Episode 972 - Jeff Tweedy
Marc:all right let's do this how are you what the fuckers what the fuck buddies what the fucksters what's happening i'm mark maron this is my podcast wtf welcome to it how's it going first of all jeff tweedy
Marc:of wilco and jeff tweedy fame is on the show today and i know a lot of you people wanted him to be on the show and i and i was hesitant for a while not really hesitant but i feel like like like wilco is one of those bands
Marc:That, you know, I was a big Uncle Tupelo fan.
Marc:And then when they broke up, I weighed both of them out.
Marc:I got the Sunvolt record, Jay's record.
Marc:I got Jeff's Wilco record.
Marc:And I listened to the first two of each of their albums solo or with the new bands.
Marc:And then I kind of drifted.
Marc:So it wasn't I know Wilco is a great band and Jeff's a great artist, but I hadn't kept up.
Marc:It wasn't I didn't like him, but I hadn't kept up.
Marc:And I feel insecure and weird to book people if I don't keep up.
Marc:I obviously I listened to a few of the records as they came.
Marc:But I didn't.
Marc:I felt I just felt like I didn't know the catalog as well as I should.
Marc:So when I got the opportunity.
Marc:I locked in and I listened to it.
Marc:Now, I'll talk about that in a second.
Marc:The other thing I want to talk about is that I'm at the Ice House this Sunday, December 2nd, 7 p.m.
Marc:show.
Marc:You can go to WTFPod.com slash tour for the link or IceHouseComedy.com for tickets.
Marc:That's going to be the last long set.
Marc:For months, probably, which is not great for me.
Marc:But but it's a reality because I start shooting glow this week.
Marc:I'm going to be immersed in that.
Marc:That is sort of all-consuming.
Marc:I may do some short sets on weekends, but I'm going to be off the grid a bit.
Marc:I will find the time to do this, obviously.
Marc:We bank some interviews.
Marc:I'll get them in when I can, but I'm going to be off the grid.
Marc:I'm actually considering really getting off the grid.
Marc:Something just got sparked in me, actually, and it happened because of something to do with this show.
Marc:And...
Marc:I'm just always overwhelmed with the reactions of this show, with the impact it has.
Marc:But this thing just kind of... Oh, man.
Marc:So here's the email.
Marc:Rock on, Mark.
Marc:Hey, Mark, three years ago you interviewed Steve Albini on your podcast and you asked him what the most important album he had worked on in his career was.
Marc:I thought he would talk about working on Nirvana's In Utero or Pixie's Surfer Rosa, but instead he talked about an unknown musician named John Grabski and his album Teeth.
Marc:John's story of battling cancer by making a rock album with his favorite producer of all time was really inspiring to me.
Marc:After listening to the episode, I contacted John's family and Steve Albini to see if they would be interested in helping me make a short documentary film about John.
Marc:That film is now complete.
Marc:It's called Rock vs. Cancer and is now available for people to watch on YouTube.
Marc:We decided to release it today to coincide with National Giving Day.
Marc:This was a couple days ago.
Marc:And I hope that people will watch the film and be inspired to give to cancer research.
Marc:Thank you for the show and thank you for inspiring this film.
Marc:The film, Rock vs. Cancer, if you go to YouTube and just search for Rock vs. Cancer, this is from a guy named Jacob Kindberg.
Marc:who made the film.
Marc:And if you go to YouTube.com and search Rock vs. Cancer, you'll get the first two things that come up are the trailer and the 18-minute documentary.
Marc:And it's powerful, man.
Marc:And it just... God, it just...
Marc:You know, I'm a nutbag.
Marc:You know, I'm I'm I'm a compulsive person.
Marc:I'm always sort of distracted and engaged in things that aren't necessarily the the best things or I don't know if they're things that I I want to be doing or I just feel compelled to do them.
Marc:And, you know, there's a lot of things in culture and in our lives where you just you never have a second to think.
Marc:Or do constantly distracted, constantly working your brain over and just like seeing a little doc like this, given the situation and really kind of makes you wonder, like, what, you know, what are we here for?
Marc:What is life supposed to be?
Marc:What what's important?
Marc:And, you know, sometimes I get so fucking caught up with such bullshit.
Marc:I just I'm just constantly distracted by bullshit and.
Marc:And I really wonder whether or not I'm engaged in life.
Marc:And I'll tell you, man, watching a thing like that is pretty phenomenal.
Marc:So if you have a second, check that out.
Marc:I didn't really have any part in it other than it gave this guy the idea, and I'm happy I did that.
Marc:I'm happy, yeah, it was really something else.
Marc:Yeah, I start shooting GLOW this week.
Marc:As I'm speaking now, I'm shooting.
Marc:I started a couple days ago.
Marc:About a week ago, I got my haircut for Sam Sylvia.
Marc:And yesterday, I buzzed off my soul patch for Sam Sylvia.
Marc:And I imagine when I go down there later today to do a one-line scene...
Marc:and I get my hair blown out, and I put on my Sam glasses, I will inhabit Sam.
Marc:We can only hope.
Marc:We can only hope.
Marc:The thing I'm hoping most for is that this season is that somehow I engage more deeply in the acting process.
Marc:Obviously, it's something that I'm relatively new to.
Marc:And as people who listen to this show, you hear me talk to actors and I'm always looking for a lesson or two.
Marc:And I hope that manifests this season.
Marc:I think it's going to be a great season.
Marc:As some of you know, the season last year left off, second season left off with me and the crew, me and the ladies going to Vegas.
Marc:So this season will be in Vegas.
Marc:We will be doing Glow in Vegas.
Marc:I think that's all I can tell you.
Marc:And I honestly don't know that much more.
Marc:I've only got the first two scripts and and I have a sense of where my character is going, which I had not done the last two seasons.
Marc:I guess it was offered to me, but I don't remember it being offered to me that there was the the option to talk to the showrunners and get sort of a.
Marc:a character arc for the season, which I neglected to do the last two seasons.
Marc:I don't remember it being offered to me, but I did do it this time.
Marc:And, uh, I have a sense and it's, it's going to be good.
Marc:I think it's going to be surprising.
Marc:I don't think it, everything you expect, if you're a glow fan, uh, is going to happen the way you expected it.
Marc:I, I don't, I, I didn't expect it to happen the way that the, they told me it was going to happen.
Marc:But anyways, uh,
Marc:That's the process I'm about to enter, and it is all-consuming, but I will check in.
Marc:I will obviously be doing the show here twice a week with guests.
Marc:But I think the thing that suffers the most is the stand-up, really, because I can't get out in it as much as I like to get out in it.
Marc:And like I said, this Sunday at the Ice House will be the last hour in a while, and I was doing some work at the Comedy Store last week.
Marc:I got a few new bits working.
Marc:And I'm excited to do that.
Marc:7 p.m.
Marc:The Ice House.
Marc:Come out if you'd like.
Marc:Sorry, I sound a little heavy hearted, but I don't know, man.
Marc:I'm just I'm busy and humbled somehow.
Marc:It happens.
Marc:You know, you get time to think, you get time to reflect, you spend time with family, you think about yourself, think about changes you have to make in your life.
Marc:as life goes on and uh you get you get heavy hearted but it's okay it's okay as at least i'm connected with the weight better being heavy hearted than uh than uh cold hearted when your heart is heavy you know you have one wow did i just did i make that up i don't think that's an uplifting adage but but it is something it is it is something right and
Marc:So Jeff Tweedy, look, I listened to AM.
Marc:I listened to Being There.
Marc:I listened to Summer Teeth and Yankee Hotel, Foxtrot.
Marc:I listened to them all when they came out.
Marc:But then I drifted.
Marc:And I don't know that I put those albums into the context that they belong in.
Marc:And I didn't want to do a disservice to the interview.
Marc:But I've done this before.
Marc:And I knew he would be an interesting guy.
Marc:But I also got the sense that I don't know how talkative is.
Marc:Is he going to?
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:And I met him once.
Marc:I met him a couple of years ago at a small event at someone's home.
Marc:And I liked him.
Marc:And we had talked then about about, you know, getting him on.
Marc:So, you know, the book comes out and here comes Jeff.
Marc:And I'm like, well, I got to I got to lean in, man.
Marc:I'm going to have to I got to lean in and listen to the shit.
Marc:So I did.
Marc:I went through all of it again.
Marc:And I listened to a lot of ones I hadn't listened to.
Marc:And it's sort of astounding.
Marc:And I talked to Jeff about this, just the production and the balance of the instruments.
Marc:I mean, I'm a fan of the band.
Marc:And there's something about production that either is going to...
Marc:Make something of its time or make something timeless.
Marc:And the timeless part is rare.
Marc:But I'll tell you, most of that Wilco stuff, it can exist forever.
Marc:And it's its own thing production wise and lyrically.
Marc:And then I started wondering, why don't I listen to it much?
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:Maybe me and Jeff have too much in common.
Marc:Maybe it's the heavy hearted thing.
Marc:Maybe it's the existential thing.
Marc:sort of rumination thing.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:I don't listen to it enough, but it was sure great to sort of check in with it and get it all in my head before I talk to him and sort of skim through the book.
Marc:So I hope that you enjoy this because it was sort of a long time coming for some people and for myself.
Marc:The new book, Let's Go So We Can Get Back, A Memoir of Recording and Discording with Wilco Etc.
Marc:is available now wherever you get books.
Marc:And his new solo album, Warm, comes out tomorrow, November 30th.
Marc:So this is me talking to Jeff Tweedy.
Marc:How early were you up?
Marc:I got up around eight.
Marc:That's not bad.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Can you sleep?
Marc:Are you able to sleep?
Marc:Have you hit that age where you can't sleep late?
Guest:No, I'm just, I'm a polyphasic sleeper as the term for it.
Marc:Now I need to know.
Marc:What is that?
Guest:I rarely sleep more than three or four hours at a time.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But I'm able to go to sleep almost... Immediately?
