2 JT Interviews Prior to Kiwi Shows

[Albert Tatlock]

Not belters, but just recording the facts, ma'am.

 

 

The Jeff Tweedy Interview

 

Last updated 09:11 04/04/2013

 

Jeff Tweedy is the lead singer and songwriter for Wilco. He's been at it with that band for some 20 years now; before that it was as a member of Uncle Tupelo (Wilco was formed from its ashes) and Tweedy has also, sporadically, flirted with a solo career. He's released film soundtracks and toured as a solo artist; he's building a name as a producer too. He's made two records with Mavis Staples - the second is in the can, about to be released. Staples will perform as the opening act for Wilco in New Zealand. He also recently produced an album for the band, Low.

Tweedy is nervous-sounding, anxious, but it's easy to break through. He's been giving interviews for the past 25 years of his life too. He knows this is part of it.

 

"You're getting us at a good time is what I would say, New Zealand. It's a good time for New Zealand to see Wilco," Tweedy is almost toying with a form of confidence. He laughs it off. I can almost feel a self-conscious moment. It's strange to think you can spot that down the phone.

"Seriously though, you're part of the rotation now. We've been playing shows to New Zealand more regularly, including Wellington and Auckland because you guys f**king rock. You're a great audience to play for. You get what we do. You like what we do. So we're going to come and see you."

Since Wilco last performed in New Zealand there has been a new album, The Whole Love. The first released on the band's own label. That process has been, according to Tweedy, "freeing".

"What we've done, actually, is we've afforded ourselves a lot of freedom even if we didn't deserve it. On a financial front it's been really liberating to cut the middleman.

"We know we can do this live - we got this. It's been 20 years. There have been some lineup changes but this band we got right now, this is solid. We've been at it together a long time and there's no real chance we'll let you down, we'll give you a good show. People know, to a degree, what they are going to see with Wilco and we're going to do that, we'll give you the songs you want to hear. And we'll do our best. So, since we last played your beautiful country we have the new album and some of those songs will be part of the show."

One of the most remarkable songs on The Whole Love is closing track 

. It's 12 minutes long, but rather than turning into a Krautrock-infused jam or a Crazy Horse-inspired rockout, as has been the case with Wilco's longer tunes, Sunday Morning keeps its peace and rides along on what is almost a non-groove, all Bob Dylan and Van Morrison, pastoral hues.

"Well, what you have there is the band just losing time, being caught in the song as we rehearsed it. That version, the one on the record, is us learning the song - we're basically learning it as it plays out and the tape is rolling and we all just got lost. Together. We thought we were playing the song for four or five minutes but it just kept going. And it sounded like we had clicked. So it stayed that way."

Another change since Wilco last played New Zealand is the makeup of the band's audience.

"We're starting to get a really diverse audience. We've played a lot of festivals and a lot of our own shows and we're just noticing all ages now. Which is great. Everyone comes to Wilco for the music, the audience and the band, we're in this together. And that's what works about a Wilco show, I think. We've got a good body of work, we do a few different things now. And we've gotten good at stitching it all up, putting it all together. But you notice a lot looking out at your audience. We see people there with their parents, they've brought them along, or the adults have brought the children."

This idea of the band as very much a unit, all working together, seems to happen off stage too.

"More often than not now we come to an agreement, which is a good place to be. We're all on the same page but we bring different things in, we'll still experiment, try different things, take different approaches, but we agree on where the songs should go, I think. Most of the time anyway."

Tweedy says that as a songwriter there is a tendency "to write songs someone else would sing" and he feels thatBeing There and Summerteeth have a couple of songs each that he had to sing; that had to come from him. 

Now he has an outlet for songs for other people, through his production work with Mavis Staples; he's written material for her also.

"You get so much just from being in the same room as Mavis Staples, from standing near Mavis Staples. She's like an angel."

Tweedy says that he's discovered he likes "helping someone realise something in the studio". He says "everyone in Wilco is curious musically, we'll go places, we'll want to see where a song goes; where it can go. And through that, what I found working with Mavis and Low is that a lot of what I learned making Wilco albums does actually apply to other people too; it works on other records. So that's been a good thing to find out."

In Wilco's lifetime Jeff Tweedy has battled demons (addictions and record labels) and he's had an interesting relationship with the music press. He starts sounding anxious, nervous once again, he speaks a lot quicker when we get to this subject.

"I don't go out of my way to avoid things - but I don't engage all of the time. I mean, now it's not the music press, it's social media, and all right, it can be interesting to see some things that are said about you and your band and your music. It's like, I feel, or I have felt, at times, like I have to check out some of what is said - but really it's best to just let it be said and to not engage with it, leave it to the people to have their say. That's usually for the best."

And of course Tweedy has not avoided my question but hasn't quite engaged with it. 

There's time for one more round of "I think you'll like the show. We really love coming to New Zealand now. We have friends there now. We've got roots in that country. We feel connected. And you really are great audiences. And great audiences get great shows."

And then Jeff Tweedy is gone.

But he and Wilco will be on stage tomorrow night in Wellington at the Town Hall and on Saturday in Auckland's Great Hall at the Town Hall.

Mavis Staples is the support act for both shows.

I get the feeling he'll be a lot more comfortable on the stage.

