Wilco Advocates Balance and Personality

Perhaps the strangest thing about seeing John Stirratt and Nels Cline of Wilco comfortably eating burritos at the Harvard Advocate at 2 p.m. on a Monday was that it didn’t seem at all strange to them. This sort of bemused acceptance of everything—be it the miracle of Wilco’s latent mainstream success or the oddity of their appearance last week for a public Q&A session at the Advocate—is as pervasive in the easy-going, warm mannerisms of the group’s bassist and guitarist as it was in the unabashedly nostalgic nature of Wilco’s last two records.

The hour-long informal discussion touched on subjects ranging from balancing the musicians’ numerous projects, to their seemingly miraculous ability to maintain a devout fanbase despite several stylistic changes.

“We always lost a lot of fans,” explained Stirratt, “especially after the first record… even then, early on, we just realized that you were going to disappoint people no matter what you did, and that you needed to forge ahead and make records that were interesting to you.”

“Jeff [Tweedy, Wilco’s frontman and principal songwriter] has quipped more than once that for every new Wilco record, just enough people come on as jumped ship. There seems to be a sort of balance,” added Cline with a slight grin. Stirratt laughed easily, explaining, “We figure everyone in the country is going to be a Wilco fan at one point.”

After 16 years as a band, probability is working in their favor. Despite Stirratt’s having been one of the founding members and Cline’s status as a recent addition, both seem equally accepting of the industry’s vicissitudes and extremely happy with the group’s current line-up. “Ultimately it’s playing on the road that’s kept the band out there” said Cline. “As long as we keep playing, we’re fine, because people come to the shows, and, at this point, as far as I can tell, people like the live shows.”

To say that people “like” Wilco’s live shows is an understatement, but these quietly confident alternative rockers are masters of the understatement. In one particularly striking example, Cline admitted that he rarely practices guitar. “If I practiced every day I’d be so much better,” he said. “Just sitting down every day in the morning and going through some kind of studies I’d be ‘god-like’ at this point.” However, between efforts to realize 16 upcoming projects and a recent engagement, it’s hard to prioritize.

“I don’t have a balance right now at all,” confessed Cline before acknowledging the looming questions of “how to have a personal life—how to have a life when you’re always travelling and playing music.”

Stirratt further expounded on the theme of balance, musing, “You look around and realize that your hobby has been usurped by your profession… I realized how wonderfully narcissistic being an artist in your twenties is—just unlimited amounts of time, and now I feel like I’m better than I’ve ever been at doing what I do, but I don’t really have the time for it. It’s interesting, when I get home I’m handed the child immediately.”

Despite their increasingly complex lives, both Stirratt and Cline hold a special place in their schedules and hearts for Wilco. When asked about their favorite songs, both thought hard for a few seconds before responding. Stirratt chose “She’s a Jar” from the group’s 1999 album, “Summerteeth,” explaining, “There have been a few really magical moments when you finish a take and just know it’s good before you hear it. That was one of those moments for me.”

Cline chose “Radio Cure” for it’s sumptuously textural treatment of depression, but expressed a special affection for “You and I,” one of the standout tracks on last summer’s “Wilco (The Album),” and a track he sees as one of the best examples of Wilco’s unique appeal.

“Jeff is now joking when we play the old material, saying things like ‘That’s for all of you who remember what Wilco was like with edge!’ because there are all these ideas that people have about longevity as a band and stylistic diversity and they start trying to place you,” he said. “So here’s this gentle pop song called ‘You and I’ on the new record and… I was just totally freaked out by how someone could take something so familiar and add a special resonance to it and at the same time make it personal.”

Stirratt nodded in agreement while Cline paused for a moment, gathering his thoughts before concluding his point on how the familiar can be rediscovered and made personal. “Sometimes too much time is spent trying to be original, or trying to worry about ‘Wow, does this sound too much like [your influences]’ and it can’t be like that because you’re you.”

—Staff writer Benjamin Naddaff-Hafrey can be reached at bhafrey@college.harvard.edu.