Ahead of Wilco’s Portland appearance, frontman Tweedy reflects on ‘Cousin,’ working with producer Cate LeBon and his upcoming book ‘World Within a Song’
On March 23 and 24, 2020, Wilco was set to play the Arlene Schnitzer Hall in support of its 11th record, “Ode to Joy.” Of course, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, those shows didn’t happen, with the make-ups finally coming in the fall of 2021.
If it was a little weird at that point to be touring for a record that was two years old, the band is now on a completely opposite trajectory with its return to Portland at Keller Auditorium on Oct. 16. It is now supporting not one, but two new records: “Cruel Country,” a double album the band released digitally in May 2022 but did not appear on vinyl or CD until the start of 2023 (supply chain issues — remember those?), and “Cousin” which just came out Sept. 29.
The latter record is technically older, as the band had begun to work on it prior to the pandemic. Then “Cruel Country” — a multi-layered title referencing both America and country music with equal parts sincerity and irony — happened like spontaneous combustion, sparked by the ability of Wilco’s members to play music together at the same time in the same room for the first time in forever.
They hit the road again last summer (which brought them to Bend but not Portland), then circled back to the earlier material, which had been more studio-concocted, with the Welsh musician Cate LeBon serving as Wilco’s first outside producer since their work with Jim O’Rourke at the beginning of the century.
On top of that, Jeff Tweedy will release his third book, “World Within A Song: Music That Changed My Life and Life That Changed My Music,” on Nov. 7. The book finds Tweedy looking back on his life, from childhood to recent years, by ruminating on 50 favorite — or at least, most interesting — songs, ranging from Deep Purple and Grandmaster Flash and the Furious 5 to The Replacements, Otis Redding and Rosalía.
Street Roots spoke to Tweedy via phone while the band was on tour in Europe earlier this fall.
Jason Cohen: The band’s been touring pretty hard. How much of that is making up for lost time, and how much of it is just that you love to play, and it’s your living?
Jeff Tweedy: I mean, it's a little bit of all of those things. But we've always toured quite a bit. I don't really feel like we're making up for lost time. It's just we're up for a fair amount of touring this year with two new records out historically kind of close together. And so the band has been really active and trying to take advantage of the energy to do it.
Cohen: So could there be a “Basement Tapes” of “Cousin,” given how long that record was in progress? Are there different versions of it?
Tweedy: Well, I don't know if there's any other version of it. But yeah, there could easily be a “Basement Tapes” of almost any Wilco record at this point (editor’s note: as there was last year for 2001’s “Yankee Hotel Foxtrot”). Just because there's so much recording going on all the time at The Loft. Cate LeBon, when she came in to produce the record, picked through the songs with me out of, like, 40 songs. It’s just what happens when you write a lot — accumulating a lot of material. A lot of it is stuff I really like, but it doesn't always find its way onto a record in an expedited fashion.
Cohen: Other than being a fan of her music, what made you ask Cate to produce?
Tweedy: Just our camaraderie. Getting to know her and being friends with her, and admiring the way she works. I got to see it a little bit up close because there was a record of Wilco covers by other people that came out a couple of years ago as a covermount CD for Uncut, and one of the things that some of the bands took advantage of was that they could use our studio if they wanted. So she recorded her version of “Company In My Back” at The Loft. I didn't really hang around all day or anything, but I loved the process that I was able to see, and I loved how the track turned out — the imagination of her arrangement. It stuck in my head that it'd be fun to work with her sometime.
Cohen: You’ve worked with lots of collaborators but not a producer per se for a while. How would you characterize what a producer does versus being a member of a band or being just an engineer?
Tweedy: Well, not every producer is the same. In fact, most producers are different. When I produce, I’m much more about making the studio experience easy for the artist. Not really doing a whole lot of anything other than helping pick takes and help keep spirits up. Unless I'm asked to contribute more in some cases, like songs or instrumental parts.
In Cate's case, she’s the kind of producer who comes in really, really prepared, well-versed in all of the songs, knows all the chords and most of the lyrics and has really done a lot of homework on how everything's put together. I guess with the idea that if you're going to take it apart and put it back together, you should know what the original recipe is. It was really impressive how prepared she was. It was really a great experience.
