As a creative outlet, how does the Autumn Defense differ, for you and John, from Wilco?
Well, it’s a very different thing where, in the Autumn Defense, these are really our songs. That’s the biggest difference; we are the songwriters. Wilco is an outlet for the songwriting of Jeff [Tweedy] and we are there to help facilitate that and support that. We definitely enjoy that role, but The Autumn Defense is really an opportunity to express ourselves and to sing our own songs. We love to sing, that’s really what The Autumn Defense is based on. It’s our enjoyment of writing together and singing together.
Wilco’s got to be a pretty time consuming thing on its own. Where do you all find the time to balance these projects?
It’s really just a question of finding the time whenever it’s there. Wilco had a super busy couple of years, but there is downtime now and again and what ends up happening is that downtime becomes work time. We just fill the calendar with this other work. The band has been around now since really 1999—the first release was in 2000 and this is our fifth album—so we haven’t been able to put out as many records as we would if we weren’t in another band as well, but we just take advantage of whatever time we do have and do this work.
Well you’ve been working with John in the Autumn Defense since even before you were with Wilco. How did you end up getting pulled into Wilco?
Because of the Autumn Defense, really. I ended up becoming part of the extended Wilco family, I guess. I was working on things up at the loft back during the time when there wasn’t really a studio there; John was the only member for a few years that had a recording set up at the loft.. We did some of the work on our second record, Circle, there. Jeff was around, he played guitar on a couple songs on Circle. So I was kind of around when Jeff decided to change up the lineup back after A Ghost is Born. I was just kind of already part of the team in a way. So I just kind of got brought in, I guess.
Are you going to be focusing more on the newer material during your shows? Or is it going to be old and new material?
It’s old and new. We haven’t really gotten the chance to tour a whole lot for the last five years or so. We did a small amount of touring for the last record on the West Coast, but not much. So we are gonna be playing selections from the new record but we also want to fit in some of the older material as well. It’s interesting now that we have five albums of material we actually have to make real decisions about what we put in the set. That’s kind of a new experience for us.
Lastly, is there any word of a forthcoming Wilco album? I know you guys have been on the road a lot lately.
We’re kind of on hiatus at the moment. It’s been a really busy couple of years there, so it’s time for everyone to do their own thing for a minute. We’ll be having some discussions soon about all that, but for right now it’s break time.
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