab onto what we’re doing… it’s certainly not a jaded opinion (laughs) that’s always nice to find, and rare.

 

So besides adopting Grandmas, what has been occupying the Wilco world in recent months?

Um, well we’ve toured a lot last year. And we’ve really just kind of been laying low since all of that wrapped up, doing all of our different things that we all do. I’ve been working with Mavis and I think John and Pat have been working on an Autumn Defence record and doing some other projects. So everybody’s been enjoying their time off and enjoying… you know, we worked really hard last year, so we deserved a break I think.

 

The recent work you’ve been doing with Mavis, that’s with a view to another record?

Oh yeah, that’s, I think it’s almost done really, we just have to mix it. So it’ll be the next instalment.

 

She mentioned there’s a possibility getting up on stage together at Bluesfest?

Oh yeah? That would be great, it’s always great to have her onstage.

You also have your Solid Sound festival coming up, how much time and effort do you guys put into that?

Um, well we all put in a certain amount of effort, just thinking of things. I wouldn’t really call it strenuous from our standpoint, we just basically get to dream up things that we think would be fun if we could get it to happen. It’s pretty labour intensive for Tony Margherita, my manager, and all of the people that work on that end on the logistics and putting it all together, it’s really a lot of work. But from our standpoint it’s kind of daydreaming.

 

Is it a pretty good reflection of other aspects of the bands tastes and interests?

Well yeah that’s one of the nice things about it. It broadens the idea that there is a limit to the band’s identity and expression only in our shows and our records and expands that notion that we all play in different bands, we all have different interests musically, and it’s a collective of stuff that, I don’t know, I think is unique as a whole, but it’s just a much broader way to express ourselves, yeah.

 

I notice it contains a prominent comedy section, I read a recent interview with you commenting that there’s more humour in Wilco songs than most people seem to pick up on.

There is! There are comedians and story-tellers… but mostly probably what I meant about that quote, it’s not like there’s joke songs although there’s some humour in things, but, I don’t know, I think maybe people think we take ourselves more seriously than we do sometimes. I was probably directing it at that. I have trouble taking it too seriously sometimes.

 

Well last time I got the chance to interview you, The Whole Love had only just been released. Being that was such a studio album, how have the songs developed and kind of settled into the live show over the past year or so?

Really quickly and very well, comparatively speaking to records that were much more live in the way that they were recorded. I don’t know why that is but for some reason it was just a lot more magical getting it to come together on stage and was pretty exciting. Whereas I guess when we were just basically recreating the same performances from the records that were just beaten into our heads by listening to them over and over, mixing and whatever… oddly enough that was a little less free, it felt like.

 

The other thing we were talking about with The Whole Love is how much all the band members contributed to writing and arranging the album in a way that really expressed their strengths and personalities. Has that made a difference in taking them to the stage, unifying the band even further if you like?

Yeah I think that that probably also helps a lot. Everybody kind of being more comfortable in their roles. But, we had to work through that… all of those songs that I’m talking about, say from a record like Sky Blue Sky, which we really performed live in the studio for the most part, were a little tougher to get across early on. And now that we’ve played ‘em a lot we’ve pretty much forgotten the record and those things all end up feeling like a part of the show and living and breathing songs. But these songs I guess there was just really no way to make ‘em sound like the record starting off so there was a little bit more leeway.

 

Have you attempted One ‘Sunday Morning’ yet?

Oh we’ve played it a lot! We opened up, I don’t know, probably about half the shows we did this last year with it. Yeah. Yeah, it’s a patience tester. It’s a good way to gauge the audience’s attention span. It’s a tough one to do on an outdoor stage at a festival, but a lot of times when we had the opportunity to play at a nice theatre or some more refined venue, it was a great thing to be able to pull out.

 

So, in coming back to Australia, you’re playing a few different kinds of shows… Bluesfest, Sydney Opera House… do you kind of design a show that takes into account the country and your past relationship with it?

Yeah, I think we always look at the setlist from the last couple of times we were in any given town, and we try and make it significantly different. At least half of the show should be something we’ve never played in that city before, if we can make it work the right way. Some places we’ve played so many times, that’s impossible. But you try and make it significantly different at least from the last time we were in town. And we’re pretty good at it and we maintain a pretty big repertoire at this point. So I expect to be playing a lot of stuff that people maybe haven’t heard us play.

 

I recall last time in the Melbourne and Sydney shows you guys got into some pretty interesting and extended encores of cover material… is that pretty usual or stuff you only break out if you’re having a great time with the audience?

Um, I don’t remember… we haven’t been doing very many covers at all recently and that’s partially because we have a new record and wanting to play a lot of that material for the first time. Every year it gets harder and harder to fit all the stuff we want to play into a setlist! So we haven’t done that as much. But if you’re going to do it, we usually try to pick songs that are really fun and challenging.

 

Like ‘Broken Arrow’. Don’t think I’ve heard anyone else attempt that one live!

(laughs) Well we learned that one to play for Neil Young for a benefit event in LA and that’s why we picked that song because we thought there’s no way that anybody’s ever played it live. I’m pretty sure, I don’t think Buffalo Springfield ever played it live. They started playing it live when they got back together last year and that was kind of interesting…

But I got a really nice note from Neil Young after that. It just said, ‘Wow!’ It had a drawing of a broken arrow and it just said, ‘Wow!’

Wilco Australian Tour Dates:

West Coast Bluesfest – April 24

Hamer Hall, Melbourne – March 27 & 28

Byron Bluesfest – March 30 and April 1

Sydney Opera House – April 2 & 3

[Albert Tatlock]

The "My grandparents were not… no, I don’t know." could have been revealing ... JT almost let down his interview guard a bit too far ...

[Queen Amaranthine]

Great interview! I read it on the Rhythms website, and, OK, this is probably weird and off the Wilco topic, but I have to say that is in a very cool font. I just notice those things. It gives the interview an even more friendly feel.