- [Announcer] Funding for "Overheard with Evan Smith" comes from Hillco Partners, a Texas government affairs consultancy, Claire and Carl Stuart, Christine and Philip Dial, Eller Group, specializing in crisis management, litigation, and public affairs communication, EllerGroup.com, Diane Land and Steve Adler, and Karey and Chris Oddo.

- I'm Evan Smith.

He's a Grammy Award-winning singer/songwriter who's band, Wilco, celebrated its 30th anniversary this year.

His latest solo album is "Twilight Override."

He's Jeff Tweedy.

This is "Overheard."

A platform and a voice is a powerful thing.

You really turned the conversation around about what leadership should be about.

Are we blowing this?

Are we doing the thing we shouldn't be doing by giving in to the attention junkie?

As an industry, we have an obligation to hold ourselves to the same standards that we hold everybody else.

- Two.

- This is "Overheard."

(audience applauds) Jeff Tweedy.

Welcome.

- Thank you for having me.

- [Evan] It's very nice to see you again.

- Nice to see you again.

- Congratulations on this record.

- Thank you.

- It's a triple album.

- It is a triple album.

- A triple album is a choice.

- It is a choice.

- Yeah.

- Yes.

- You don't do this accidentally.

I was thinking about other triple albums that I own.

- [Jeff] Mm-hmm.

- But they were all really old.

"Europe '72" by The Grateful Dead, "The Last Waltz," "All Things Must Pass," "Sandinista!"

Right?

- Right.

- These are all a long time ago.

- Yeah, well, I mean, Taylor Swift.

- I didn't buy that one.

No, no.

- And then there's a Joanna Newsom record.

- Right.

But you would acknowledge, this is not something that people do all the time these days.

- It's not recommended.

- Right.

So why?

- I don't really know why.

I mean, I think that books come in all kinds of different shapes.

- Right.

- And, but for some reason, the technology has limited the length of a lot of like records and different forms of media for music for so long that it's become sort of just like a uniform.

And records are expected to be about 45 minutes, if it's a double record about, you know, whatever.

And I don't know, I always find that kind of strange.

That's what started occurring to me when I was thinking about, I just write a lot of songs, and so like, you know, I thought, maybe it'd be fun to try and put a bigger group of songs out together.

- This many songs.

- Yeah, yeah.

- Right.

And you know, you could have edited the list down, but why not put 'em all out?

- Yeah, we thought about it.

We tried, but it was like, the original intention was to make a triple record.

We called it "Triple Rainbow" about two years ago.

It was like the working title was "Triple Rainbow."

- Right.

- And yeah, I just thought, you know, nobody looks at a book and goes, "30 chapters?

No way."

- "Why is it so long?"

Yeah, exactly.

So it ended up being called "Twilight Override."

And you've told the story a number of times.

I've heard it, others have heard it.

This record was a response to the world and to this sort of set of conditions that have overwhelmed all of us these days, isn't it?

- Yeah.

It's oppressive.

I think without speaking directly what we're all thinking about, I think, it's been a strange decade and post-pandemic especially has been really disorienting and there's a lot of trauma and then there's this impending sense that it's not gonna get better, you know, or like, it's not gonna get better anytime soon.

And I don't know anybody that isn't feeling that to some degree.

The root causes of some of that, in the broader sense, like in terms of national politics and the global concerns, I don't have much interest in directing songwriting towards those topical things.

- Right.

- But I definitely feel like writing songs about how it feels to be alive, and in a certain moment, that has a real intensity to those feelings.

But beyond that, I just like, I just wanted to share, in a kind of a big hearted way, this thing that I truly believe, I don't know, overrides darkness, helps you cope with darkness, and it has for me for as long as I've been alive through other people's records, through my own, like, and- - So your response is to create.

In a moment like this, create, and what I've heard you say is creativity eats darkness.

- Right, I believe that.

I do, yeah.

- So this is a response.

That's great.

- Yeah.

- It's great.

- There's a lot of darkness and I think there's a lot of darkness to eat.

- Yeah.

(Jeff and Evan laugh) Yeah.

I want to, you know, there are 29 songs on this record.

I want to ask you about a couple of them.

I mean, we can go- - 30 songs.

- 30 songs.

- Yeah.

Yeah.

- I want to go through just a couple that interested me, that jumped out at me.

This record, before it was released, you put a couple of singles or songs out by themselves.

One of them is "Stray Cats in Spain."

- Correct.

- And I thought, is he talking about cats that are stray?

