JT Talks To The 13th Floor (Interview)

[Albert Tatlock]

Wilco is on its way to New Zealand and so what better time to talk to band leader Jeff Tweedy. Over the last few months Tweedy has been busy producing new albums for Low and Mavis Staples…Mavis will be opening for Wilco when they play here. As usual Tweedy was thoughtful and opinionated…he hates cell phones at concerts and loves watching people lie on television. Listen here for the 13th Floor interview with Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy:

 

mp3 of a slightly poor quality phone line conversation here:-

 

http://13thfloor.co.nz/2013/03/26/wilcos-jeff-tweedy-talks-to-the-13th-floor-interview/

 

They also provide a transcript of the interview:-

 

MD: It’s been since October since you were on the road with Wilco previously, before you’re coming
down here, is that right?
JT: That’s right.

MD: In the meantime you’ve been busy in the studio producing with Low and Mavis Staples?
JT: That’s right, keepin’ busy.

MD: Maybe you can tell me a little bit about both of those projects and what your role is working
with the two different artists because they’re very different kinds of artists.
JT: Well, I think that the overall role for both of those is pretty similar and since they both have very
very defined characteristics. They’re not like new artists that are being shaped in any way. I think the
goal for both of them is to let them be themselves and be great, you know, and help translate that.
Mavis is probably a little bit more traditional producer territory…like old-school producer
territory…like picking all the songs and writing material for her and basically building the record from
the ground up. It’s pretty much me and my son Spencer are the only people playing on pretty much
everything.

MD: Interesting! So it’s a bit different than the previous Mavis Staples production that you did.
JT: Yeah, we wanted to come at it from a different angle and start in a different place and I think that
was a good decision…a different record and pretty excited about it.

MD: How much of the writing did you do for the record?
JT: Umm, three original songs and arranged a lot of, a handful of traditional tunes.

MD: Is it similar type of traditional tunes that were on the previous record?
JT: Yeah, very, very old gospel tunes. But I think that the overall vibe of the record is pretty different.

MD: I think I saw you performing one of the old gospel tunes that Mavis is doing on a television
interview program on the internet a while ago.
JT: Oh yeah, What Are They Doing In Heaven Today?

MD; That’s the one, yeah. So, does that stuff seep into what you’re doing after being around it?
JT: Ummm, I don’t know…maybe, I really can never tell anything like that. That’s the kind of stuff
that’s there, I think, even if I hadn’t been doing any Mavis Staples stuff. I listen to a lot of that music.
I don’t know, I’m sure it all gets mixed up in there somewhere.

MD: You must be in the process of reconvening the band…everybody’s off doing their own thing, I
imagine…over the last few months. What actually happens? Is there a time when you get together
and talk about what you’re going to do on this tour? Do you rehearse? What happens when you get
back together again?
JT: (chuckles) Umm, Wilco doesn’t really rehearse very often. We get together and we do a long
soundcheck and sweat maybe playing through the setlist in the dressing room, if there are songs
that we are struggling to remember at all. I don’t know, usually if we get a couple of songs under our
belt during soundcheck, all the other ones kinda come back to us. It’s a weird thing, it’s like once you
reactivate that muscle memory it’s all kinda there.
MD: So how does the set list get put together? You guys have a huge body of work to choose from.
JT: It’s a new set list every day. And it’s put together…not really a formula, but there’s a process and
it’s basically looking at what we played the last time we were in town and scratching off about half
of what we played the last time and replacing it with things we haven’t played in a long time or
things we’ve never played in that town.

MD: So you’ll know what you played in Auckland last time you were here and will adjust accordingly?
JT: Yeah.

MD: That’s pretty cool.
JT: Well, you know, there’s a pretty good database of all the shows we’ve ever done.

MD: That’s true, yeah.
JT: We take requests on our website so we’ll print that out too and I’ll try and fill in…the top requests
would be where I would look first for some songs maybe that we didn’t play last time. The weird
thing is though that the songs that are the most requested for any given town are usually the songs
we played the last time we were in town.