I've seen Wilco's two previous Wellington shows. In 2008 I called the show one of the best I've ever experienced. As an audience member you certainly (can) feel part of it. And then, in 2010 I wondered if the show might have been even better; there was a different energy to the shows. Both were superb. Spectacular. It's my belief that Wilco is simply one of the greatest live bands working today. As with The Roots, I'm just always going to see them if I have the chance.

So tomorrow I have that chance once again. And I'm looking forward to it.

 

http://www.stuff.co.nz/entertainment/blogs/blog-on-the-tracks/8506116/The-Jeff-Tweedy-Interview

 

 

 

 

Wilco in Welly for fans and friendsTOM CARDY

 

 

Last updated 05:00 04/04/2013

 

Jeff Tweedy, co-founder and frontman of American band Wilco, knows New Zealand well. The band has performed in Wellington several times over the years and was last here in 2010.

Kiwis have also been big fans of the band's mix of indie rock and alt country for nearly 20 years and especially, like the rest of the world, since the band's breakout album, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, in 2002.

But Tweedy's links go beyond the band. Neil Finn invited Tweedy to be part of his 7 Worlds Collide project, playing with Finn and other big-name musicians in Auckland in 2009. During the show, Tweedy performed a version of Radiohead's Fake Plastic Trees. The band also did some recording at Finn's Auckland studio for Wilco (The Album), released the same year.

"That was unexpected and a wonderful connection we never could have predicted and it remains intact," says Tweedy from his home in Chicago.

"Hopefully we will see the Finn family when we're there. It's kind of a home away from home. We also got to spend a lot of time [in New Zealand] making that record and that only deepened the bond."

There's another reason we get the band often. "Wilco just doesn't do things entirely based on financial motivation or professional career needs," Tweedy says, then laughs.

"Basically we keep ourselves alive and live within our means and can afford to do things that we want to do. One of the things we want to do is make it to New Zealand more often because we enjoy the audience there and the friends we have."

Tweedy co-founded Wilco in 1994 out of the remains of his previous band, Uncle Tupelo. Today, only Tweedy and bass player John Stirratt remain from the original lineup.

Wilco followers gained some insight into the ups and downs in Tweedy's relationships with other band members, as well as dealing with record companies, in the 2002 eye-opening feature documentary I Am Trying to Break Your Heart: A Film About Wilco, which followed the band through the making of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot.

In the documentary, Tweedy clashed with guitarist Jay Bennett about the direction of the album and how it should be produced. Bennett was dismissed from the band after the album was finished and died in 2009, the same year he sued Tweedy for a breach of contract over his work with the band. The film also showed Tweedy wrestling with migraines, which have plagued him since childhood.

Since then the band's lineup has been stable, but Tweedy says now and again people still bring up the machinations of the band's first decade. "It's part of the initial impression that a lot of our fans have or had of the band and those are hard things to shake. Anyone who was a fan of Wilco early on had to adapt to different lineups quite a bit," he says.

"But for John and I the goal was always to have a stable lineup. It was never to have things as tumultuous as they were, intentionally. We just tried to make the most of things that were out of our control, including change, and change when things weren't working in the way that we felt they should be.

"Now it's more of my ideal of what it would have been all along – to have a band that could stay curious musically and engage with each other musically and grow and become a better unit."

But does a stable lineup and getting along mean better songs and better music? As Yankee Hotel Foxtrot showed, out of chaos or uncertainty, a landmark album was produced. "I look at it as: A lot of creativity happens in spite of those things. That's a part of human nature. It's pretty infrequent that there isn't an element of that [uncertainty]. You don't even have to look that far, even within a stable lineup.

"Hopefully there are always going to be limitations you are going to be working against. I think that is much more comfortable creatively than this idea that everything is perfect and you have an unlimited palette."

Wilco has now released eight albums – the last, The Whole Love, in 2011 – and with that has come ever increasing praise at how the band interprets its catalogue. Some say the band has never been better live. Tweedy says it comes down to experience on stage and off. "Ideally, that's supposed to happen and there're a lot of things to be said for this band being a little bit older [than] when most bands came together and being formed out of people who had experiences that were unpleasant. We've worked towards making a harmonious environment. There's also so much more music to maintain as a repertoire. It keeps us on our toes."

With that has also come focus on Tweedy outside the band in other ways. It has included producing soul great Mavis Staples' 2010 album, You Are Not Alone. Staples, who always called Tweedy only by his surname during the recording, will open for Wilco's Wellington show. Tweedy has also produced her next album, with most of the main recording work completed in January. "I absolutely adored getting to be part of her record and we have just finished the new one. I have been spending a lot of time with her. Mavis and I really hit it off and have a really intuitive and natural musical connection, somehow. We seemed to enjoy each other's company quite a bit. She's an angel."

As to Tweedy's opinion of his own musicianship, one thing he isn't is an artist who doesn't play his own records. "I'm not someone who doesn't want to listen to the records I make. One of the real joys is having that moment when you finish it and you sit back and go 'How did we do that? I have no idea. I wonder if we will ever be able to do it again?' It's usually those couple of months before the record comes out and no-one else has weighed in on it."

http://www.akl.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/culture/performance/8504698/Wilco-in-Welly-for-fans-and-friends

[jff]

I've read (and watched) a lot of Jeff Tweedy interviews.  Some of the quotes in the first one seem like they're either made up or paraphrased.