Not that long ago, Jeff Tweedy made a startling discovery: “There’s more time between now and the beginning of my career than there was between the big band era and when my career began,” he said, his eyes widening slightly behind a chunky pair of glasses.
“How does that happen?”
In the late 1980s, Tweedy helped invent the idea of alt-country music with his band Uncle Tupelo; today he’s best known as the frontman of Wilco, which since 1994 has been steadily expanding the boundaries of American roots rock.
Yet the 58-year-old has done plenty else across those four decades, including writing three books, producing albums by Mavis Staples and Richard Thompson and presenting a COVID-era variety show on Instagram with his wife, Susie Miller Tweedy (a former owner of the storied Chicago rock club Lounge Ax), and their two sons, Spencer and Sammy.
His latest project is “Twilight Override,” a sprawling if homespun triple album under his own name with no fewer than 30 songs about love, travel, music, family and childhood. Tweedy cut the record at Wilco’s longtime Windy City headquarters, the Loft, with a band comprising Spencer, 30, and Sammy, 26, along with Sima Cunningham, Liam Kazar and Macie Stewart; this weekend he’ll bring those players to Los Angeles for a concert Friday night at the Belasco and another Saturday night at the United Theater on Broadway.
To talk about it, I met up with Tweedy in January when he was in town for his annual solo engagement at Largo at the Coronet, where he’s been coming for years to try out new material and tell stories (and jokes) about the old hits.
Does Tweedy, the devoted Chicagoan, like L.A.?
“I like everywhere except for Indianapolis,” he said before one of the Largo gigs. Seated backstage in a small dressing room, Tweedy grinned beneath a mop of fuzzy hair. “Indianapolis is fine. But I don’t trust myself to judge any city, to be honest.”
As we spoke, Spencer entered the room with a four-pack of Ardor cans, which Tweedy tucked into a cooler bag by his side. “This is really embarrassing — my decadent rock and roll lifestyle with the artisanal energy drink,” he said. “I don’t drink coffee, but I like caffeine. And I like being able to make sure it’s the same amount because I have anxiety disorder and I know how much I can handle.”
I caught your show the other night and was struck by how natural you seemed by yourself onstage. When in your career would you say you attained that ease?
I think the ease you’re referring to is just a comfort with being uneasy. And I think that happened when it became easier to acknowledge that I’m awkward. I’m not David Lee Roth, although I’d love to be.
It’s never too late.
It’s too late for him.
Not true, actually. Look up some recent clips on YouTube.
Yeah? Honest to God, he’s like a weird hero to me. I’m not sure I could vouch for it if I dug deep into his personal beliefs or anything like that. But the confidence level and the purpose of mission — it’s so clear. I love that.
So you’ve grown comfortable with being uncomfortable. But you must recognize that you’ve honed your timing. You know when to bring it up and when to bring it down.
I’ve done a lot of solo acoustic shows. And I’ve done a lot of shows that are even more nerve-racking than a solo acoustic show, and that’s living room shows. Over the last 20-something years, I’ve done dozens and dozens of those for charity in Chicago — 30 people, 30 songs, they each get a request. And they weren’t always 30 rabid fans. A lot of cases it would be 10 rabid fans — friends of the rich guy — then 20 other people that are on the guest list or they’re family or they’re neighbors.
I think a moment of transition for me was when I put together that the people in the audience I thought were judging me were the people most like me. In fact, an audience completely made up of people with my disposition would be silence.
Your wife’s comic timing might be even better than yours. When you asked if she had any requests, her “No” from the crowd was perfect.
She’s the funniest person I know. During those benefit shows, I used to put my phone on the table and she would text me during the show — like, “Why are you playing all the saddest songs in the world?”
On the topic of rabid fans: I listened to an episode of “Wilco the Podcast” — these guys are deep in the lore. Do you have a clear sense of when you became a musician with that type of following?
I’ve accepted that it’s a fact, but I have trouble looking that fact squarely in the eye. The thing that got me closer to being comfortable with the notion of having fans was the pandemic, when we were doing “The Tweedy Show” on a nightly basis. I thought that was a moment where people were gonna grasp how connected we are — no stages, no hierarchy, we’re all enduring this thing. When we canceled tour dates at the very beginning of it, people were so sad, and my wife’s intuition was like, “You should let them know you’re OK.”
I guess what I’m getting at is: It didn’t feel exalted, but I felt purpose and that it was OK to have some responsibility — like a pastor with a congregation. It turned what is a parasocial relationship into something slightly more real.
Five or six years on, has any aspect of that endured?
I think it has a lot, because I got to be seen — that’s the part that was eye-opening to me. One of the reasons it’s hard to accept fandom is because it’s not you — it’s your art, it’s the persona that’s been projected on you, a persona you’ve curated for yourself, wittingly or unwittingly. But [“The Tweedy Show”] was an acceptance of our flaws. I don’t worry now about sharing too much.
Jeff Tweedy, in white shirt, with his road band: Macie Stewart, from left, Sima Cunningham, Liam Kazar, Spencer Tweedy and Sammy Tweedy.