MD: Well people like to hear what they’re familiar with.
JT: They talked about it to somebody and they bring them and they want to make sure that you play
that song that they told somebody about. I don’t know.

MD: Speaking of touring, especially in New Zealand where concert tickets can cost up to $150 to
$200 a show and we’re being inundated with shows these days…Wilco’s ticket prices are relatively
low compared to most of the other ones…I was wondering how much input you, as the artist, has in
what happens as far as paying for tickets and the promotion and all that stuff. Or is that pretty much
out of your hands?
JT: Oh, we have a fair amount of control over that. We’ve always tried to keep things reasonable.
Out ticket prices have gone up a little bit in The States but they’re still…I don’t think they’re
anywhere near the upper ends of what people pay for concert tickets…that was after maybe ten
years of having the same ticket price generally in the United States. We try and do what we can.
There are a lot of places where ticket prices have really gotten crazy and when there’s nothing we
can do about it in terms of what the promoter has to go through and what the break even points are
and all that stuff, we usually try and make sure that there’s another opportunity that’s maybe a
lower ticket price like maybe doing an in-store which is free. Whenever that happens we try and do
something where we can connect with our audience without them having to shell out quite a bit of
money but we have some control over it and we try our best.

MD: I imagine because you take an active part in it, that is the reason your ticket prices are a bit
lower than a lot of other bands of your stature that are coming through.
JT: Well we want people to show up. If we had really high ticket prices we’d probably be playing to a
lot of cavernous empty spaces.

MD: Let’s hope that doesn’t happen. Now, more tour talk…just in the last few days in Auckland I’ve
seen Deep Purple, Journey, The Stone Roses and The Offspring…it’s been very bust the last three or
four days…most of those shows, in fact all of them, were based around nostalgia, they are pretty
much oldies shows almost. Wilco has been around for almost twenty years now, you guys have
avoided the nostalgia thing because you’re a working band and you’re recording all the time, but
what to do think about people’s reactions to the older songs or to the reasons they listen to music in
general, especially older music?
JT: Well, I don’t know, for us it feels like there are new fans and there are fans that only know the
more recent records and for us, fortunately, things have continued to grow. It doesn’t feel like
there’s a large contingency in any given show just waiting around for us to play older material. I
don’t really know what to say about nostalgia acts. I think, for the most part, I’m pretty happy for
anybody who has made an impact enough for people to feel nostalgic towards them. But for me,
personally, I would hope to not have to resort to that at any time soon. My goal is to stay inspired
and make new stuff and hopefully have enough people coming along for the ride that I can afford to
do that.

MD: So nest year is the 20th anniversary of the beginning of the band, is that right?
JT: That’s true.

MD: Has there been anything put in place…have you thought about anything as far as celebrating
the blessed event?
JT: No, I mean…no, we’ve been resistant to a lot of stuff like that, you know, like 10th anniversary of
Yankee Hotel Foxtrot…didn’t do anything for that. You know there’s a trend of the last few years of
people going out and playing classic albums.

MD: Yeah, I was going to ask you about that.
JT: I hate that. I think that personally maybe…I won’t say “never”…but it doesn’t seem lie something
I would ever want to do because, to me, albums are sequenced exactly the opposite of a live show. I
think they’re very, very separate things and I really wouldn’t want to do it.
MD: Plus I find, going to a show, part of the excitement is not knowing what the next song is going to
be.
JT: Exactly.

MD: And you’re just kind of going, “Ok, we know what’s next, we know what’s next”, and you’re
waiting for the greatest hits to come after the album.
JT: I just don’t think you’re ever going to play a record live, unless it’s something, I don’t know, that’s
recorded live. I don’t think you can ever play it and have the impact be more profound than the
experience someone has listening to a record by themselves and growing with it over a long period
of time.