Marc:Immediately.
Marc:You could go now?
Guest:Yeah, I could go now.
Guest:I could get a good half an hour in right now if I needed it.
Marc:So that's how it works?
Marc:So you do four, you're up...
Guest:and then later you'll hit a 20 minute nap yeah i'll nap like periodically like after sound check before the show um but it'll work for you like i can do that's a that's a good way to be in the sense that if you can do the 20 minute nap and then just be like boom yeah you can do it i can do that i i you know i can even do like an hour and a half nap and and pop up and be pretty pretty together yeah yeah yeah
Guest:They always say you're supposed to not nap more than 20 minutes or something like that, but I balderdash.
Marc:Yeah, no, if I do an hour and a half, then I'll be fucked after that or I'll be great.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But sometimes it takes about 10, 15 minutes to wake up from an hour and a half nap.
Guest:You know, there's so much, I think it's just like a survival strategy for being on the road.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:For my, like all of my adult life.
Guest:So just being able, you know, there's so much waiting around in rock music.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:So just being able to knock out hours of it by being unconscious.
Marc:Yeah, that's better.
Marc:It's better than the sort of like the anticipation, the like, you know, those guys got to set that up.
Marc:And then we, okay, we got an hour.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Two hours.
Guest:Okay, now the doors are open.
Guest:People are coming in.
Marc:We've got another hour.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And then you wake up, where are we going to eat?
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:Is there a place?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:That thing?
Guest:Yeah, the food's usually taken care of these days.
Guest:It's not as much of a...
Guest:hunting and gathering situation as it was early on there's usually there's catering or there's you know there's a plan that's being executed by someone by somebody's a shark they know what you like to eat they can find the place for you I'm pretty simple really well I mean I try and eat vegan and how's that going
Guest:It's pretty easy, actually.
Guest:More than I would have thought.
Guest:And certainly, if you're playing big cities, it's no problem at all.
Marc:But what was the decision process on the vegan thing?
Guest:Was it your wife vegan?
Guest:My youngest son became fairly adamant about the idea of the whole family becoming vegan.
Guest:And then he's kind of abandoned it.
Guest:He's like a vegetarian now.
Guest:He's at college.
Guest:He said it's too hard.
Marc:He sucked all you guys in and now he's like, yeah, I'm eating fish.
Guest:yeah exactly yeah he's a pescatarian now yeah no he um uh so yeah he he planted the seed and then uh my engineer that i work with all the time at the studio yeah is vegan and he's been vegan for like 30 years so i found it very easy to just order what he orders for lunch every day yeah and uh so that was one meal knocked out every day yeah that i didn't have to think about right and breakfast you can skip
Guest:And I go there every day.
Guest:I go to the studio every day.
Guest:So it just became- Your studio.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:Yeah, in Chicago.
Guest:Correct.
Marc:Right.
Marc:So yeah, I mean, I don't, as I get older, I'm just, right now I'm fucking, I got myself strung out on nicotine again with these goddamn-
Marc:these like i was off of these for a while the lozenges yeah and then like i started hitting cigars uh-huh and then like yeah i thought like i could just handle one i didn't i've been through this cycle so many times and then like two three cigar cigars a day i'm fucked and then i'm like i need to get on these to get off of the the cigars you gotta get off the cigars i have i have to i have like a i have a prejudice against cigars i don't know why
Marc:In general?
Guest:In general.
Marc:The affectation of it?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:No, I get that.
Marc:I wasn't really on them publicly.
Marc:I was on them on my porch.
Guest:Yeah, well, that's good.
Marc:And before I go on, no, it was really about having been a smoker for a long time.
Marc:It's just a fucking drink.
Marc:It's just a nicotine.
Guest:I had one of the stupidest maneuvers in terms of...
Guest:to nicotine management you could ever you could ever execute which was i started smoking to quit chewing tobacco well you grew up with the chew yeah so uh so yeah i started smoking with like 24 years old or something like that to get off the chew to stop the dip
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It was more socially acceptable, for one, when I moved to Chicago.
Marc:Dipping is never, there's very few circles where that's socially acceptable.
Marc:And in the circles that it is, it's usually two other dudes.
Marc:Right, right.
Marc:And you're just spitting into a beer bottle and trying not to drink each other's spit by accident.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And once that happens, then you've lost a friend, lost a wife.
Marc:That's a bad day when you take that one slug of dip, spit.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Where'd you grow up again?
Guest:Southern Illinois, closer to St.
Guest:Louis than Chicago, just across the Mississippi River from St.
Guest:Louis.
Marc:It fascinates me that there are certain dudes, and I know a few, a guy from Nashville, a guy from Ohio, that grew up dipping.
Marc:It's a regional thing.
Guest:Yeah, I worked in a liquor store that basically...
Guest:You could do whatever you want.
Guest:You could try any alcohol you wanted.
Guest:How old were you?
Guest:I was 18.
Marc:Oh, just right when you turned 18.
Guest:Well, it wasn't the legal drinking age.
Guest:But you could legally work there?
Guest:No, I don't think so.
Guest:I don't think so.
Guest:They did all kinds of illegal things there.
Guest:They made me a night manager at 18.
Guest:At a liquor store.
Guest:At a liquor store.
Guest:And gave me a gun.
Right.
Guest:You'd leave it in the safe.
Guest:At the end of the day, you'd do the deposit and you'd take the gun with you to go drive to the bank and do the night deposit.
Marc:Like a 38?
Guest:I have no idea.
Guest:I never took it out of the holster.
Guest:You just strapped it on and...
Guest:But they would do things like, hey, I left something for you on the copier, and you'd go back there and there'd be lines of cocaine on the copier.
Guest:It was just the worst place.
Marc:Looking back on it, though, at the time, was it the worst place?
Marc:When I was younger, if there were two lines on the copier, I'd be like, no, thanks, man.
Guest:Well, yeah, there was something, I guess, sort of appealing about that.
Guest:But there was such a deep, you know, pang of understanding that there's something really wrong going on here.
Guest:These people are really awful.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:The guy that was my boss, he was just the manager of one store.
Guest:These people owned like a few stores in the region.
Guest:And he got fired, I guess, for being like a coke guy or whatever.
Guest:I don't know what happened.
Marc:Provided, had, supplied, whatever.
Guest:He came back and robbed the place.
Guest:with the gun with the gun yeah during the day he knew where the gun was yeah everybody's like hey yeah hey frank yeah take everything you need yeah and what happened you end up in jail that i think he did yeah yeah he was just he was just one of those uh dark side guys yeah yeah there was a lot there was boy i could go on and on about that place but i i don't know how'd you get that gig
Guest:All of my friends worked there because it was like somebody stumbled upon it in my group of friends.
Marc:It was in the neighborhood?
Guest:And then it was just like, okay, these guys will hire anybody, everybody.
Guest:And then my friends rented a house about a block away.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so, yeah, it was like the best stocked bar in southern Illinois because he was robbing the place blind.
Guest:Right.
Guest:He'd just wheel, you know.
Guest:Just roll kegs out on the loading dock and people would swing by and pick them up.
Marc:So it created a whole circle of alcoholics and drug addicts.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:No, it was like it was.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:It was just an endless supply.
Marc:How old are you?
Guest:I'm 51.
Guest:51.
Marc:I'm 55.
Marc:So, I mean, but that was a time, you know, I mean, that was sort of like when you're, you're a little younger than me, but you know, back then, you know, that, that was rock and roll.
Marc:You thought you were living it, right?
Marc:Uh, yeah.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:I'm like a rule follower, really.
Guest:Really?
Guest:By nature?
Guest:Yeah, kind of.
Guest:Were you brought up with it?
Guest:No, not necessarily.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:I've always been really suspicious of bros or that kind of male bonding.
Guest:I was never really comfortable with it.
Marc:Well, I mean, yeah, I mean, bros are bros, but like, I mean, it seemed to me that back then, like when I was in high school, you know, I knew who the bros were.
Marc:I knew who the jocks were.
Marc:I mean, I wasn't fighting with them.
Marc:I knew who the freaks were, but there was sort of a middle range of gats that weren't bros or freaks, but, you know, they had a good time.
Guest:Not to be too heavy about it, but I think even when I was participating in any kind of debauched behavior, I had the baggage of coming from a fairly damaged family by those types of things.
Guest:So it was never allowed to be completely fun in my mind, I think.
Marc:And that wasn't an issue of like, you know, necessarily the self-awareness of what could happen, but just sort of like bad memories.
Guest:Well, no, it's just like I see where this can go and I really don't want to go there.
Marc:But did you find you didn't have control over that?
Guest:Oh, eventually, yeah, for sure, yeah.
Marc:What did you grow up with?
Marc:How many siblings in your family?
Guest:I have two, I had two brothers and a sister.
Guest:One of my brothers passed away, but I grew up, I'm 10 years younger than them, so they were all pretty much gone by the time.
Guest:So I was like kind of the baby and an only child in the household I grew up in.
Marc:So by the time you were 10.
Guest:They were all gone.
Marc:They're gone.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:There wasn't even one to give you records.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Well, no, actually, I got a lot of records from them.
Guest:It was really kind of like saving my life, really.
Guest:I mean, my sister is the oldest, so she had all the most amazing, you know, just pop 45s of the time and Motown and all that with my aunt Gail.
Guest:which this is how we do it in Southern Illinois.
Guest:My aunt Gail is a little bit younger than my sister.
Guest:So my grandmother and my mother were pregnant at the same time.
Guest:Oh, wow.
Guest:My aunt and my sister went to high school together.
Guest:So anyway, so their records got combined and I inherited those and then...
Guest:My brother, my oldest brother had a collection of records that was really advanced, like college, serious record collecting at the time.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:He went to college in Oregon, and he came home, and he had all these space rock records, like Hawkwind, and Amundual, and Kraftwerk, and Aphrodite's Child, and all this just really mind-expanding stuff.