Is this a metaphor?

No, it's the actual Stray Cats.

- The band, the Stray Cats.

- Like Brian Setzer, like the actual Stray Cats in actual Spain.

- Correct.

- Right.

Can you tell the story of the song?

'Cause I was sort of surprised to learn that that's what it actually was about.

- I was so worried that people were gonna think it was about alley cats or like, you know, like, you know.

- Yeah.

- But I couldn't figure out a way to make the title say what it, you know, I don't know.

I just hope that over time people would figure it out.

But Story Cats was the first band I saw as a kid in a club setting.

My brother, I talked my brother into taking me, went to see The Stray Cats in a small club in St.

Louis.

And it was a real, you know, super exciting.

They had their guitars in trash cans and like, they were, that's part of the alley cat thing, I guess, I don't know.

That's one of the things I remember about it.

But it was really exciting.

And 30 years later, I'm playing a festival in Spain and we have a day off.

So we walked over and the Stray Cats were headlining the stage we were gonna be headlining the next night.

And I don't know, they were playing the same set.

- From all those years?

- Yeah.

Pretty much.

- Hasn't changed.

Right.

- But it was, I started noticing as we were walking over there that, like, I was walking with all these people wearing like rockabilly clothes, and I didn't have any idea who was playing at the festival, but they were like, you know, pompadours and leopard skin pants and it was just really exciting, but they were all kind of older.

They all looked like they've been living this lifestyle for a long time.

It was like a subculture just kind of coming outta the woodworks.

- Yeah.

- But it was so life affirming and it was so uplifting to me because they were all so happy and it was like, it was a celebration.

And I don't know, I think that things that are nostalgic like that, and a band like that, that has some sort of retro, I don't know, aesthetic can get looked down upon maybe a little bit, artistically, but it seemed ridiculous in that moment, to deny the fact that this is making a lot of people really, really happy.

And it was, and I was one of them.

- Well, and I took the song, actually, when I found out what it was about.

It's a positive thing, not a negative thing.

- Totally.

- You're not (indistinct).

All right, my favorite song on this record is "New Orleans," which is very dirge-y.

- Mm-hmm, it's dirge.

- Right.

And I like it by itself, but now that I know the story behind it, I've heard you tell the story behind it, it made me really sad.

The Steve Albini connection to it.

Steve Albini was a legendary producer and engineer, musician, a really good friend of yours.

- Right.

Yeah.

- For a very long time.

Can you tell about the Steve Albini connection to this song?

- Yeah, it's like, it's nothing in the actual writing of the song or the lyric, lyrically, it doesn't have anything to do with Steve, but it will always remind me of Steve because I recorded this guitar part on this song that I was really proud of.

And then I got home and I didn't really have time to listen to it.

And Susie and I were called and we went to the hospital and we knew it was pretty bad.

And when we showed up, Steve's wife was being ushered into the consolation room, or, you know, I forgot what they call it.

- Yeah.

- You know, and it was obvious that things were really, really bad.

We stayed with her for a long time.

We got home.

You know, it's hard to even remember everything that was going on, but a night like that, so terrible.

We got home around four in the morning.

Sammy woke up, who was home, and wanted to know what was going on.

Told him about Steve.

Steve was a big part of his life.

Our whole family knew Steve, spent a lot of time together.

So, you know, spent time crying with Sammy and mourning.

And then as we kind of hung out a little bit, and we weren't gonna go to bed anytime soon, he asked me what I'd done that day in the studio because we were working on this record together.

- Yeah.

- And he was like, wanting to hear the progress.

And we sat and I played him this guitar part and for some reason, it unlocked like a torrent of grief, and I'll never forget it.

It just seemed like- - Right.

- Something about the way the guitar sounded really mirrored this horrible feeling, but in an oddly beautiful way, you know?

I don't know, it was just like somewhat comforting.

I don't, I really can't even, I don't really have the words for it.

It's in the guitar playing.

It's in, I actually- - Well, when I hear that song now, I think of Steve Albini.

- Yeah.

- Right?

I mean that's the effect of knowing the story.

All right, so the last song I want to ask you about is "Lou Reed Was My Babysitter."

(Jeff laughs) So it was the actual Stray Cats in actual Spain.

Lou Reed was not actually your babysitter.

- No.

- No.

- I mean, not real.

No.

- But there's a point to this here, which is that when you were growing up, you listened to Lou Reed at a very important part of your life, and you felt like, in some ways, that music really spoke to you.