Cohen: In the press release for the record, you said Cate is very suspicious of sentiment. Would the next part of that statement be “unlike me” or “like me?”
Tweedy: I think it's “like me.” But I don't know, I get exhausted from trying to keep my guard up sometimes. It was nice to have some reinforcement. I think it makes it better when you don't succumb to the easy temptation of cliche and sentimentality in art. I think it's better to let the art do its job and create some sort of magic that doesn't require a predictable plea for a specific emotion.
Cohen: So you’ve also got your third book coming out next month. Why do you feel like you maybe should have written this one first rather than your memoir?
Tweedy: Well, like I say in the introduction, I think it's just the thing that I most relate to the world through: other people's songs and music in general. In a more profound way and a more real way to me, I'm connected to the world through other people's songs. My writing songs is an effort to participate in that type of feeling. But I think it's much more complicated psychologically to write songs than it is to think of how songs contain your own memories and how other people's songs have affected you.
Cohen: When you're working on a book, is it something you do to the exclusion of all else, or do you kind of break up your days and weeks between prose writing and songwriting?
Tweedy: I don't ever really stop writing songs. So it's a concentrated effort for sure. I block out a certain amount of time that I know I have to write. It's something I chip away at, and I do my normal, creative work alongside it.
Cohen: In Portland, there's actually a Wilco cover band, Wilclone. Do you think about the way that other people might relate to your own songs in the same way?
Tweedy: Yeah, of course. I mean, it's a hard thing to keep in the front of your mind. I don't know what good it really does you if you were walking around thinking about how your songs are important to someone else.
But you do meet people that have a very visible relationship with your music. You read about it, you see it, you're confronted with it. And you have to make some peace with it. Obviously, it's a really beautiful thing to get to be a part of, but it's not necessarily beneficial to the process of writing songs.
Cohen: In the book, you say you’ve been trying to write your own version of the Rolling Stones’ “Connection” — your favorite song on your favorite Stones album — for 40 years. What song do you think has come closest?
Tweedy: Oh, I have no idea. The most obvious answer is “Jesus, Etc.” The songs that are the most popular — that seem to have the strongest reaction from the most people. But that's neither here nor there for me. I kind of like it when I get evidence that even the deepest cut has reached somebody in a way that I could have never envisioned or anticipated.
Cohen: Obviously, you're a voracious listener. Do you ever try to avoid other people's music when you're writing or recording your own stuff? Or is it always kind of in the ether and inspiring?
Tweedy: No, I never really stop listening. I mean, sometimes I don't have enough time to listen to a whole lot of other music, because I'm in the studio, and your ears get tired. But it's never a conscious choice. I've heard people say things like that, that they wanted to work on their record without any outside influence, and I don't really relate to that. I like the challenge that I feel from hearing something that's super inspiring. And I don't think I could really make anything like somebody else if I really tried. It’s more like being aware of where the bar is.
Cohen: Yeah, and similarly, you can only be you when you're writing a book. But were you aware that Bob Dylan had a similar one coming when you started working on this one?
Tweedy: Yeah. I had already come up with the idea for the book and done some preliminary writing, and then that book appeared, which was really kind of funny. I got it before I was finished with this book. And it was very, very different. You know, very, very Dylan. Very wild, kind of inconsistent, kind of a weird book. Not at all, I don't think, in the same spirit as this book.
Cohen: “Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright” gets a chapter in your book, and you write that you could have easily done an entire book of only Dylan songs if the subject was your development as a songwriter. So I guess the comedy there is, “Oh, of course Dylan did something first.”
Tweedy: Yeah. Of course. But you know, the weird thing is not that Dylan did it, and then I did it. The weird thing is that there aren't that many books about this topic in particular. At least, not that I'm aware of. There's a Nick Hornby book that’s similar, but I didn't read that one. This book was more influenced by books like Henry Miller's, about his favorite authors and books that he's read (“The Books In My Life”). There's a lot more books like that about literature than there are in music.
Cohen: So at some point you are going to be taking some time off ... you're having hip replacement surgery, is that right?
Tweedy: Yeah, I am in January. If my leg doesn't fall off between now and then.
Cohen: But you're hanging in there now?
Tweedy: Yeah. Not as much dancing as normal. Luckily, nobody comes to see me dance. Maybe to rock back and forth.
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