Marc:Out there, kraut rock stuff.
Guest:Yeah, and he intervened and prohibited me from mailing off a Columbia House record club thing.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:He stopped you from the Aerosmith ELO Joe Walsh hole.
Guest:For a penny.
Marc:Yeah, for a penny.
Marc:I had him.
Marc:Yeah, I got him.
Guest:Yeah, he said, you know, no, no, I'll give you my records.
Guest:And he did.
Guest:He lived up to his promise.
Guest:And he just left this giant crate of, you know...
Marc:stuff that's hard to find today no no i know i i i didn't know anything about that stuff well hawkwind yeah i didn't even know they existed yeah right do you know what i mean there's like 12 15 20 records yeah no it's like and lemmy was lemmy was there yeah ty siegel turned me on he got me into that yeah yeah and almond duly is that what it's called almond i always called it almond duel yeah i just started i just got into that stuff but that was going into your what 15 year old head
Guest:Oh, even younger.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Like, you know, like, you know, 10 or 10 or 11, something like that.
Marc:So you had the pop music of what, the 70s?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:With from 60s, 60s and 70s.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And then you had that way out on the other side.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And at all, you know, when you're that age, there's there's no, you know, there's no critical guideline that's being, you know, foisted upon you that's drawing lines in between these other than radio.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But the radio was so stagnant, you know, it was playing the same songs that my brother listened to on the radio.
Marc:Right, and that he warned you against.
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Marc:Well, that's weird because if you think about the first few Wilco records like that, there is that element of that sound finding its way in with the space noises and stuff.
Guest:Yeah, no, it's a formative experience that I think does probably explain a certain amount of, I don't know,
Guest:just not being particularly monogamous with any genre.
Guest:They never really cared about that notion that you define yourself.
Marc:Yeah, definitely.
Marc:You definitely do all the genres.
Guest:Yeah, all of them.
Marc:Every one of them.
Marc:Every one of them is represented on one or the other of the records.
Marc:But I did really notice because I think I met Michael Jorgensen at a party not long ago.
Marc:And he sent me his record of the NASA record of the space sounds.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:And then I started to be able to identify, like going back, listening to some of the catalog, you know, in preparation to talk to you, that there is a sort of sonic weirdness that seems to emanate from him through a lot of the records.
Marc:Right.
Marc:That is sort of like some of the stuff you were just talking about.
Guest:Right, for sure.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Now, like, is that something that happened organically?
Marc:I mean, because it's odd that the layers of like re-listening to a lot of the earlier stuff.
Marc:I mean, the production on it is so is so beautiful and so spacious and so, you know, kind of like the band like in some ways.
Marc:But not unlike Garth Hudson, you have a weird sort of keyboard thing going on.
Guest:Oh, sure.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I think that started a little bit before Mike, but certainly Mike was a good fit when he joined the band.
Marc:Oh, he joined later.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:So that wasn't even him.
Marc:Who was doing that originally?
Yeah.
Guest:Uh, on the summer teeth record, I think it's probably the first record where we started incorporating like synthesizers and sounds that would be associated with space.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Um, but as like Jay Bennett and, and, and in some cases it was, uh, you know, whenever it's like something you can play on a synthesizer with one finger, it's probably me.
Guest:You can do it.
Marc:I can handle this.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:This will make all, all the noises on its own.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:It arpeggiates.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I don't even know what an arpeggio is, but this is doing it.
Marc:So where does like in that background, so you're alone in the house, you know, you're 10 and all your siblings are out and you got their records.
Marc:And what's your old man do?
Guest:He worked on the railroad.
Marc:He really worked on the railroad.
Guest:All the live long day.
Guest:Yeah, for sure.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:No, yeah.
Guest:For 46 years, he worked on the railroad.
Marc:Doing what?
Guest:He started out working underneath the trains.
Yeah.
Guest:you know, cleaning.
Guest:He was kind of around for the transition from steam to diesel.
Guest:He was like, he dropped out of high school to take care of my mom.
Guest:He got her pregnant.
Guest:And so he got a job on the railroad.
Guest:He started off underneath the train.
Guest:And then at some point, somebody figured out that he was pretty smart.
Guest:And even though he didn't have a high school diploma, they sent him to Arizona to learn how to program computers.
Guest:And he...
Guest:learned how to program computers with punch cards, and he eventually became superintendent of a switching yard, which is a giant concentration of track where all the trains get rearranged.
Marc:Yeah, you can't fuck up there.
Guest:Yeah, so it was his living, breathing railroad 24 hours a day.
Marc:And is that something you spent time on?
Marc:Like, did you go down to where he worked or anything?
Guest:No, no.
Guest:Never?
Guest:No, I was pretty sheltered from it, and it was...
Marc:He wanted to keep you away from trains?
Guest:Yeah, I write about it in the book a fair amount.
Guest:My mom, for some reason, did not want me to associate with any of my dad's friends from the railroad.
Guest:They weren't allowed in the house.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Rough guys?
Guest:Yeah, they're pretty disgusting.
Marc:In what way?
Guest:Oh, just... Boozy?
Guest:Well, filthy, you know, like actually, you know, dirt.
Guest:Grimy?
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:For one, I think that's part of the reason she, one of the excuses she gave for not wanting them in the house.
Guest:But they, yeah, they just told the worst, most disgusting stories and cursed and...
Marc:Because you were the youngest, had she learned a certain number of lessons from the older ones?
Marc:Were you more sheltered or more insulated?
Guest:For sure.
Guest:I don't know if she learned any lessons, but she definitely felt like I was facilitating a...
Guest:An unwitting role of being her companion.
Guest:I was like a mama's boy.
Guest:I was a thing.
Marc:Everyone was gone.
Marc:Your dad's at work.
Marc:But you still got this one.
Guest:I was an uncontested Oedipal victor.
Guest:You won without even fighting.
Guest:Understanding what that is.
Marc:It wasn't a tough fight.
Guest:No.
Guest:My brothers did end up working on the railroad.
Guest:And like my cousins and my uncles and everybody worked on the railroad.
Guest:But I was told very...
Guest:very early on that it was not what I was going to do.
Marc:She had higher hopes for you?
Guest:No, not necessarily.
Guest:I just think that she didn't want me to be on the railroad.
Marc:I'm not going to let you become one of those monsters, one of those train monsters.
Guest:She, rightly or wrongly, I don't know, she associated a lot of the demons that plagued our family together
Guest:And our, you know, broader, our overall clan.
Guest:I think she associated it with the railroad, too.
Guest:You know, like drinking and a lot of things like that.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:What were some of the other demons?
Marc:Booze?
Guest:Booze and alcohol and, you know, all that stuff.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:All that stuff.
Marc:Booze and alcohol.
Marc:Booze and alcohol.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Booze, alcohol, hooch.
Guest:Hooch.
Marc:Rage.
Marc:Sadness.
Guest:What?
Guest:Drugs, too.
Guest:I don't know if she associated that with the railroad so much as she just associated it.
Marc:It was a lifestyle she saw.
Guest:Yeah, I think that's part of it.
Guest:I think it's just a cause and effect that maybe didn't have a whole thought out correlation in her mind, but it was a part of the whole thing.
Guest:It's just like better safe than sorry.
Guest:Let's just cut that world out of this.
Marc:They were a bad crowd.
Guest:Yeah, for sure.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And so what did she do?
Guest:Well, she dropped out of high school, too.
Guest:And amazingly enough, I mean, she taught herself how to draft, to do drafting.
Guest:And she got hired by a kitchen design firm in our town.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And she started installing and designing kitchens.
Guest:Right.
Marc:Oh, that's good.
Guest:That's good work.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:She was really, you know, I still have a lot of her drawings, but, you know, she was really good at, you know, she figured it out.
Guest:I mean, I think that that's the one thing I really recognize that I learned from my parents as I've gotten older and since they're both gone now is that...
Guest:They did kind of give me this belief that you can teach yourself how to do something.
Guest:Vicariously, I just kind of picked that up maybe.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:Like I said, I didn't recognize it until recently.
Guest:But that probably made it a lot easier to teach myself how to play guitar because it wasn't unimaginable that you could figure out how to do something.
Marc:Well, it's interesting, though, and I wonder if you had that experience writing the book, because when I've written, is that you do have those kind of realizations, because you're forced to be introspective and look back and reframe the history of you, and then all of a sudden you're like, wow, maybe that's why I'm like this, or maybe this is why this happened.
Guest:Oh, for sure.
Guest:It's like writing is remembering.
Guest:There's something about it that requires that introspection.
Guest:I definitely unearthed a lot of things that I haven't thought about in many, many years writing my book.
Marc:In each period?
Marc:Because it's a big arc in the book.
Guest:Well, the thing that was really...
Guest:daunting going into writing a book is like I don't feel like I'm particularly nostalgic as a person I'm not like super sentimental about I don't spend a lot of time reflecting on the past I stay pretty busy making stuff and looking forward to doing stuff things like that but yeah the process of writing the book I started being surprised by how much detail I could remember about things I hadn't thought of in a long time
Marc:Well, I don't know if that's like necessarily, it's sort of, you know, I, I, I'm the same way.
Marc:You know, I certainly don't think about the past much primarily because at a certain point in your life, you've got to accept your past and, and, and move forward with as few regrets as possible and resolve the shit that, you know, you can resolve.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But in terms of sort of like sitting there going like, yeah, it was so much better.
Marc:I don't have any of that.
Guest:I don't have any of that either.
Guest:It just keeps getting better.
Guest:Well, yeah, because the world falls apart.
Guest:You have more evidence that you can survive shit.
Marc:Survive shit.
Marc:And also, as you get older, the things that were once so pressing and important in life or death, now you're like, why did I even give a fuck?