- I feel like that about my records.

I mean, my records were my friends and loved me back and kept me company and kept me safe, I think, from myself, you know, in some ways, taught me a lot.

I was mentored by, you know, deviance (laughs) and people that you probably wouldn't have babysit your children.

So, I always find that really interesting, because there's something really positive about how records console us and comfort us.

- Yeah.

That song really rocks.

I mean, of all the songs- - Oh, thank you.

- On this record, I mean, and that riff in the middle about, you know, "The dead don't die," that, so it actually begs a question that a friend asked me to ask you, and that is, why are these songs Jeff Tweedy songs and not Wilco songs?

Some of these seem like songs that are, of course, part of a solo record, but like, that one could just easily be a Wilco song.

How do you decide which is which?

- Well, that was, that's actually one of the only ones on the record that was potentially a Wilco song.

And it was summarily dismissed.

(Jeff laughs) (audience laughs) - Were you outvoted?

- I don't want to make people do something they don't want to do.

- It it was Nels, wasn't it?

Nels did it.

- Maybe.

- Yes, possibly.

Okay.

- No, I think that the current batch of songs that we were working on at the time, it felt a little bit like a turd in the punch bowl or something, you know, like.

Can you say that on PBS?

- Yeah.

You absolutely can.

(audience laughs) - Not to get too technical with everybody.

- Oh my God.

They've already defunded us.

- Yeah, yeah.

- Swing away, man.

- Oh yeah.

- Say whatever you want.

- Oh, yeah.

- Yeah.

- So yeah, it was, it just felt a little incongruous with some of the other material.

- Right.

- And I don't think I really got dismissed by the band, but.

- But the thing is, there's a certain sort of permeable nature, the wall between the two.

You will play Wilco songs sometimes when you're out on your own.

- For solo shows.

Yeah.

- For solo shows.

And sometimes Wilco will play your songs.

Right?

I feel like I've heard Wilco maybe once or twice play a song of yours?

- Maybe if it's a song, not really.

Not anything off the solo record.

- So then we're not gonna hear this- - No.

- By Wilco.

Interesting.

- I don't think so.

No.

- Ah, well, okay.

- No, I think I've played songs with Wilco that I've written for Mavis Staples and for other projects.

- Other people.

But not solo songs.

- Not so far, no.

- Okay.

Okay.

- Yeah.

I don't know if there's any kind of rule against it, but it just hasn't come up.

- Not something we should expect, is the point, yeah.

- But yeah, most of the other songs, though, were written specifically for this group of voices and for this project.

- Right.

- And for the idea of this record.

- It fits.

- Yeah.

- That's the point.

So, on this record are Sammy Tweedy and Spencer Tweedy.

- Mm-hmm.

- The boys.

- Yeah.

- Right.

They're now grown adults.

- Yeah.

- They're grown humans.

- Yeah.

- And they're accomplished in their own ways.

- For sure.

- Right.

- Yeah.

- What was that like for you?

Dad out for us a little bit.

- Yeah.

I mean, I think it's, I don't know how I got to be so lucky.

I swear to God.

I just like, I don't know.

I feel so grateful for it.

It's just like a dream come true to get to, to spend time with them, even, to know that they still want to hang out with me as a dad at 58 years old and they've got other things to do and they enjoy spending time with me.

That's that, and- - Well, it's the family business on the one hand, obviously.

- Right.

I am paying them.

I know that.

- You are paying them.

- Thanks for reminding me.

- You're not getting this for free.

Exactly.

But the fact is they could be off doing their own things, and like, you know, Spencer does other stuff, right?

Waxahatchee taped Austin City Limits on this very station, and they're with Spencer Tweedy, playing drums, right?

- That's right.

- I mean, we see Spencer actually out now with a lot of other bands.

- Right.

- Presumably Sammy is doing Sammy things.

- He just finished a record he's been working on for seven years and it's like- - There you go.

- Totally wild.

It's not gonna sound like what people would expect from me, but it's like really, really, I don't know.

I was kind of blown away by it.

I mean, he's been working on it for seven years, but it kind of came outta nowhere when it was finished.

It was like so complete.

I'm like, really hope people get to hear it soon.

- And they really do contribute in a significant way to this.

- Oh, yes.

Even, yeah.

Even just the way that they're, they listen has been, I think, maybe nurtured just by the environment they've been growing up in, but they have a real, I don't know, there's just such a deep intimacy that you have with your family, and that's what you work towards as a musician.

And you just start there with these guys.

