THE LAST GREAT: An interview with Jeff Tweedy

PV: I  remember last time I met you, I told you, as a joke, because I was amazed how great the show was, I asked you how about a live album and you told me "We are not so bad in the studio either!"

JT: Oh really, that was you!?!

PV: Yeah..

JT, Yeah, I remember

PV: So now there'll finally be a live album coming out?

JT: Yeah, yeah

PV: So in a way I was right?

JT: You were right!

PV: So, your record company gave me this article (about the Chicago shows) and it looks like some trouble…

JT: That was one of the worst shows ever. It was really the worst show ever - it was really a really frustrating experience cause we were paying a lot of money for all the film crew to be there and everything and nothing worked. I mean we just couldn't get it to work.

PV: So, on the coming DVD will there be footage from all the shows?.

JT: Yeah, it's just the best of the four nights

PV: Ah, from the Chicago residence. And I'm looking at the tracklist here which is kind of very exciting

JT: Hahaha

PV: Something In The Air, which is one of my favourite songs

JT: Oh yeah, yeah, we haven't played that in a while

PV: Will it be on the DVD?

JT: I don't know if the DVD is gonna happen

PV: Well, too bad

JT: Yeah

PV: And I also saw I Shall Be Released, right?

JT: Mmm. Yeah, we haven't done that in a while, either

PV: Any chance you're gonna play either of those tonight?

JT: Ah, well I'm just reminded of them now, so, ah, maybe

PV: That's great. So, there will be a DVD and an audio CD coming out, right?

JT: I don't think the DVD is gonna come out. I think it's just gonna be a CD

PV: Only the CD?

JT: Yeah, just a live record. Let people use their imaginations, hehehe. What we look like…

PV: And um. And how was, I actually saw Wilco in concert a couple of times, I think there were only two times you played here and it was always such a terrific experience

JT: Oh good..

PV: And I'd like to ask you that you guys on stage is like taking the songs and developing the songs to new landscapes. There are certain moments during the show where you guys are exploring… As I said before, I only saw you're a couple of times and I had no idea how a Wilco show was. And I saw you had a brand new line-up in the last two years.

JT: You've seen us since we had the new line-up though?

PV: I saw you when YHF came out, you performed here in Milan and last year in Brescia

JT: That's the whole point of playing live. You know, you have the songs and you stay connected to them by changing them a little bit and that's the live album too. I think we're trying to pick songs for the live album that we're trying to pick songs that have grown and improved a lot since we recorded them.

PV: I know that a friend of mine who saw you in the early Wilco days, that during the Wilco shows, you used to used to play some solo songs in the set

JT: Occasionally

PV: You don't do that anymore?

JT: No, I haven't done that in a long time. No, I do ah, I think I might be coming here to do some acoustic shows in the fall or something. I'd like to do some European acoustic shows.

PV: That'll be great. And after the last album, at least here in Europe, Wilco were a cult thing before it and after the last album, you were quite a success. I don't know how many copies you've sold but…

JT: For us, the last two records have been very successful.

PV: Has it changed anything in the approach to the band and music?.

JT: No it's just gotten a little bit more comfortable, a little bit easier to do what we want to do and we can afford to upgrade our studio a little bit in our loft. But no, it's still do whatever you can to stay excited and that's the whole point.

PV: You don't feel a different kind of reaction from the audience and the critics now?.

JT: No, the only thing I've noticed is that there's more of everything and there's more praise and more people that knock you down. Whenever you're more visible, more people have opinion. People seem to think they have to have an opinion about everything (laughs).

PV: I was reading the other day an interview you did some time ago when you were talking to a German journalist, it was hilarious, cause were talking about this German journalist who kept asking you "Why doesn't Jeff Tweedy write more political songs?".

JT: Ah-ha

PV: And you said my fucking guitar is more political than anything and I haven't written any political songs

JT: (laughs)

PV: If you remember, but it was very funny to read, cause especially here in Europe, journalists and fans, well, thinking about a band like your band has a political approach and thinking about the war in Iraq. The quote "My fucking guitar is more political", is just great and is what Rock 'n' Roll is really about.

JT: Yeah, it doesn't have to be spelt out to me. Rock 'n' Roll puts you square on the side of creation, you know, on things existing. And ah, and destroying the status quo and I don't see how you can play Rock 'n' Roll music and buy into all the lies that exist in our political administration and the government. It's dismal, it's fucked up in the United States, definitely fucked up. But Rock 'n' Roll is above it.

PV: Maybe the problem is because today there are so many fake Rock 'n' Roll bands around that they try to copy an attitude without believing it?.

JT: I don't think it's just fake Rock 'n' Roll bands, I think it's, uh, just everything's fake. There's a lot of fake everything, you know, and that's never good for people, but people always tend to wake up at some point and sadly it's taking a long time, but I think people are starting to wake up in the United States and it certainly helps, I think.