Marc:yeah well as you yeah right as you move forward every single fucking minute is a smaller fraction of your life that's right that's why i keep thinking about not being able to sweep anymore because i'm 55 and i just can't sweep past 6 30 7 30 and i think if there is any sort of spiritual sense in the world it's god saying like you might want to be awake for this yeah we're running out of time here yeah yeah you need to you need to start like taking bigger bites yeah yeah
Marc:But that's a beautiful thing in terms of executing this.
Marc:Because I imagine songwriting and the poetics of that are sort of a rendering of feelings, right?
Guest:Yeah, it's a different muscle.
Guest:It's a different whatever.
Marc:Yeah, it can come in.
Marc:It can float.
Marc:It can just come.
Marc:But when you're sitting there with a narrative of you, there are moments where you're sort of like, oh, fuck, that's why I do this.
Marc:Yeah, did you have a lot of that?
Guest:Yeah, a lot of moments of recognition, like, oh, yeah, that makes sense.
Guest:Now that I put it all in writing, I can see that... Like what?
Guest:Well...
Marc:What was a big one?
Guest:Well, I mean, an easy one to recall is that, you know, one of the only records my parents had when I was growing up was a record of steam engine sounds.
Guest:Like trains.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I don't know why my dad had this record.
Guest:You'd think that that would be the last thing you'd want to listen to when he gets home.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But I used to love it, and I loved that alongside... Hawkwind.
Guest:Well, maybe not Hawkwind, but even earlier than that, alongside the Monkees or something.
Guest:And that seems to me where I'm still kind of located in terms of my musical appetite is somewhere between just listening to anything and a really beautiful pop structure.
Guest:Right, yeah.
Guest:So that was part of it.
Guest:what about what about reflecting on like where does country music come in and what you know your relationship with with jay you know that i mean that's pretty old stuff right yeah yeah um there were some um some musicians in my my family on my dad's side some of my uncles played guitar and then their children their cousins yeah that were more my my my siblings age and
Guest:They played music and tended to be country folk music and stuff like that.
Guest:So I was exposed to it through that.
Guest:But it was really... Jay and I met, we shared a little bit of an interest in that in high school.
Guest:We were more into punk rock.
Guest:And then at some point, we both liked Bob Dylan a lot.
Guest:And when you start doing the cross-referencing of where did Bob Dylan get this stuff...
Guest:You're led back to Woody Guthrie and Lead Belly and you're led to Hank Williams and things like that.
Guest:So for us, it just all became, it all became punk rock really.
Marc:The feelings behind it.
Guest:The directness and the sincerity, the honesty of it all felt like it was a part of something.
Guest:And the self-actualization of it, we wouldn't have put it in those words at that time.
Guest:But even like soul music or early rock and roll, all of these different types of music where people kind of liberating themselves and freeing themselves from some...
Guest:I guess, confining definition of what they're allowed to be.
Marc:Normal expectations.
Marc:Right.
Marc:The expectations of society.
Guest:Right.
Marc:That, you know, there's another way to think.
Guest:Right.
Guest:It doesn't have to be like this.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:There's a perception that has been altered and changed by this person doing this.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And that comes through on the record.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Now, so we're talking...
Marc:What, the late 70s?
Marc:Early 80s, maybe?
Guest:It was the early 80s.
Guest:When Jay and I met was the early 80s.
Marc:And what was... Because those sort of defining friendships that become creative are sort of... They're powerful and interesting because you're sharing ideas, you're sharing sort of similar tastes, and you're discovering things together.
Marc:And in terms of... What was the Dylan album?
Marc:The first one where you're like, holy fuck...
Guest:We each, Jay had older brothers also, and so we each came to each other with Dylan Records in tow.
Guest:But we were exploring and finding punk rock records together.
Marc:What were the punk guys that you guys were into?
Guest:Well, The Clash.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:The Minutemen.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:We'd drive to St.
Guest:Louis because they had record stores where they would have things that we could kind of like learn about and look for.
Marc:I love that part of our history, like guys our age, is that you had to find the place that had them or know the guys that had them or were getting them from England or knew where the concert was going to be.
Guest:Yeah, no, it wasn't like, hey, I wonder what disco was all about.
Guest:And then all of a sudden you have all of disco.
Guest:Right.
Guest:At your fingertips.
Guest:Right.
Marc:Right.
Marc:No, you really had to, you know, you had, there was like a network, a nationwide network of zines and people with cassette tapes and ordering records.
Marc:Yeah, you had to talk to people.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So you'd go to the record store in St.
Marc:Louis?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:yep yeah and there was a there was actually kind of a cool record store in the town I grew up in uh but eventually it closed down and the only places to go were like over you know over the river yeah did you have a guy at the record store there's always those dudes it's sort of like what'd you get what do you got yeah um
Guest:Yeah, we would pool our resources, Jay and I and a couple other friends that would go with us sometimes.
Guest:It was kind of verboten to buy the same record somebody else bought.
Marc:Oh, you had to find a new thing.
Guest:Well, just because we didn't want to waste our money, we wanted to hear more records.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And so there would be arguments over who got to buy which Meat Muppets record or which, you know, like the...
Guest:Sometimes it would just be like, fuck it, I want one too.
Guest:This is a record I need to own.
Marc:Meat Puppets 2, everyone's got to have one of those.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:Go get your own.
Marc:Those ones, the ones like...
Marc:Like the Meat Puppets and the Minutemen were really on their own track.
Marc:Like the Ramones were great, but that was an understandable form.
Marc:It was established, that rock form.
Marc:It was just turned inside out a little bit.
Marc:But the Minutemen and the Meat Puppets were like, where the fuck are they coming from?
Marc:It was a trip, man.
Guest:Yeah, totally.
Guest:Yeah, I mean, yeah, the Ramones kind of, they're, I don't know, unassailable in terms of their musical contribution and everything.
Guest:But yeah, it's like a, it's a fully formed persona that dropped out of, it's a little bit of a miracle, really, you know.
Guest:I always think of it.
Guest:But it's like something you don't aspire to be the Ramones.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You can't.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But you can aspire to be the Minutemen.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:Not doing the same thing as the Minutemen.
Guest:But finding his own.
Guest:But three normal dudes making something that is super twisted and unique to themselves and very particular to their whatever, their idiosyncrasies.
Marc:Have you talked to Mike Watt before?
Marc:I have.
Marc:He's got his own language.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Totally.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Econo.
Guest:You have to learn how to meet him somewhere in between here and San Pedro.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You will understand San Pedro by the end of the conversation.
Guest:I haven't spent a whole lot of time with him, but Nels Klein is a good buddy of his.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Guest:He has played with him a lot.
Guest:So I've heard a lot of Nels Speaks.
Marc:Fluent San Pedro?
Marc:Fluent Watt.
Guest:Fluent Watt.
Marc:I find that with Dylan Records, there are ones that I think I know and then I go back to them and I'm like, holy shit.
Marc:I went out and I've been accumulating copies of Planet Waves out of fear that they might not exist anymore.
Marc:I got six of them.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:Because I recently put it on the turntable and I'm like, Jesus, this is the greatest sounding record ever.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:That band was like, the band in that record is sort of like, what is, it's a miracle of some kind.
Guest:Yes, for sure.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And that's the one that everybody told you not to get.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:And I'm like, what the fucking idea?
Marc:I'd put that in my head.
Marc:Like, this isn't a good one.
Marc:And you put it on.
Marc:It's like, this might be one of the best ones.
Marc:It's hard to do that with Dylan because of the different periods.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But that one, that band is so tight and so loose at the same time.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That happens so much.
Guest:There's so much, uh, uh,
Guest:Punk rock did a lot of damage.
Guest:Punk rock really kind of, well, I mean, it just, that's where lines in the sand started being drawn around specific genres or types of music or even how you look more often than not.
Guest:And that's not particularly musical or admirable as a philosophy.
Guest:Sure, to draw lines.
Guest:Yeah, but it was like, you know, I remember super hardcore punk friends of mine being absolutely just appalled that you could listen to Neil Young, that you would listen to Neil Young.
Marc:Boy, they turned out to be wrong.
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Marc:Have you talked to them recently?
Marc:No, no.
Marc:Yeah, Neil's one of those things where...
Marc:Somehow or another, most of those records, the ones that we all know, I know he's done a million, which is always a trick for me when I talk to those guys.
Marc:It's like, I should just get caught up and listen to some of their records.
Marc:You know four of them, and then it's like, oh, there's 50.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:But the thing about Neil Young is that it really has its own time.
Marc:It's not beholden to a period.
Marc:You can listen to it, and I think that's true with a lot of your music as well, where it's not production-wise attached to an era, nor is it, in terms of its own aesthetic, attached to a period in time.
Marc:It just floats in its own ether.
Guest:Oh, thank you.
Guest:That's a very high compliment in my mind.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, it's a hard thing to aim for.
Guest:Do you aim for it?
Guest:No, I don't aim for it.
Guest:I aim for feeling...
Guest:something listening to a wreck well you know what i aim for is um i love records so much and i and i have so many records and records that mean so much to me and i i aim for a record that i don't have yeah that's what i aim for i aim for trying to make a record that is you know maybe i can hear that it's adjacent to some other records i have right but a record that i don't feel like i have
Marc:In your records, do different ones of them represent different points of life for you?
Marc:Are there records that you go back to?
Marc:Because I have so many records now, I don't even know what I have.
Marc:And then when I start to see, what have I played twice this month or three times this month?
Marc:What have I sat and listened to the whole way through?
Marc:Do you have those?
Guest:I'm still more focused on finding records and discovering stuff.
Guest:But there's some reliable inspiration about going back and listening to Planet Waves or something like that for sure.
Guest:In writing the book, actually, I went back and listened to a lot of stuff that was really important to me from the time, a lot of Minutemen records and stuff like that.
Guest:And it was wonderful to be reminded of it in that context and have it hold up to me now.
Guest:To have it feel like, okay, this is still, I don't know.
Guest:You know why you liked it.
