Wilco’s Tweedy pens revealing memoir
Jeff Tweedy has never been a fan of the rock star memoir. He admits he’s not well-versed in the genre.
“They never appealed to me for some reason — I don’t know why,” he says. “I’m sure there are a lot of things I could learn from reading other people’s biographies. I just don’t have the interest or patience.”
But the Wilco frontman managed to muster up enough interest and patience to write his own. His “Let’s Go (So We Can Get Back): A Memoir of Recording and Discording With Wilco, Etc.” is out now.
“It’s a pretty low-stakes genre, writing a rock ’n’ roll memoir.”
“Let’s Go (So We Can Get Back)” is the first official memoir by the 51-year-old Tweedy. He was part of the seminal alt-country band Uncle Tupelo and now is with Grammy-winning Wilco, an alt-rock band based in Chicago, where he lives.
The memoir is a deep dive into Tweedy’s story, with apparently nothing off-limits. He writes of the rise and fall of Uncle Tupelo, tales of Uncle Tupelo’s Jay Farrar and Wilco’s Jay Bennett, and his own struggles with addiction and depression.
Tweedy had to ask himself whether it was even time for him to write a memoir.
“I’m just getting started,” he says. “I feel like there’s always a sense when somebody writes a memoir, they’re nearing the end of their career.”
In the end, Tweedy hopes his memoir leaves readers with the feeling that “somebody sat down with them, and we had a conversation that was honest and natural.”