PV: What was your opinion, if I may ask you about the Vote for Change tour that Bruce Springsteen and R.E.M did before the…?

JT: I think everybody, I was all for anybody doing anything they could do to increase the possibility that there would be a different president. And we weren't asked to do it, we would have been happy to do it, but um, the difference, the weird thing is though is like, a Rock 'n' Roll audience should be predisposed to uh, I don't know, I'm not trying to say they are playing/preaching to the choir, but I think there was probably a lot of that, but I don't know what else, I think people just wanted to feel like they were doing something.

PV: Your writing has developed so much in your career, it's amazing to look at it and listen to your approach. And, I heard I heard Bob Dylan in a recent interview say that he didn't want new songwriters to look at him to learn how to write songs. He said that you have to look at the people that influenced him, the people like old blues men, Hank Williams, people like that. If you were approached by a young guy who wants to write songs, asking you about that, what would you say? You changed the way to write rock songs..

JT: Well, I just think that if you love songs, you love writing songs, you listen to all songs, with the ear for 'how did it happen?', you know "how did that happen?", and I listen to my own songs with the feeling of how did that happen, cause I don't really know, um but, you don't, I don't think you can direct yourself to one specific source cause I don't think, um, whatever the specific source is, it doesn't lie in one person.

PV: Sorry?

JT: Whatever the source of song is, it doesn't lie in one person. It's kind of eternal and everybody probably has a little bit of it inside them, you know?

PV: Maybe it's a stupid question, but if I ask you for the name of one artist that inspired you you most, which one would it be?

JT: Um, well, it's hard to say. I mean, Bob Dylan's obviously huge for most people that I know. Um, Ray Davies from the Kinks, um, I think he's pretty underrated and he's been inspiring to me for a long time.

PV: Musically and lyrically?

JT: Mmm, yeah.

PV: The song, The Late Greats, the last song on your last album, to me has some of your best, touching and moving lyrics you ever wrote. How did the particular song come out?

JT: Well..

PV: Cause it's a very inspiring song

JT: Thank you. Well, I had the song around for a pretty long time. I think I wrote it before 'Being There', I wrote most of it. And then I never had any more lyrics than just the first verse, you know, 'the greatest lost track of all time, the late greats, turpentine'. That verse. And we just started playing it in the studio and we felt like something that would be good and I looked through my notebook for some poems and I had this poem about the idea of songs not just coming from the performer, but from the listener and it seemed to fit with those lyrics so it took me about eight years to write that song!

PV: Kind of long!

JT: Yes, it happens all the time. I have songs that lay around forever and then they finally get finished and…

PV: Are you working on some new songs?

JT: Yeah, we'll probably play some tonight

PV: Oh great! Unfortunately, I wasn't able to find the Wilco Book in Italy

JT: Oh no..

PV: And also the film, so are you satisfied with these two projects, how they…

JT: Well, this one did and that's something we had a hand in. This one is not our movie - we didn't edit it, it's Sam Jones' movie. So I really love this, and this like (laughs), I don't know

PV: and the book…

JT: But this is weirder, it's more like an art book.

PV: Yeah, I read about it and I also read that you are selling the signed posters which is great.

JT: Yeah…

PV: I heard that there are some TV benefits this day for New Orleans?

JT: I'm sure there will. It's something that always happens. I hope that we get asked to do one or two when we get back but I think those people are going to need help for a long, long time. And especially once they're off the world stage, and they're not in the spotlight, all those refugees will continue to need help. I mean, it's a whole city. It's a whole city destroyed.

PV: It's an incredible tragedy….

JT: It's like ripping the heart out of a country, you know. It was really one of the only places left in America that had a real profound European flavour, also.

PV: New Orleans is the music city…

JT: Hmmm..

PV: Especially for the musicians, it must be very touching to think about that

JT: Hmmm..

PV: And ah, are you still in touch with Jim O'Rourke?

JT: Oh yeah!, all the time. We're friends.

PV: Are you planning to work again together?

JT: Oh definitely, we have a Loose Fur record which is almost finished. You know, we have a band together. We put one record out called 'Loose Fur'

PV: When?

JT: Ah, two year ago

PV: Oh really?

JT: Yeah, you should check it out. And we have another one that's almost finished that will probably come out next year

PV: That's great, and I'm very curious to listen to it.

JT: Its ah, it's not that far from A Ghost Is Born, really, it's pretty organic, but weird.

PV: He's always busy with Sonic Youth?

JT: No, he's only been with Sonic Youth for a little while, I mean 4 or 5 years, and I think might be, uh, I don't know if he'll continue to be a part of that

PV: Ok, sorry

JT: That's all right!