Guest:Well, it's just, it doesn't, I don't know.
Guest:It's like music that doesn't have any risk of failure.
Guest:Failure isn't a part of the equation.
Guest:No one was going to fail making this music because it's so purely intended to be an expression.
Marc:Right.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Marc:Yeah, I can see that.
Guest:But yeah, but finding another person, finding Jay, it was like, you know, I describe it in the book as like finding a message in a bottle or something.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Like, you know, another person to talk to.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And when did you guys start playing together?
Marc:I mean, how did that sort of unfold?
Guest:Well, I was still really learning how to play guitar.
Guest:And so we, you know, we started playing together almost immediately.
Guest:And a lot of the early, you know, moments of making music together was...
Guest:Based around standing in my bedroom and playing guitars together and Jay showing me how I'm wrong.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Like a Ramones song.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You know, Ramones are a great entry level bar chord.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So, yeah.
Marc:And was he a country guy?
Guest:At that time, no.
Guest:I mean, he came from a family with really legitimate folk bona fides.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Like his mom and his dad played folk instruments and everybody in his family was musical.
Guest:So he was definitely kind of versed in it.
Guest:But he was like me.
Guest:He was interested in establishing his own identity and
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, musically or finding his own music.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And punk rock was really what it was for us.
Marc:Did you feel like you did?
Marc:But I mean, Uncle Tupelo wasn't really punk rock, was it?
Guest:No, because by the time we were carving out what kind of music we could play, we had discovered that folk music and country music came easier to us than being angry, being super angry.
Guest:The first Uncle Tupelo record, I think you can really hear the stop-start Minutemen type of arranging and things like that.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You weren't angry.
Marc:You were just moody.
Guest:We're depressed.
Guest:Like, yeah, you went to the colicky.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It's funny that like, you know, that that adage of depression is anger turned inward.
Marc:You know that that there's some truth to that.
Guest:Yeah, for sure.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And you hear that in treatment.
Marc:Yeah, sure.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:In the recovery racket.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I've never quite understood what that means exactly, but it does sound right.
Guest:It does sound like being unkind to yourself.
Marc:Yeah, it's a difference between fuck you and fuck me.
Guest:Yeah, right.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Well, yeah, there's I guess it's just two different ways of looking at the world.
Guest:I'm always under the impression that if I'm upset about something, it's probably my fault.
Guest:I probably did something wrong.
Guest:Yeah.
Yeah.
Guest:Well, I just looked at the world in a way that I would set myself up for disappointment or something.
Marc:Oh, yeah, right.
Marc:Well, I think that's that sort of thing.
Marc:You're never going to be as good as you... It doesn't matter what you do either, right?
Marc:I mean, I have that too, but it's lessened a bit as I've gotten older, the expectations.
Marc:I don't even know what... I don't even think they're meetable most of the time.
Guest:Yeah, for sure.
Guest:I mean...
Guest:Yeah, it's embarrassing to admit how difficult it is to...
Guest:to relate to people sometimes.
Guest:To think that people could see things so differently, that's really a struggle.
Marc:Right.
Marc:You mean creatively or in the mass population?
Guest:Just in the mass population.
Guest:And to understand it is not being necessarily right or wrong, but there are some people that just are not self-reflective or philosophical.
Guest:And that's all I do.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And what's even more annoying is they seem okay.
Guest:Yeah, no, exactly.
Guest:No, they seem totally happy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then, you know, what are you supposed to do with that besides hate their guts?
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:Full on resentment.
Marc:You can't you got to be missing something.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Wake up, man.
Marc:It's a sad world out there and we're all sad inside.
Guest:Yeah, you do not deserve whatever is doing that for you.
Marc:How dare you have peace of mind?
Marc:Well, I mean, when did that start to sort of manifest itself?
Marc:Because it is a part of, like a lot of people who are creatives' disposition,
Marc:You know, the struggle with self-judgment, with insecurity, with never being happy with your work, with substance abuse and all that.
Marc:I mean, I have all of those things.
Marc:But I've been sober a long time.
Marc:You're sober now, right?
Marc:So, like, you know, when did that start?
Marc:Because, I mean, I don't remember seeing the movie about you, but I heard it was rough.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Oh, I mean, I think that I have mood disorders that go back to childhood.
Marc:You do?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Like, how did they manifest when you were a kid?
Marc:Like, you were detached?
Guest:Oh, I think it took me a long time to understand and recognize that...
Guest:that I was probably having panic attacks and anxiety at an early age.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I've made some non-scientific correlation in my mind between that and migraines, which I started having as far back as I can remember, maybe even like six years old or something.
Marc:Migraines.
Guest:Massive headaches and debilitating, you know, vomit all day kind of headaches.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I think that that's all related somehow to what you're talking about.
Marc:It just came early on.
Marc:Because when I try to track my own shit, I'm surprised with somebody that has the disposition you're describing.
Marc:Something that stood out to me that you said earlier, which was like, I look forward to whatever.
Marc:Now, I take that as a positive thing because I tend to dread almost everything.
Marc:and somehow you don't have that?
Marc:With the anxiety?
Marc:That's how my anxiety works.
Marc:It's like, oh, fuck.
Marc:Jeff Tweedy's coming over, and I didn't listen to enough.
Marc:God damn it.
Marc:How's that going to go?
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Guest:It's going awful, man, by the way.
Guest:It's just the worst.
Marc:Worst interview you've ever done.
Guest:You can't wait to get out of here.
Guest:I definitely have...
Guest:um i don't know i'm more worried about being uh the way anxiety feels bad to me is that i feel trapped in a moment that i can't get out of and you know that your brain won't be anywhere but here right now and the way i feel right now oh right right and um oh that's exactly that's like uh that's alcoholism 101
Guest:Right.
Guest:So so I maybe I definitely have some really strong innate survival instincts.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:And maybe that's a part of it.
Guest:You know, maybe it's like just like knowing that I've gotten through those feelings that I never thought I would get through in the moment.
Marc:You know, it also strangely, if you look at it in the right way, it might be how you get through those things.
Marc:Like, you know what I mean?
Marc:Like you don't crumble.
Marc:You know, you're like, I'm in it.
Marc:It's happening.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Right.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:No, I've like I've got up on stage in that condition.
Guest:I've like I've I've shown up for my kids school plays in that condition, you know, you know, without just awkward.
Guest:uh, basically completely trapped in my head.
Marc:Oh yeah.
Marc:You know, I've been having that lately.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:It's weird.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:It's a, it's a, it's an awful feeling because like, you know, in phones don't help these, you know, and certain things about modern life don't help.
Marc:But like a lot of times I realized like, you know, I'm among people, you know, it doesn't happen when I'm talking to people.
Marc:This is like a, it's always a relief no matter how much I'm anxious about it.
Marc:Once I'm in it, I'm like present and I'm there.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Or if I'm on stage doing comedy.
Marc:But like a lot of times I'm just in the world, in my car, out in life, even with my girlfriend or with other people.
Marc:I'm like, where the fuck am I?
Marc:Like you feel like you're walking next to yourself, you know?
Guest:Yeah, that's like I've realized I'm always leaving situations where I was socializing with people and wondering, replaying everything that was said and done.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Because...
Guest:I don't feel like I was entirely present.
Guest:And so I'm like, what did you do while you were there talking?
Guest:Did you, that guy wanted to talk about the Cubs and you were asking him where we go when we die.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Or something like, you know, I don't know.
Marc:Too much information guy.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You're the guy that's like, okay, you know, that's all great.
Marc:But like, what's the point?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It is kind of like, yeah.
Guest:You know, the cubs, they're all going to die.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:All of them.
Guest:Some of them might be even dying right now.
Guest:You don't really know.
Marc:We're all kind of dying.
Marc:I, I, I, you know, the mortality thing, I don't like, I don't fester on in the immediate way.
Marc:Cause the way that works with me is sort of like, I am dying.
Marc:You know, it's not sort of like what happens or we're gonna, it's sort of like when I can, when I go to that fear, I'm sort of like, what, what it's happening now.
Marc:How do you handle it?
Marc:You think about it?
Guest:I do.
Guest:I mean, I'm fairly obsessed with it as a source of things to write about and think about.
Guest:It's just the strangest thing in the world to me.
Marc:Knowing?
Guest:That we all do.
Guest:Share that.
Guest:That's one of the only things we all have in common.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It doesn't end well for anybody.
Guest:And like all of the.
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:All the, you know, the most amazing talents and geniuses and everything throughout history.
Guest:They all they all died.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And, you know, like no one figured that one out.
Marc:How not to do that.
Guest:Right, exactly.
Guest:And then you think, well, what were their strategies for living that allowed them to be able to – if other people have been able to cope with that knowledge, what can I learn to be better at coping with that knowledge?
Guest:Right.
Guest:and not be debilitated by it or made more fearful about living.
Marc:Well, it seems like music, when you talk about that as being a through line in your songwriting, there's also some sort of elevated appreciation of these moments and relationships that you say you're detached from.
Marc:Maybe your brain is sort of processing the feelings of being in those moments.
Guest:Yeah, I think that's, I mean, that's the plane I'm kind of stuck on a lot of times.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Like, you know, as you're having it, you're like, your brain's kind of like working it somewhere.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Because I don't know where you pull your songwriting, where the craft comes from.
Marc:I mean, outside of getting it on the paper.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Like I do a lot of my creativity happens on stage and I don't know why or how I'm delivered the tag, you know, what's going to make that.
Marc:Like I corner myself in front of people, you know, to where I'm like, I got to get out of this in a funny way.
Marc:And then it comes.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:So like, what is your process of pulling poetry out of the air?
Yeah.
Guest:It's basically trust in the process.
Guest:You're describing trust.
Marc:Right.
Guest:Just like this faith that something funny is going to happen.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And that it's not the end of the world if it doesn't.
Marc:Right.
Marc:You can make that funny.
