Written off when Uncle Tupelo split and Wilco sputtered, he spliced The Clash, Can and country, while battling pills and trolls. Tough guy? “You gotta carry your load,” reckons Jeff Tweedy.
Midway through a two-hour interview, Jeff tweedy suddenly shuts his eyes, slumps back in his chair, and appears to pass out. Perhaps sensing the mild panic on MoJo’s face, he quickly steels himself, straightens up and apologises. “i’m sorry… i’ve got a migraine,” he says, citing a condition that’s plagued him since childhood. “i should have told you – it’s just hard for me to hold my head up sometimes.” a light snow has overtaken Chicago on this early November day. inside wilco’s North Side studio loft and headquarters, tweedy has spent much of the morning fighting off illness, huddled with longtime producer tom Schick, going over recently recorded tracks. Seated on a couch, clad in a black jumper, his grey-flecked hair is long, extending past his shoulders. “i’m letting it grow until trump is out of office,” chuckles tweedy, a friend of fellow Chicagoan, former President obama. as tweedy considers mixes, it’s not clear where the songs may turn up – possibly for a solo LP – but he notes wilco will be taking off much of 2018, freeing him for other engagements, starting with an acoustic tour of the uK in late January. “Jeff tweedy” is still a relatively recent incarnation for this native son of Belleville, illinois (June’s wryly titled Together At Last was his first ‘solo’ album). First there was alt-country avatars uncle tupelo, then (from 1994 to now) acclaimed alt-rockers wilco. Collaborations have included (with members of the Jayhawks and Soul asylum) golden Smog, the woody guthrie/Mermaid Avenue project with Billy Bragg, experimental combo Loose Fur, and tweedy – a family band with his eldest son, Spencer. wilco’s first two albums – 1995’s A.M. and 1996’s Being There – have just re-emerged, loaded with unreleased songs, alternate versions and live material. tweedy doesn’t often listen to his younger self. “But when i heard these [reissues], i was pleasantly surprised,” he says. “it felt like time has been their friend.” has time been tweedy’s friend? in august, he celebrated his 50th birthday; in September, his 83-year-old father Bob died (following his mother, Jo ann, who passed in 2006). his wife Sue Miller has been fighting cancer. Perhaps these life markers have him in a reflective mood as he explores subjects he’s often been reluctant to revisit, including his fraught partnership with fellow singer-songwriter Jay Farrar in uncle tupelo and the end of his relationship with wilco collaborator Jay Bennett, who was fired during the making of the group’s gold-selling breakthrough Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, and who died in 2009 from an accidental overdose of painkillers, while in the midst of suing his former band. tweedy also opens up about his own
drug addiction and recovery, and how Wilco’s career – even after 10 albums, seven Grammy nominations and two awards – still requires dodging the slings and arrows of public opinion. “When you’ve been at it this long, it’s never easy,” offers Tweedy. “It’s not supposed to be.”
Your father, Bob, passed away a couple of months ago. Was he a music fan?
He was, but he was not a voracious consumer. In fact, he would kinda find one song a year that he loved and listen to it over and over. Like Southern Nights by Glen Campbell, or It’s Hard To Be Humble by Mac Davis. We played all those songs at his wake. He’d latch onto one or two things at a time. Same thing with my music; he kinda liked Hummingbird and Casino Queen. Those were the two songs I always had to play when he came to shows.
His path in life – as a father, husband, and working man – was set very early. Was that something you grew up wanting to avoid?
He got my mom pregnant in high school and they both dropped out. He got a job with the railroad, cleaning diesel engines. At some point, someone with the railroad recognised he was pretty smart and sent him to a training programme to learn how to program computers, in like 1960, when they first automated the switching yard. He eventually became the head of the signals department for the Alton & Southern Railway. He was a pretty brilliant guy. But my dad was motivated very simply by the desire to not fail at taking care of his family. It wasn’t so much that I wanted to avoid that. My feeling growing up was the thing to be avoided was working on the railroad. My family – my uncles, my cousins, my brothers – all ended up doing that. You were an ‘accidental baby’, right? Your siblings were much older.
I came 10 years later than my youngest brother. My sister was old enough to really be like another parent or something. I realised much later in life that a lot of my early memories of my mom are probably my sister, ’cos she took me everywhere. I also put together later that maybe my first sense of abandonment was when my sister went away to college and I became a truly only child in that household.
Fair to say you were an indulged child then, maternally speaking?
I have no way of picturing what it would be like to not be an exalted golden child, and ultimately an uncontested Oedipal victor (laughs). My mom really looked at me as a companion.
You must’ve gotten a lot of records handed down to you.
