This Friday, Wilco release their 13th album Cousin, an involving and vital addition to the band’s back catalogue that sees them team up with Cate Le Bon. Here, frontman Jeff Tweedy speaks to MOJO’s John Mulvey about working with Le Bon, art-pop, Wilco’s link to The Bear and being “a big softie”...
Cousin feels like a very contained project, but the sleevenotes say that it was recorded between January 2019 and May 2023?
Some of this material was a record we started before the pandemic, and chipped away at a little bit during the pandemic. But when we were finally able to record in the same room together, it wasn't the immediate, satisfying project to work on that we were all craving. It felt like the right moment to record Cruel Country then, because those songs were so immediate.
But the intention was always to keep working on this record. Cousin was more labour-intensive and conceptual - you can't make pop songs like this without a lot of trial and error, a lot of exploration. You have to take them apart and put them back together. That's really the fun of it, but it's not always the most fun for a whole band.
Was Cate Le Bon involved right from the start as producer, or did you start in 2019 without her?
I started on the songs, the loose collection of songs that she ended up with. When I asked her about a year or so ago to do this, I just sent her everything that I’d considered to be a part of this project. And she whittled it down to about 14 or 15 songs. I think we finished almost all of those and then picked these 10.
On your Starship Casual Substack, you described Cousin as art-pop.
I don't really know what else to call it. I think it's pop music. I like pop music. I've always loved pop music. I always thought Yankee Hotel Foxtrot was a pop record until they told us it wasn't, and I still thought it was even after they told us it wasn't. The same with Summer Teeth and a lot of stuff that we've done. I mean, Wilco's an unpopular pop band.
Maybe these labels are conceptual simplifications for something that's a lot more complicated? So Cruel Country was nowhere near as straightforward as a country record, and Cousin is nowhere near as simplistic as an art-pop record?
I think of it the other way around. The notions people build up around genres are simplistic, but the genres themselves can contain multitudes. There's a lot of music I consider country music that doesn't sound at all like each other. Genres get really simplistic when they try and sound like themselves, and that's music I rarely respond to, music that's really trying hard to sound like itself.
Do you hear a tension between some of the art-pop textures on Cousin and the humane warmth of your songs?
Not explicitly. I think the record sounds unlike any other record we've made, but the tension is very familiar to me, because that's the tension of Summer Teeth. That's the tension of a lot of things I love, that I've discovered how to make over time, repeatedly. I think it makes sense, because that's the way I feel. I really want to be open and direct and warm, and I crave connections with records. But I think it's a lie to not acknowledge the artificiality of a lot of the way we communicate.
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You said in the press release, “Cate is very suspicious of sentiment, but she's not suspicious of human connection.”
I have a tendency sometimes to recoil from my recoiling, and just let it all hang out and be a big softie and really wrap my arms around the sentiment unabashedly. There's nothing wrong with that, but I did think this body of songs would be undermined by that impulse. And I felt like Cate was a really like-minded soul to work with, because it made it easier for me to have someone else keeping an eye out for the maudlin tendency.
I don't think it's cold either. There's just so much feigned sincerity in this world, and you really have to steer clear of certain things to make your authentic intent visible, without it being coloured by whether it's accurate or not, like something that's like a greeting card.
One more question about Cousin. Does the title have anything to do with Cousin Richie from The Bear?
No, absolutely not. I had no idea that that would be a connection people would make. I know that Wilco has music on that show. And my family is actually pretty good friends with Chris Storer, the creator of the show. But I haven't watched it and I don't really know what that is.
Cousins is out September 29 on DBPM, read MOJO’s verdict HERE
MOJO's special 30th anniversary is issue is on sale now! Featuring Wilco, Bob Dylan, Paul McCartney, Paul Weller, Kate Bush, Robert Plant, Dolly Parton and more. More info and to order a copy HERE!