Marc:That didn't happen.
Marc:Exactly.
Guest:Didn't get it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You've we have honed this skill of getting out of this and allowing yourself to go into your subconscious and come back unscathed.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You know, yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, I have I have a lot of different processes that I just trust that I and I enjoy and I just I disappear.
Guest:My sense of of ego being like the guide of the ship has disappeared.
Guest:And it's just something I'm doing.
Marc:Interesting.
Marc:And that's a meditative almost place like you sit down to do it.
Guest:Yeah, I do it every day.
Guest:I make something every day, and it's always the goal.
Guest:It doesn't always happen, but the goal is to kind of disappear and then look at your watch and go, oh, I've been doing this for like two or three hours.
Marc:And what do you do in two or three hours?
Marc:What do you get, generally speaking?
Marc:Is it a page?
Marc:Do you go stream of consciousness?
Yeah.
Guest:It could be anything.
Guest:It could be like a guitar part for a song I'm working on or it could be a set of lyrics.
Guest:I do this thing on almost all of my tracks that I record at the loft when I'm working on new songs.
Guest:I hum or mumble something where I think words are going to go.
Guest:Right.
Guest:With a melody.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And a rhythmic structure that I think is going to fit.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And that allows me to keep working on the song without having lyrics.
Guest:Oh, right.
Guest:And then at some point, I sit down and I translate...
Guest:The mumbles.
Guest:The mumbles.
Guest:And your brain is wired to do that.
Guest:You can't listen to chaos and nonsense without your brain wanting to hear words.
Guest:So if you listen to it over and over and over enough, you just hear words.
Guest:And so I write those down.
Marc:I'm surprised that at some point you didn't do just a mumble song.
Marc:How do you know I have?
Marc:I don't.
Marc:I don't know the full catalog.
Guest:Well, no, there are definitely certain, there are verses and things and songs that are on records that were never finished that I just like never found the right thing for, but it sounds enough like language that it's there.
Guest:And you go on the internet and like look up my lyrics on somebody else's transcribed into something.
Guest:Sometimes I'll just sing that.
Marc:So you have the Google search on your name just so you can fill in a couple of mumble holes.
Guest:Exactly, if I need to.
Marc:So the thing that's amazing that I'm realizing as I talk to you is that whatever you guys set out to do, you and Jay and the first band, that somehow or another, because I remember when you guys broke up, and I remember at the time,
Marc:You know, having like I started I was aware of you for, you know, with anodyne and then like I had to go back for the other ones at some point.
Marc:But I remember there was a point where, you know, the two paths taken where I had to sort of make a choice in a moment.
Yeah.
Marc:like i i was aware of you enough that i was sort of like well now like what you know who do i go with mom or dad here you know like what's gonna you know and and like because like i couldn't such a weird thing it's stupid but you know but that's the way sort of you know loyalty to music goes i really love the uncle tupelo and i love that that last album you guys did and part of my brain i think what it is is like how could they go now yeah they just did this that's the way i felt actually at the time i thought that the i actually thought that the
Guest:For all of the incompatibilities present in the way our personalities clashed.
Guest:That we kind of achieved something that transcended that.
Guest:And was worth kind of like, well, this is worth working on these other things.
Guest:I believed that at the time, for sure.
Guest:I was definitely kind of...
Marc:I don't know blindsided by the right by him taking off yeah yeah yeah because it was one of those things like as a person as just a fan of music and not a guy who's ever been in bands but a guy who like you know I get you know I'm not a complete nerd but like you know I appreciate things but there were certain bands where it's sort of like right when they hit like well this is it you know now they got a bass right and then it's like we're done and I'm like holy fuck yeah it's so yeah okay so you were blindsided and then you guys went your ways
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, and I was really kind of... I was sure...
Guest:that I wasn't going to have a record deal.
Guest:I pretty much accepted that it was Jay's band or that most people at the record company and most people in general looked at him as the lead singer and the main songwriter in the band.
Guest:So I was really kind of shocked that they gave me any opportunity to make any more records.
Marc:So that happened after the breakup?
Marc:You both got deals, separate deals?
Guest:We both basically got the Uncle Tupelo deal, but starting over.
Guest:Right.
Marc:But it was sort of interesting that the way you went, because I was sort of a Stones, kind of blues-oriented person, that Jay's first record was sort of like, I get this.
Marc:It's not challenging me that much, and I can go with the group.
Marc:But I could completely identify how both of you were the band you were.
Marc:And that was the point I was trying to make is that there is a through line that through your evolution that the sound of who you are persevered all the way through.
Marc:And I think the same with him that you can feel you guys doing what you do.
Marc:But, you know, you broke something open and he stayed on a line in a way.
Marc:And that's not a criticism.
Guest:No, I've kept up with Jay's recorded output and listened to everything.
Guest:And yeah, I think he's been true to himself and worked hard and made a lot of great music.
Guest:And I don't...
Marc:you know i don't personally get at this point in time yeah why there's would be any need to i'm over that oh you're overtaking you're over picking a side yeah no i'm not picking sides anymore i am i'm old it was just it was really because like i thought i like that was only a reaction but once you guys both there is a knife this like i just noticed this
Marc:Listen, man, I don't want any trouble.
Marc:I like both of you guys.
Marc:I like you more right now.
Marc:Yeah, because I'm right here and I've got a knife.
Marc:Yeah, exactly.
Marc:No, it didn't really last long because it was so different.
Marc:They were both so unique and you both were putting out good work, but it was just sort of...
Marc:It is, I don't, you know, he's not here to say anything, and I'm certainly not saying anything negative, but it seemed that, you know, once you got free of it, that, you know, your whole brain and the possibilities of what music could be, you know, kind of like broke open.
Marc:It might have been out of fear, it might have been out of I don't know what, but, you know, all of a sudden, you know, you elevated, you challenged yourself in a degree that really defined your sound for the rest of it.
Guest:I think it's sort of... Uncle Tupelo was much more engaged in narrowing things down to a thing that we do.
Guest:And I think that AM, the first record I made after Uncle Tupelo, is still kind of playing by those rules.
Guest:Where within what my parameters were as a songwriter and what I'm capable of...
Guest:singing or whatever right it's still kind of coloring in those lines yeah we did we'd worked on since we were in high school yeah you know uh and then i think after am and trace both came out it was like an epiphany that that those that don't have to i don't have to color in those lines anymore those
Guest:You know, those were arbitrary.
Guest:We drew those around ourselves.
Guest:And comfortable.
Guest:And then for the most part, I do feel like Jay drew those lines.
Guest:And that's not a criticism either.
Guest:That was like, you know, that was kind of his, you know, his comfort zone.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So, yeah, it wasn't a conscious effort to...
Marc:That's interesting you say comfort zone because you, you know, you are perpetually uncomfortable and you learn to live with it and that's your survival trait.
Marc:So, you know, it would make sense that after a certain point, you're like, I could, you know, do.
Guest:Yeah, I just started like thinking that.
Guest:uh i liked like i mean if we're gonna go back to the original records i like the monkeys and and hawkwind i don't know steam engine music yeah and like so uh um those are the those are pretty wide parameters and a lot of stuff fits in between all of those yeah you know so uh yeah it was just like oh wow i can
Marc:can try and incorporate more of what i love into this thing and see if anybody cares and then you surrounded yourself with with musicians you know that it seems like you know when when you know in the first four records when when it says produced by wilco you know what does that really mean because it seems like you know you've got you've always surrounded yourself with exceptional players of different kinds with a lot of range
Marc:and that there's a certain space to all the records that is patient and deliberate and not overcompensating for anything, that there's a balance and that nothing sounds like Wilco records.
Marc:What is the process of that on a sort of a group level of production?
Guest:Well, it's been different on every record.
Guest:All the records up until A Ghost is Born, none of them have the same lineup on them.
Guest:There's slight changes or a few personnel changes between each record.
Guest:But I don't know.
Guest:The reason that it says produced by Wilco generally is because...
Guest:We didn't opt to have a person that is hired as a producer.
Marc:Oh, so you just work with the engineer.
Guest:Yeah, we just work with an engineer.
Guest:And then with the philosophy that...
Guest:you shouldn't really be deferring to somebody else.
Guest:It's, it's, I can, I get the appeal.
Guest:I can see that it's comforting and I can, as, as a person that's produced records for other people, I do know that there, there's something that's really helpful about it for some, for some artists.
Guest:But for us, we felt like we needed to take ownership of all of these, you know, decisions we were making and that,
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:I think we felt like we did make good decisions when we were deferring to someone else.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And then I can understand that.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:The glimmer twins, you know?
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Marc:But but but like then later on, like I'm sort of fascinated with Jim O'Rourke a little bit.
Marc:Uh-huh.
Marc:So, like, you're – and I don't know him, but I know he's, like, worked with Joanna Newsom, and I have his solo records, a couple of them.
Marc:Now, when you work with somebody like that who is sort of a genius in his own right, when you work with somebody like that, is it because you're like, this guy, I respect this guy, he's going to do something with me and my sound that I'm not going to be able to find by myself?
Guest:For sure.
Guest:I mean –
Guest:Yeah, Jim's a one-of-a-kind, just like a bona fide genius, musical genius.
Guest:And it would be wrong.
Guest:You couldn't really work with Jim without allowing him to do his thing.
Guest:There's no scenario where you...
Guest:just have Jim be a producer that just allows something to happen in the studio.
Guest:Why would you bother to have Jim O'Rourke there?
Marc:Yeah, and he did A Ghost Is Born.
Guest:And Yankee Hotel Foxtrot.
Guest:We worked together on that one, kind of like brought most of the tracks in, already recorded, and then...
Guest:We, you know, kind of rebuilt them.
Guest:See, if you haven't seen the movie, that's good because that's actually the part that's not in the movie.
Guest:Yeah, which is?
Guest:Is the actual making of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot.