My parents had Johnny Cash records, and country stuff that I heard. My sister’s record collection from the mid-’60s was tuneful pop stuff: Beatles, Monkees, Herman’s Hermits. And my brother’s records I inherited, when I was like 10 around ’77, were pretty adventurous. It was Amon Düül, Kraftwerk, Aphrodite’s Child, Hawkwind, Tangerine Dream, a whole crate of that. That all shaped me, and still seem to be the main arteries of what I do to this day.
How did you discover punk rock?
Going to the grocery store with my mom in the late ’70s and reading Rolling Stone and Creem magazines from cover to cover while she shopped. I would read Lester Bangs articles and came to a lot of punk rock through that writing. I had a vivid relationship with Clash records way before I ever heard them. I knew I wanted to like it. Then in 8th grade I went and lived with my sister in Arizona, ostensibly so I could play baseball during the winter – that’s what they told me. I think my mom and dad were having some problems, and I was shipped out of state to let them figure it out. I went to junior high in Tucson for one year and, being closer to the West Coast, things like Black Flag and the Dead Kennedys were bleeding into that little community more than they were in Belleville.
You came back to Belleville for high school and that’s where you met your eventual partner in Uncle Tupelo, Jay Farrar. You were the only two punk rock fans in school?
We were both in the same English class, and one of the early assignments was to write a little essay about your neighbour and explain who they are. We didn’t interview each other but the people who did stood up and said, “This is Jeff… his favourite band is the Ramones” and “This is Jay… his favourite band is the Sex Pistols.” It was like, well, I guess we have no choice but to say hi.
Farrar is a somewhat notoriously shy and withdrawn figure – seems like a hard person to become friends with.
It was never a comfortable, easy relationship. But he had a lot of things I wanted. He had an ability to express himself with an instrument, he was in a band with his brothers and they were into punk rock and new wave. He had a world that was not particularly welcoming to me, but I wasn’t going to pass up the opportunity to be around it.
Uncle Tupelo would come to be revered for your twinning of punk with countryfolk music.
We weren’t the first to discover or make any of those connections, but we were embracing the idea that it was all the same thing. Punk rock was a self-liberation of some sort. I don’t have to be a virtuoso, I don’t have to be in Yes, I can be this. And folk music was liberating yourself from your rural environment, and actually being a poet, being free to be expressive in that way.
There’s not that much difference between the overall attitude and disposition of Hank Williams and Joe Strummer.
Uncle Tupelo was a fairly boozy band. But you quit drinking early on. Was that a result of having come up in what you’ve described as an alcoholic home?
Getting drunk was a source of shame for me, considering I’d grown up with this idea that as long as I didn’t drink mom would be happy. I would be the one person in her life that didn’t drink. It was not easy for me pursue oblivion without a deep sense of shame. It didn’t stop me from doing it, or enjoying it sometimes. But my sense was this is bad. At some point drinking did become a problem in my relationships with my bandmates. I thought if I can quit – if I don’t have to go to treatment or anything – then I should just do that. I was 21 or 22 when I stopped drinking. But as my life progressed, just not drinking wasn’t going to fix my problems. Because I ended up having issues with other substances.
You progressed dramatically as a songwriter in Uncle Tupelo. Was there a growing sense of competition with Farrar?
I didn’t look at it as competition. I looked at it as this thing that Jay and I did, and we were going to do it forever, and we were gonna get better at it. And if I got better at it, then the band was better for it. Jay was always the best musician, Jay had this incredible voice, Jay was this force. I never looked at him as having any kind of vulnerability… that I could infringe upon that in any way. So blindly, like a dog, like an excited puppy, I wanted to get better, so Jay would be happy that I was better. And instead, I just stepped on his toes and got into his turf. I didn’t know that or realise it then. It became harder for him to accept [the band] as a partnership as the outside world began to acknowledge that it was a partnership.
Was signing to Sire/Warner Bros for 1993’s Anodyne an easy decision?
No, it was a pretty big debate. Like lot of bands at that time, there was some perception that you were selling out. Jay probably felt it morally repugnant to be associated with a label that had anything do with, like, Madonna. But I felt like we’d earned the opportunity. And they gave us a deal that said we could do whatever we wanted. That’s what we did – I mean, we went and recorded Anodyne live in the studio.
Although Uncle Tupelo seemed on the cusp of breaking out, Farrar quit the band suddenly. A shock to you?
I was shocked and felt betrayed and it confirmed my deepest suspicions and insecurities that Jay hated me. I thought, “Why would you quit? Why would you do this now?” And I still don’t understand the answer to that question, 25 years later. I don’t really care any more or think about it very often. But there’s not a very good or clean explanation other than Jay just kinda wanted me out of the picture. Did it hurt when the first Wilco album, A.M., was overshadowed by Trace, the debut from Jay’s band Son Volt? Did you feel like you were being viewed as the lesser talent?