- Right, and as you point out, it could not, it could not go this way, but it went this way.

And you're lucky as a consequence of that.

- Right, yeah, it didn't have to go this way.

It wasn't like a demand.

Sammy was slower to come to this as an idea of something he wanted to do because it was his brother's thing.

- Yep.

- Because it was my thing.

- Yep.

- But I just kept putting synthesizers in his room.

(audience laughs) - You baited him, didn't you?

- I did.

I did.

- You baited him.

All right, so I've never asked you about Uncle Tupelo.

- Oh really?

- Uncle Tupelo was a gateway drug for me and for a lot of other people for decades that followed, that band.

I don't think nearly as appreciated as it should be.

Can you- - I agree.

- You agree.

(audience laughs) It was a statement, not a question.

Right, yeah.

Can you talk about how you think about that period of your time as a musician and the importance of that band?

I mean, obviously Wilco's been around for 30 years.

Uncle Tupelo was a much shorter timeframe, but feels to me so influential within that genre.

Can you talk how you think about it?

- I, you know, I'm very proud of the records that we made and I'm- - They hold up.

- I think so.

And I'm proud that people are still listening to 'em and taking some inspiration from them.

The thing I think about the most, honestly, isn't so much the music or whether or not we had any kind of lasting legacy that we could have had any kind of foresight about.

What I think about frequently is the fact that when Uncle Tupelo got a record deal with a tiny little label, and we had a van, and we had a show to go to, and then when we had a record, that was my dream come true.

And it still is.

And I'm kind of comforted by that all the time.

I outlived my dream by 30 years more, you know, like our, plus, 30 years plus.

And I think that's really served me well because I always feel like I could go back to that and I would still have that dream and be happy if things like- - If it was just that.

- If things went south, you know, it's a comforting place to be, to know that you don't, I don't know.

I think that's allowed me not to crawl across cut glass to get things that I think a lot of people want from this business.

- You're grateful.

- Yeah.

- You don't take it for granted.

- I don't think so, I think, I sincerely think that that, like, that's what I wanted.

I did not picture playing in an arena.

I did not picture, as a kid, playing even the size theaters that, I didn't have any reference.

- Winning a Grammy.

- Yeah.

None of that, none of that.

But I'm glad it all happened and the challenge to me has been getting, growing to the size of those venues and to the size of the expectations of the band.

You know, I looked at it as a challenge that was being presented to me, an opportunity.

And so I've been, you know, welcoming of that.

But I do truly believe that the initial dream was what it was and still is.

- And it's kind of amazing to think of Wilco after 30 years.

You know, a lot of bands, well, first of all, many bands don't get to 30 years.

- Right.

- And some bands stick around for 30 years and their records get less and less interesting.

Your records get, I think, more interesting.

- Well.

- "Cruel Country" is an example, right, from a couple years ago, it's a very interesting and different, differentiated record, from others that you've made.

You are not phoning it in.

I guess that's the point.

You're trying to do something different.

- Well, thank you.

I mean, I'm sure there are people that disagree.

I think it's hard to compete with yourself as you've been, as you stick around for a long time.

- Yeah.

- You're not just competing with everybody else's records for attention, you're competing with a record that someone has already formed a kind of deep connection to.

And so that's almost impossible to say, "Hey, there's this new guy you might wanna hang out with."

You know, like.

- Yeah.

- If you look at it the way I look at it, like records are your friends, you know, you're never gonna feel as close to somebody you just met as somebody you've been hanging out with.

- So if you play now and people are yelling "Jesus, Etc."

Or they're asking you to kind of go all the way back, do you consider that, not offensive, exactly, but somehow that's a reflection on the stuff that you're doing, maybe not being as interesting?

- Oh, no, I find, I think that that's like a gift.

I think that that's incredible.

To be put in a position where you can complete this circuit for somebody and make, that's the only reason to play that song.

I'm not gonna play "Jesus, Etc."

for myself for any reason.

(audience laughs) Without someone, knowing that there's someone in the audience that's connect, it's, you know, being, all these connections are being made, that invigorates me.

And I feel like really lucky to be able to stand on stage and play something somebody wants to hear, you know?

But I think that we've tried to, you know, thread the needle as a band from doing that and also standing behind the new material and playing new songs as much as possible and not, I don't know, kind of nurturing the idea in the audience, the audiences that come to see us, that they're gonna hear new stuff.

It's not gonna just be a nostalgic thing.

- And often you announce, "We're playing new stuff."