Guest:Because I think that the filmmakers had kind of run out of money by that point.
Guest:And Jay was...
Guest:i don't know jay was very minimally involved in that stage of it because he i don't know for whatever for a lot of different yeah jay bennett and then uh but uh we started working at a different studio other than the loft and it was kind of glenn coachee who had just joined the band and and jim and i for a long period kind of
Guest:remixing the stuff that we'd already recorded and kind of rebuilding sections.
Guest:It was a kind of a crazy process, because we would record whole new sections and just splice them in on tape.
Guest:And we didn't really have all the technology we needed, so we would mix, like say, the first verse and chorus, and then put it on tape,
Guest:And then wipe the board and start over and mix the next verse in chorus.
Marc:Wow.
Guest:And then cut the tape and splice those together.
Guest:And then do that.
Marc:Some real analog shit, huh?
Guest:You could never remix Yankee Hotel Foxtrot.
Guest:It's not in one place.
Guest:It's not like Annika.
Marc:I don't think anyone would want it.
Marc:Out of all the records.
Guest:No, but people always, I don't even know if you could, I don't even know, probably remaster it for sure, I guess.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Because there's some master tape somewhere.
Guest:But the overall idea of going in and pulling up faders and it sounding like Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, that doesn't exist.
Marc:Can't do it.
Marc:Their tracks don't exist.
Guest:Right.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And that's not in the movie, is that process.
Marc:And that was the record where everyone was like, whoa, this is otherworldly.
Marc:This is a new thing.
Marc:So it was that kind of meticulous, strange work that can't be replicated.
Yeah.
Guest:Right.
Guest:It was like just throwing a whole bunch of crazy ornaments on a on a tree and then taking away the tree or something.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And that like I imagine.
Marc:So that experience really sort of was one of those kind of cathartic and pivotal changes in how you looked at music.
Guest:Yeah, for sure.
Guest:Just learning a little bit more about the studio.
Guest:Jim's one of my best buddies, so I've learned a lot from him, spent a lot of time with him.
Guest:He's very generous with his musical knowledge and turning you on to records and stuff like that.
Guest:He's a great buddy to listen to music with.
Marc:Well, that's great to have that guy.
Marc:But it was weird because I don't... Again, this is a world... I missed out on a lot of things.
Marc:And somehow or another, people send me records because I talk on a microphone.
Marc:And at some point from his label, I got maybe one of his solo records.
Marc:And I put it on.
Marc:I had no idea who he was, but it was one of those records where I'm like, what the fuck is going on here?
Marc:What is this elevated pop shit?
Marc:What is happening?
Marc:There's a lot.
Marc:They're just records you put on.
Marc:You walk out of the room and you go back in the room.
Marc:What?
Guest:yeah and that way i had that experience with him yeah for sure i mean there yeah and and that was a big learning um i don't know big lesson learned from working with jim is that uh it wasn't it's not just purely sonic yeah it's not just like putting a weird sound right on a recording yeah
Guest:It's it's working musically.
Guest:There are things that are working against each other, like counterpoint wise.
Guest:And, you know, like there's a there's actual real music theory happening that's allowing the music to do all of this, like emotional manipulation that you didn't know about.
Guest:That I definitely know about because I listen and I love music.
Guest:Instinctually.
Guest:I could stumble to those moments.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And I aspired to stumble to those moments.
Guest:Jim was able to just go, oh, that's what you want to do?
Guest:Here, put these together.
Marc:Here's the math.
Guest:And so I learned a lot from that and retained a lot of that, I think, going forward.
Guest:Not that I gained a...
Guest:a deep knowledge or understanding of music theory, but definitely was learned enough to kind of get from point A to point B a little bit faster as a self-taught, like kind of illiterate.
Marc:You need a wizard to come in.
Guest:Yeah, for sure.
Marc:The last few records you've been working with the same people as well, right?
Marc:In the production area.
Marc:What's that guy's name?
Marc:Tom Schick.
Marc:And where'd you find him?
Guest:The first record we did together was the first Mavis Staples record that I produced.
Guest:That was great.
Guest:The guy that had been booked to engineer that record kind of bailed at the last minute.
Guest:And so I kind of lucked out and found Tom at the very last minute.
Guest:And we've...
Guest:been working together on everything since then we just really have a you know very compatible work ethic and style of of i don't know moving around the studio he's really fast and really you know intuitive and oh good and yeah so we uh he actually ended up moving to chicago and and we you know i see him every day
Marc:Oh, yeah, that's nice.
Marc:And you've got a whole operation there.
Marc:You got an office, you got the loft with studios, you got people coming in there and recording at the place.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And you actually did some stuff out at, you were out at Willie Nelson's place?
Marc:Long time ago.
Marc:Yeah, it was in Spicewood.
Marc:uh texas paternalis no i don't know like i was looking it might be in spicewood but it's called paternalis the only reason i i know it is because i actually drive out from austin to a barbecue place in spicewood anytime i'm in austin and people don't seem to know about it's called opi's and it's right in the spice which is sitting there by itself in this like large corrugated tin like hanger and i you know so i just wanted to know if you ate there no no
Guest:No, I'm sorry.
Guest:It's okay.
Guest:I don't remember.
Guest:Might have been there.
Guest:I don't remember.
Marc:Yeah, well, yeah.
Guest:It was before I got help.
Guest:Yeah, well, how did that all happen?
Marc:How did that bottom look?
Marc:Like, when did the drinking start destroying things?
Guest:Well, oddly enough, I quit drinking when I was 23 years old.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Was it bad?
Guest:It was bad enough to scare me, given my family history.
Guest:But the problem was that, you know, I thought that as long as I didn't drink, everything was going to be fine.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But you could do a lot of other things.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:Or I could smoke weed or I could, you know, eventually I found pills.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:And found opioids.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And that's what I actually went through rehab for.
Guest:It'll be 15 years since I was in the hospital in March.
Guest:Right.
Marc:And were you taking them as prescribed initially or how did it work?
Guest:No, not initially.
Guest:But then there was a period where I was being prescribed opioids legitimately.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And with some some wiggle room in my my mind that I was doing something officially sanctioned by a medical professional.
Guest:Which one?
Guest:Oxys?
Guest:Vicodin, Percocet.
Guest:Old school.
Guest:Morphine.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:I was able to get my hands on a lot of stuff.
Marc:Do you listen to any of the music and think like, well, that was submerged in opioids?
Guest:Not really, because I actually wasn't particularly good at performing or writing or doing anything in that state.
Guest:It was something that happened more on the road.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Yeah.
Guest:And generally my artistic life has been pretty far ahead of me in terms of health or mental health.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Oh, that's good.
Guest:So, yeah, I feel like I lucked out in that regard.
Guest:I didn't write a lot of songs glorifying songs.
Guest:That, if anything, I wrote some that were kind of upset about the situation.
Marc:But in terms of the sound, like, I mean, because if I listen to, like, you know, Iggy Pop's The Idiot, like, I'm like, this shit is underwater.
Marc:Like, it didn't affect aurally, you know, what you heard.
Guest:no i don't think so no like i but i mean i would um i was good at quitting yeah oh sure so i could actually have periods where i work and yeah like you know and as you know quitting isn't really the problem no it's starting again yeah yeah yeah it's stopping yourself from starting again that moment yeah so what uh what did uh bring you to your knees as they say in the uh in the in the literature
Guest:I had a, Ghost is Born was finished and it was about to come out and I was scheduled to do a European press tour.
Guest:And I was panicking so much, just spending whole days in the throes of anxiety and I had lost like 30 pounds and I couldn't see myself getting on a plane.
Guest:And I was trying to figure out a way to go do this thing.
Guest:And I had a really, really awful therapist at the time who was kind of pouring gasoline on the situation.
Marc:Not enough of them know about addiction.
Guest:Well, yeah, he was he was I think he was, you know, borderline criminally negligent.
Guest:You know, he told me that I shouldn't take any antidepressants because it's bad for my creativity.
Marc:Wow.
Guest:But I should but I should go ahead and take the Vicodin or the opioids because.
Guest:you know you they make you feel good was this guy a musician no well he actually he he was he aspired to be there you go uh he would read me his poetry sometimes this guy oh and so this guy's solution that was going to be uh you know uh fix the whole problem was he was going to start traveling with me it's what he suggested it's like brian wilson yeah i'm like and and
Guest:My manager and I had a moment of clarity.
Guest:It was like, okay, this guy's a nut.
Guest:I need to get the hell out of here.
Marc:How long were you with him?
Guest:I was with him for a while, you know, like five or six years.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Huh.
Guest:And so, you know, I just...
Guest:He actually drove me home because I couldn't drive because I was panicking so much.
Guest:And he dropped me off at my house and sped off.
Marc:The therapist.
Guest:Yeah, the therapist.
Guest:And my wife and I was like, let's just go to the hospital.
Guest:I need to be checked into somewhere.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:I can't function.
Guest:I don't want to be around my kids.
Guest:I don't want to do this.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And, um, we went two days in a row.
Guest:They, they turned me away the first day.
Guest:The second day they told me about a place that was a dual diagnosis facility, you know?
Guest:And I was like, you know, why hasn't somebody told me that this exists?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Before dual diagnosed, meaning mental health and addiction.
Guest:Correct.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Which, uh, there's like the, the second somebody described that as being an option.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:It was like, take me to there.
Guest:That is where I need to be.
Marc:Yeah, and how long were you in?
Guest:I was in a month, and then another month or two, I can't remember, in a halfway house afterwards.
Marc:Oh, really?
Marc:Did the whole thing?
Marc:I did the whole thing.
Marc:Because you didn't want to infect your family with your emotional and psychological inconsistency?
Guest:Anything was better than what I had been through, and I wanted to do whatever they told me that I needed to do.
Guest:Even if I thought it was...
Guest:overkill or ridiculous.
Guest:As they say in recovery, my best thinking had put me in that situation.