Everybody looked at it that way – the record company looked at it that way. They said to me openly, “[A.M.] is gonna come out a few months before [Trace] and really set up Jay’s record.” Somebody said that out loud to me (laughs). I was like, “Um, that’s not why I fucking made it.”
But that was actually the turning point for you and for Wilco, wasn’t it?
I had tried to hang onto to my piece of Uncle Tupelo. I definitely did that with the first Wilco record. I still wanted my fans from Uncle Tupelo, I wanted that audience. And that wasn’t my audience – that was an audience that cared about the combination of the two of us. I decided that’s not what I’m here to do any more. I was into music before I ever l met Jay Farrar. I love music and I’m going to start doing all the things that I love to do. It was the first time I realised I’m not making music to stand next to Jay’s music or anyone’s. And, to be honest, I was fuelled by a resentment towards things that were being said about me by fans and rock critics and the fact that I was generally being dismissed. The best thing that’s ever happened to me is having people tell me I’m not as good, or a lightweight, or all of those things. Well, OK, I’ll try harder next time… and you’ll be fucking sorry (laughs).
Being There coincides with your marriage to [Chicago rock club owner] Sue Miller and the birth of your first child. Did suddenly having adult responsibilities impact on your music?
“I was fuelled by a resentment towards things that were being said about me by fans and rock critics.”
Well, I was lucky enough to have a grown-ass woman taking care of me, because I wasn’t particularly adult. I’m still not particularly adult in a lot of ways. Being There is definitely me coming to terms with the notion that I can’t let music be the only important thing to me any more, ’cos I have to be a dad. Until then, I never saw myself as anything other than an entity defined by records and rock’n’roll and music.
Songs like Misunderstood, Sunken Treasure, The Lonely 1 seem to be speaking about the complexities of the artist/fan dynamic.
I was contemplating how unrecognised and unappreciated that is, in general, as an artistic transaction. That the collaborator who does 50 per cent of the work doesn’t ever get acknowledged. Without a listener, without another consciousness on the other end, records don’t mean anything.
You grew into a somewhat confrontational figure on-stage around this time – there was a show in Shepherd’s Bush in London in 1997 where you famously castigated the audience.
I’m not particularly proud of whatever happened in London. We probably were playing a boring show… but that was a shitty audience, whether we were good or not. Also, I blame the British music press. The British music press would hype things up, creating an audience that was full of curiosity seekers there to see the thing that was being hyped, as opposed to the thing that was actually in front of them. I felt there was an audience there that wasn’t negotiating in good faith – they wanted something other than what we were. Besides, I’ve always felt if you turn up to a rock’n’roll show thinking it’s about the band providing something, you’re wrong. Rock’n’roll ritual is about an audience and a band providing together. You gotta carry your load.
The next long-player, 1999’s Summerteeth, was remarkably, nakedly autobiographical. You seem comfortable expressing your desperation…
It’s probably that same overwhelming sense of well-being from childhood, thinking that every utterance and all of my emotions are of interest to everybody (chuckles). I do have an innate comfort level with being vulnerable. I don’t quite understand being embarrassed or insecure about being perceived as weak. I just don’t get it. It seems so fucking obvious that everybody is weak, that everybody is struggling.
A lot of artists don’t want to show that side of themselves.
People want to appear to be in control – that’s one of the only things they can control, the perception that they’re in control. But they always fall. They always fail at some point. And that’s when I like them more.
Fair to say that [multi-instrumentalist] Jay Bennett helped shape the sound of Wilco during this time? Were you looking for that type of collaborator?
Before Jay, my focus and energy would usually outlast everyone else’s. I would always be the last one obsessing about a mix or still pushing forward on something. It turned out that Jay was still there at the end of most days. (Hesitating) I always have a tough time not bristling at the idea that Jay was some sort of sonic shaper of what happened, because I don’t think that’s accurate – without diminishing any of his contributions or his role. Jay was an incredible asset – to have somebody that could play a lot of different instruments well, and had a lot more experience in the studio. I could say, “I want to hear it like this,” and he had the expertise and understanding of how to do that.
Do you think the perception of his role in the band was distorted by [the documentary] I Am Trying to Break Your Heart?