(Rachel Bartz)
You’ve suggested that “Twilight Override” embodies hope at a dark moment. But not everybody thinks this is a dark moment. Folks in the MAGA world have described a new age of American glory.
They sure complain a lot for thinking it’s a glory time. I don’t even see Trump doing that — I see him saying, “These people are the worst,” and talking about how nothing is right and they’ve been given such an unfair deal. They’re the whiniest motherf— I’ve ever seen in my life. There’s no doubt that there’s a handful of very rich people that think this is the greatest thing that’s ever happened. And I don’t give a f— what they think because they don’t have skin in the game. I have to respect that at some level I can’t know them — I only have the information I have to go on. But it appears obscene.
When was the last time people didn’t think everything was terrible?
Every generation has thought it was the end of the world, and at some point one of the generations is gonna be right.
You worked with your sons on this record. Is there anything about their musicianship that you had to warm up to?
No. But I don’t think I come at other musicians like that — like I’ve cornered the market on the right way to do something. “These kids don’t know where real rock and roll comes from” — I don’t have that. I’ve tried really hard not to surrender to nostalgia.
That’s an active effort on your part.
It’s not a hard-and-fast rule because that would be wrong too. I think it’s OK for me to get comfort from a Creedence Clearwater Revival record. But I also think it would be wrong for me to judge that record as superior to a record from today.
I saw a picture recently of you and Cameron Winter of Geese, which got me thinking about how you’re between two phases: not yet a wizened old-timer —
Depends who you ask.
But clearly no longer the new sensation.
I’ve been in that phase for a long time. There are moments where Wilco looks around and we’re like, “How many other rock bands at this level are there?” There aren’t that many. Certainly when Tom Petty died, things like that, you start to sense that we might be one of the only places people go to hear guitar music of a certain type.
What age is the dividing line that separates whatever you are from a Petty or a Springsteen or a Dylan? Is it 60? 65?
I’m a bridge between a time when there were those people and a time when there aren’t. I reached out to Cameron when his “Heavy Metal” record came out. I think I saw his second-ever solo show and just said, “Hey, wanna hang out?” He went from Sleeping Village in Chicago to Carnegie Hall in a year — less than a year — and throughout that time we kept in touch. He’s so talented and so unique but I also feel like it’s nice that he welcomes me caring about him. Geese is doing what a band should be doing. A young band should be blowing people’s minds and dividing people in a weird way. It’s exciting.
What have you learned about aging from your friend Mavis Staples?
I’ve learned a lot from Mavis, but aging — I don’t know. Mavis and I oddly have a lot in common. That sounds really self-flattering to say but she’s a baby of the family and was taken care of like the baby of the family. But also her role in the family was being the energy, so she doesn’t seem old. I would never think about aging in relation to her. I don’t think about it with me unless I have to have hip surgery or something. If I don’t look in a mirror, I’m 18 years old — maybe younger, maybe 10, sometime before my internal biography took over.
What’s an internal biography?
The you that you tell yourself you are. At some point in development, you figure out: Oh, I’m this thing, and then you’re putting together the information of how people see you. But that’s the stuff that stands in the way of creating. The self-image reduces the options, and so the horizon becomes narrower. I don’t know why I’m being so philosophical.
Jeff Tweedy at Wilco’s headquarters, the Loft, in Chicago.
(Kayana Szymczak / For The Times)
You’re saying we lock ourselves into an idea of who we are but we don’t have to.
Most people that I love and respect — Little Richard, Howlin’ Wolf, Captain Beefheart — they have this amazing combination of confidence in who they are but also the limitless imagination to become something nobody else is. Watch any clip of any musician that takes your breath away and the part that’s coming across isn’t even the music in a lot of cases. Jimi Hendrix is out of tune in almost every clip you ever see of him! But it’s undeniable that it’s an uplifting thing to witness — and therein lies its importance to other people.
Last thing: You write in your book “World Within a Song” about learning to love ABBA’s “Dancing Queen.” What’s your second-favorite ABBA song?
“SOS.” Incredible song.
That chapter explores a young punk’s knee–jerk rejection of pop music. Yet you admit that occasionally you’d hear something on the radio you didn’t hate — the Bay City Rollers, for instance. Why were you open to them if not to ABBA?
The Bay City Rollers were the Ramones.
That’s how people thought about them?
That’s how the Ramones thought about them. The Ramones had songs based on “Saturday Night,” and they dressed in the tartan plaids of Queens, which is the black leather jackets. The big difference was they didn’t have the taint of disco.
Whereas ABBA reveled in it.
I love ABBA now, and part of me always did. The dismissal was the part that wasn’t natural.
You describe “Dancing Queen” as “exuberantly sad.” Is that an emotional state you aspire to in your music?
For sure. I wish I was better at it. I’ve written a lot of songs that I thought were pop songs in my life that didn’t end up being popular.
What’s an example?
Almost all of “Summerteeth.”
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