Marc:So the halfway house must have been humbling.
Guest:Yeah, it was insane.
Guest:I'm really glad I did it.
Guest:I don't know if it was the...
Guest:the best environment for me.
Guest:I was very fortunate that a lot of people have to make a whole new life for themselves.
Guest:They have to cut out family members even.
Guest:And I had a place to go really with a lot of supportive people.
Guest:But it was good to stay in an environment where I was focused on what I needed to do.
Marc:The humility of that.
Marc:And do you do the thing?
Guest:Well, I do go to meetings and stuff like that.
Guest:I still see the same doctor I actually met in the hospital.
Guest:And I feel like that has worked for me in the way that I think meetings work for people.
Marc:Someone to talk to about recovery, about sobriety.
Guest:I kind of look at meetings as a really...
Guest:great egalitarian way of providing group therapy for a lot of people yeah and also keeping the focus on the illness yeah yeah yeah yeah and so i haven't like i haven't lost sight of that side of things and where does the conversion to judaism come in
Guest:My youngest son was going to Hebrew school, preparing to be bar mitzvahed.
Guest:And he was struggling with the whole ordeal of it and not wanting to go.
Marc:Learning the tongs.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And learning his Torah portion.
Guest:And I made an offer to him.
Guest:I said, I'll go with you.
Guest:And I will...
Guest:While you're in Hebrew school, I'll talk to the rabbi every week and see if he'll allow me to convert.
Guest:And if we, you know, once we get through this whole thing and you're having your bar mitzvah, I'll do my conversion ceremony.
Guest:And that was enough to get him to go every week because he had to go because I pick him up from school.
Guest:Well, I have to be there.
Guest:So you have to come with me.
Marc:And have you been bar mitzvahed?
Guest:No, not technically.
Marc:I think you can do that if you want, can't you?
Guest:I probably could.
Guest:Actually, when Spencer, my oldest, was bar mitzvahed, Susie's father, my stepfather.
Guest:I mean, not my stepfather.
Guest:Your father-in-law.
Guest:He was bar mitzvahed because he was too poor to be bar mitzvahed when he was younger.
Marc:Wow.
Guest:He didn't have a quarter for Hebrew school.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:They kicked him out.
Marc:So you always were good with the bringing up the kids Jewish, but you didn't really have a stake in it in a certain way.
Guest:I wanted I wanted us all to be on the same team when the shit goes down.
Guest:Oh, good.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I actually, you know, like this.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I don't I don't want there to be any gray area here.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:We got to get on the train.
Marc:We're all getting on.
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:My wife's sense of humor.
Guest:She won't ever travel to Germany because she thinks that every time she hears anyone saying anything in German, they're saying, get in the oven.
Marc:Yeah, well, I mean, we learn that in a way, the fear of that and the need to always remember.
Marc:But as a spiritual system, do you use it or no?
Marc:Or is it more of a thing that you are now?
Guest:I find myself extremely comfortable and attracted to secular Judaism.
Guest:And we're obviously a really liberal reformed congregation.
Guest:My kids were bar mitzvahed and I did my conversion.
Guest:And the notion that sold me was when Spencer was going through his bar mitzvah,
Guest:he told the rabbi that he didn't believe in God.
Guest:And the rabbi said, that doesn't matter.
Guest:He said, you know, it matters that you look, that you search.
Guest:And I said, well, that's exactly what I believe.
Guest:And so that was what made me super comfortable with having any kind of spiritual identification.
Marc:It's interesting because I bet as a rabbi in his heart, he knows that the searching is actually a dialogue with God.
Guest:Right.
Marc:Right.
Guest:Well, actually, this is an incredible rabbi who was 103 when he passed away.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:And once he let go of his congregation, he revised his entire theology.
Guest:To account for there not being a God.
Guest:And he said now that he didn't have a – after he had nobody to take care of anymore, he was able to look more clearly.
Guest:Interesting.
Guest:He's a fascinating guy.
Guest:And he said you don't need God to be good.
Guest:You don't need –
Guest:But the idea that God would ignore all of these prayers during the Holocaust and during everything is absurd.
Marc:Right, right.
Marc:So he just removed it from the equation.
Guest:He just removed it from the equation, revised his entire theology.
Guest:And who does that at 90-something years old?
Guest:That's when he had retired.
Marc:A guy that stopped believing the bullshit.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:It was really, really great.
Guest:And that was...
Marc:I can go with that.
Marc:I guess to suspend your disbelief in order to have faith is one thing, but to accept life as it is and still find peace and be a decent human is also practical.
Marc:It's less kind of magical thinking, right?
Guest:Yeah, it's a pain in the ass to be an asshole.
Marc:It's exhausting.
Marc:But sadly, for some of us, it's the first reflex.
Marc:What you got to do if you got the asshole bug is you got to get a little space in between acting like an asshole, which is instinctual, and just so you go like, hey, don't, don't.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Okay.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You can stop yourself 90% of the time.
Guest:You're doing pretty good.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:As long as like all that, uh, you know, 90% of the energy is, isn't coming out in the 10%.
Marc:Like if you're, if you're stocking up, that 10% could be pretty fucking gnarly.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So you gotta, yeah, I, I, I struggle with that.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:So the, the new record is a Jeff Tweedy record.
Marc:Correct.
Marc:What makes that different?
Marc:Different guys.
Yeah.
Guest:Just me.
Guest:It's all you.
Guest:It's all me except for the drums, which is Spencer, my oldest son.
Guest:And Glenn Cochie plays drums on one track.
Guest:And my drumming debut is on one track.
Guest:That's the first.
Marc:Oh, that's exciting.
Marc:Did your son teach you how?
Guest:Yeah, kind of.
Guest:It's heavily edited.
Guest:It's okay.
Marc:And what's it like working with your kid?
Marc:How old is he?
Guest:He's 22.
Guest:It's great.
Guest:I highly recommend working with your own DNA.
Guest:Music requires a lot of trust and intuition and...
Guest:You know, something that borders on telepathy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, or, you know, without a lot of magical thinking.
Guest:Again, you just have to, I don't know, find that way to communicate musically.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it's it was really just incredible when Spencer and I started doing it.
Guest:more, you know, in a legit scenario other than just playing together in the basement.
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:That a lot of things I had experienced with other musicians where I really grew close to them were automatic.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:And he's very...
Guest:It's like we have one brain.
Marc:Kind of do.
Guest:Yeah, kind of.
Marc:And what's the other kid doing?
Guest:He's going to school, Sarah Lawrence, and he's a great finger picker, interested in a lot of noise synthesizer stuff.
Guest:He hasn't fallen far from the tree either.
Marc:You and your wife are good?
Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, we're good.
Guest:We're, you know, still dealing with her.
Guest:She has some cancer issues that are like we're able to treat.
Guest:So we're working on, you know, it's a slog.
Guest:It's a demoralizing slog, but she's doing great.
Marc:Good.
Marc:And what about, is there a resolution with you and Jay?
Guest:I don't have any axe to grind.
Guest:You know, I think that from my perspective, I think there's some resolution, but it's not.
Guest:Mom and dad are probably not going to get back together.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:But you haven't talked?
Guest:we've talked periodically just very very briefly just like in a more matter of fact it's like I get an email from Jay occasionally that's like just do we have any more demo tapes or anything like that yeah yeah professional stuff yeah yeah and that's okay yeah sure okay well it was great talking to you great luck with the book I hope the new record sells well do you want to try and play a song on these mics
Guest:I could try it.
Marc:Okay, I'll stop it and we'll set up.
Marc:All right.
Marc:Let's see.
Guest:Hold on.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:I could try it.
Guest:Listen too.
Guest:Which way?
Guest:That way?
Guest:You know what?
Guest:Can I just hear what it sounds like with one mic?
Guest:I think this will sound better.
Okay.
Guest:far away from the fireworks display quiet and bright i know what it's like i know what it's like i know what it's like to not feel love when a sunny day
Guest:Starts to rain Keep me in mind I know what it's like I know what it's like
Guest:love even when I'm wide awake I keep turning back one page I can't find the plot and something else is taking shape I know what it's like to keep losing your place
Guest:My shadow stays Even when I'm miles away Waiting outside I know what it's like I know what it's like I know what it's like To not feel pain Even when the lights are dim In my window I have a twin
Guest:I'm always looking out, and he's always looking in.
Guest:I know what it's like starting over again.
Guest:I know what it's like, I know what it's like, I know what it's like, I know what it's like.
Guest:far away from the fireworks display quiet and bright i know what it's like i know what it's like to not feel love even when it's years away i still think it's yesterday
Guest:I can't find the plot And something else is taking shape I know it's a lie when you say it's okay
Guest:I know what it's like To not feel loved
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That was great.
Marc:All right.
Marc:That's off the new record.
Guest:Yes, it is.
Marc:I just listened to it with all the full produced version.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:So nice to hear it just like that.
Guest:Oh, thank you.
Guest:Thanks, Jeff, for talking.
Guest:It was really lovely.
Guest:My pleasure.
Guest:Thanks for having me.
Marc:So that was beautiful.
Marc:It was so funny because I haven't really recorded music in this room.
Marc:At best, even at the old place, I was bad at it.
Marc:But I had a way of doing it.
Marc:And he was like, no, I'm going to just do it this way.
Marc:And who am I to argue with that wizard?
Marc:Who am I to argue with the wizard Tweety?
Marc:And it sounded pretty great.
Marc:So, as I said, his new book, Let's Go So We Can Get Back, a memoir of recording and discording with Wilco, etc.
Marc:It's available now.
Marc:And tomorrow, the new album, Warm, his solo album, comes out.
Marc:That's tomorrow, November 30th.
Marc:And I will be at the Ice House December 2nd, Sunday.
Marc:No, I'm not going to play music today.
Marc:Not after Tweety did.
Marc:Boomer lives!
Marc:Boomer lives!
you