The focus the movie really put on Jay and I, it diminished [longtime bassist] John Stirratt’s role and everybody else’s contributions to the band. I don’t think doing the film was a
“A nurse told me, ‘I’m happy to find out that you actually are a musician, because we thought you were delusional.’”
mistake, but I underestimated how concrete things become in people’s minds based on them seeing it in a movie. The irony of the film is the actual making of [fourth Wilco album] Yankee Hotel Foxtrot isn’t in it at all. The weeks that [mixer] Jim O’Rourke and myself spent in the studio, that’s what the record is, that’s what it ended up being. And that’s not in the movie at all, ’cos they’d run out of money to film stuff. At that point, the relationship with Jay in the studio was not a tenable one. That record would have never come out the way it did with him in the band. That being said, Jay and I co-wrote a bunch of those songs and I don’t ever wanna not give somebody the credit that they deserve. It’s hard for me to say some of these things… because they sound bitter or negative…
And probably complicated by the fact that Bennett is no longer around.
Right. And there’s also a certain amount of ambivalence about how Jay behaved after the band. He was out of the band for like six years before he passed away. And all this was still this topic for him, and not necessarily a topic for us.
You found yourself addicted to painkillers around the time of [2004’s] A Ghost Is Born. How did you fall into that?
I was prescribed painkillers for lots of different reasons, bullshit reasons sometimes. But my doctors wanted to treat my migraines. Eventually, at the local pharmacy, a guy who was a fan, started to double or triple my prescription because he saw that my name was on it. He thought he was doing me a favour. And he offered to help out if I couldn’t get a prescription for some reason. I took him up on that eventually. I’d go through the drive-thru and get a Ziploc bag with hundreds of painkillers. I was worried the guy would get in trouble, but he was the one doing the counting. And that one pharmacy alone would sell hundreds and hundreds of thousands of those pills a year, so they could get away with a few hundred going missing.
You ended up going to rehab as a result.
It wasn’t just the addiction, it was mental health issues that put me in a position where anything would’ve been better than the place I was in. That’s invariably the state of mind that people who get treated successfully reach. I was at a point where I thought, “Even if I don’t play music ever again, but I’m happy, that would be better than this.”
And what was rehab like? Did who you were count for anything in there?
They thought I was crazy, at least initially. At the intake, they asked what I did. Told them I’m a musician. After a couple days I think one of the nurses came up to me and said, “I’m really happy to find out that you actually are a musician, because we thought you were delusional.” One time, some other patient, another addict, figured out who I was, and he wanted to know where we kept our gear (laughs). “Where do you guys rehearse?” “Fuck man, I ain’t telling you.”
You’ve noted that there are people – not so much critics, but fans, or internet trolls, perhaps – who will say things like, “I liked Wilco’s records better when Jeff Tweedy was on drugs.”
To be charitable, that’s probably just dark humour. People who say that stuff don’t really mean it. But, in general, that is a fucking shameful, idiotic thing to say in public. If you’re drunk listening to records with your buddy in your living room saying something like that, it would be totally fine. But because of social media we live in everyone’s living rooms now. And some people don’t realise what they’re saying out loud essentially. And also, it’s bullshit… because the records get better and better. Every time I make a record it’s better than the last one.
I’m sure there are a lot of good things about being a successful, established band like Wilco. What are the drawbacks?
We’re never going to be a band that no one’s ever heard of again. When no one knows you, there’s a great opportunity to create an impression and then subvert that impression. We don’t have that ability any more. Plus, the more records you make, the longer you’re around, the more you become a band people feel compelled to weigh in on – because there’s a new Wilco record and you have to have an opinion. I don’t give a fuck about your opinion, ’cos this record isn’t for you, it never was, and you wouldn’t be paying attention to us if it wasn’t for all the other people who genuinely care about us. My feeling is there are no instant classics anyway. Records exist and people find them over the years, over time, and that’s what determines their value.
You’ve worked as a producer for a range of artists from Low to Richard Thompson to White Denim. But you’ve had a particularly fruitful collaboration with Mavis Staples – why has that worked so well?
We had a real easy rapport from the first times we hung out. There’s a familial element – she loves [my wife] Susie and thinks of my sons Spencer and Sammy as her grandkids. She’s adopted us all as a part of her family. And I really work hard to make her feel comfortable in the studio. Maybe she just sees something in me. I dunno. I think I am a genuinely nice person. (Long pause) I will note, however, that genuinely nice people don’t normally have to tell people they’re genuinely nice (laughs).
You recently turned 50 – does that milestone have you looking back on your legacy?
The only thing I allow myself to feel is gratitude. I’m still pretty young for the amount of stuff I’ve been able to do and be a part of. Being in Uncle Tupelo would’ve been more than enough for a lot of people – as a musician to just have that experience would’ve been great. But then there’s Wilco, the Woody Guthrie stuff, the Mavis records, all of these things I’ve packed into this amount of time. Mostly, I feel grateful that I’m healthy and feel more inspired and more capable of doing this every day. This is the thing that I love to do, and people keep letting me.
Jeff Tweedy tours the UK and Ireland, January 30-February 3.