MD: Also, a lot of the talk these days about the music business speculates that touring is the main
way for a band to make money as opposed to selling records because supposedly no one is buying
any records so therefor the only way you have a steady income is by staying on the road. A: Do you
think that’s true? And B: Does it have an impact on how the band works and is creative?
JT: Well, fortunately for us, or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it, we have never made
that much money from records. We’ve always sustained ourselves by performing. So, the current
landscape is comfortable for us, it’s what we’ve always done. I think it’s more troublesome for
somebody who hasn’t relied on touring revenue or just doesn’t like to tour or maybe can’t tour or
isn’t a great live act or something like that. Then they have to figure out a new way to support
themselves basically. We’re happy with where we are record sales-wise. It would be nice to sell
more records and certainly the industry is suffering and there’s been an impact, but for us, it’s been
surprisingly good in spite of all of that. We are happy that the live thing has continues to grow and
that’s where we’ve generally been able to make money.

MD: Do you find it off-putting when you’re performing to know that there’s several hundred iPhones
pointing at you probably recording everything that you do?
JT: Yeah, in fact, we ask people not to. We don’t allow it generally, or try not to. I don’t understand it
at all. And I think it’s rude to the people around you, personally. It’s not just me having a hissy fit as
an artist up there. I am distracted by it. There’s something really unnerving about it and I have never
been able to put my finger on it. I do think that it sucks for people to find themselves all of a sudden
looking up at a, you know, inch-square screen when there’s music happening. I don’t know, do they
decided that they’ve paid their money for their ticket and they’re here tonight, but they’re really not
in the mood to enjoy a concert so they’re going to watch it later and it would be great?

MD: I don’t know. But I do know that it’s been a problem with other artists as well. They have the
same kind of…”what’s going on? And how do I react to it?” How much interaction is there between
you and the audience when you play? How important is their behaviour?
JT: Well, at this point in my life I can deal with a lot, certainly a lot more than I used to be able to
deal with.

MD: Yeah, I do love that classic clip of you, solo, talking to the people who were talking during the
show. I think you dealt with it very well there.
JT: There are people that are never going to be…they’re always going to assume that anything you
say to an audience in regard to any kind of admonishment is just a privileged, elitist, prick artist
making a scene or having a hissy fit. And certainly that happens quite a bit. But I think, honestly, in
that case…I think I know which clip you’re talking about…it was bad. It wasn’t fun for anybody.

MD: Sure, I’ve been in situations like that myself where you just wonder, “Why are these people
here?”
JT: Yeah, I was sincere; I really wanted to know if there was something I could be doing differently.

MD: It’s amazing. I was at a film screening last night and somebody was texting in the middle of it
and somebody else asked them to stop texting because it was distracting and the girl’s reaction was
totally indignant. It was like, “How dare you ask me to stop texting! It’s perfectly fine to text during a
film”. And she was welcomed with a bunch of people yelling, “No it’s not!” So people just seem to be
clueless about the other people around them.
JT: Yeah, I don’t know where it comes from. People are so attached to their screens these days that I
do think they forget that they’re around other people. And that the people on stage aren’t in
character. They’re not just like on a movie screen and they are actually human beings that can see
them and see their behaviour and see their behaviour towards their fellow concert-goers and I have
trouble not commenting sometimes.

MD: Well, hopefully things will go well here. Especially with you and Mavis on the same bill, it should
be lots of fun. One thing that I noticed on that interview show that you just did is that you made a
comment on how you like watching people lie on television. And I just wanted to recommend to
you, the best outlet for that is Judge Judy.
JT: Oh yeah.

MD: It’s amazingly petty stuff and you see these people just…you know there’s not a shred of truth
in what these people are saying.
JT: That’s so rich, psychologically to me. What possesses somebody to go on TV and lie?

MD: Exactly! You have two people giving an account of the same story and they’re completely
different.
JT: The crime shows…at least they’re lying for a good reason…to try and stay out of jail.

[Albert Tatlock]

Possibly the only new snippet I took out of it:-

 

"I just don’t think you’re ever going to play a record live, unless it’s something, I don’t know, that’s
recorded live. I don’t think you can ever play it and have the impact be more profound than the
experience someone has listening to a record by themselves and growing with it over a long period
of time."

[nalafej]

I enjoyed his take on ticket pricing. Thanks for posting.