I wanna ask you about Solid Sound in the last couple of minutes that we have.

I remember when "Cruel Country" came out.

In fact, the timing of the release of that record, one imagines intentionally, was right on the lip of Solid Sound.

And then you played the entire record.

- Yeah.

- The first night.

You are presenting those songs to us for our consideration very intentionally, right?

Very intentionally.

- Yeah.

I mean, and then back to your question about the records, I don't want to make a record I already have, you know?

Whether it's my own or somebody else's.

The whole point is to kind of find out what else is inside of you.

And if you keep kind of doing that, I think you don't make the same record each time.

But yeah.

Yeah, well that was a, well we're, we have this extraordinary audience that comes to that festival in particular.

It's the festival that we curate.

And so it's one of the only times you could really do that, you know, have this field full of people and go, "We're gonna only play new songs."

- And everyone's like, "Great."

- And everyone's excited about it.

- And this year, on the Friday night of Solid Sound, you've announced that Billy Bragg is gonna perform with you and you're gonna play all of "Mermaid Avenue."

- Not all of "Mermaid Avenue," 'cause it's three.

- Most?

- Yeah, well, we're gonna only play "Mermaid Avenue" music.

- Music.

- Yeah.

Yeah.

- So it's not gonna be everything that you've recorded.

- Oh, you know, we couldn't, we wouldn't have time.

Because we had three records of that, so.

- But it will be all music from that- - Yeah.

- Universe of song.

So that is, in fact, another power of yours these days.

The convener, those festivals, Solid Sound every other year, Sky Blue Sky in Mexico, where you invite a bunch of bands to play.

You all play and they play.

You've actually become, you know, you're recommending bands to us, in some sense, by the ones that you're inviting to perform.

- Yeah.

- And that's really kind of a great thing also.

Curation.

That's what you say, curating.

You're curating a lineup for all of us.

- Yeah, I think it's, you know, all the different things that you can do when you have a band and a band has gotten to be a certain level of success.

I look at them, you can look at it as business, and it is, or you can look at it as business and an opportunity to make it something artful.

And I think you can put together a festival that is an extension of your artistic statement, or, you know, to let people into a broader sense of what Wilco is, as opposed to just a record or just one show.

- Yep.

- And meet our friends and meet the bands that we are inspired by.

Spend time, this is Solid Sound in particular, at this amazing world class art facility.

It just feels really extraordinary to get to present, that's the most expansive experience of Wilco you could have, is to come to that festival, to kind of immerse yourself in this world that I think is good.

(laughs) I think is, and I think is, you know, I want to share.

I don't want to, it's not just an artistic statement I wanna be praised for.

It's something I feel like we've created together with our audience and I want to share it.

- It feels like it's something you want to share.

- With the bands, especially.

I wanna share our audience with bands that I love and have them benefit from this groundwork that we've laid.

- Yeah.

- I think we've nurtured an audience of people that are up for listening and taking, you know, taking the leap.

- They are, so, in the last 30 seconds, share with me who's playing at Solid Sound this year, because you haven't announced it yet, but I want you to break news.

- Oh, okay.

Yeah.

(audience laughs) Well- - Because I'm dying to know.

- Oh yeah.

Let's see, I'm not gonna tell you.

(audience laughs) Yeah.

- I had to take my shot.

- Yeah.

Yeah.

- Will we know soon?

- We will know soon.

Yeah.

- Okay.

- I think, yeah, you're gonna, I think you'll be excited.

- Am I gonna be happy about it?

- I think so.

Yeah.

- Okay.

(audience laughs) It's really fun to get to talk to you.

Thanks so much for being here.

- Absolutely.

- Jeff Tweedy, give him a big hand.

(audience cheers) We'd love to have you join us in the studio.

Visit our website at austinpbs.org/overheard to find invitations to interviews, Q&As with our audience and guests, and an archive of past episodes.

- I love playing the guitar, but I've never been really adept at absorbing other people's techniques.

So it's kind of the only thing that comes out of me, to be honest.

And I think that I've made peace with that over time and given myself permission to play like that, even though I know it doesn't sound like somebody that's good at the guitar.

- [Announcer] Funding for "Overheard with Evan Smith" comes from Hillco Partners, a Texas government affairs consultancy, Claire and Carl Stuart, Christine and Philip Dial, Eller Group, specializing in crisis management, litigation, and public affairs communication, ellergroup.com, Diane Land and Steve Adler, and Karey and Chris Oddo.

(bright music)