After Warner dropped Wilco from its label, the release of the band's fourth album, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, was complicated to say the least. However, the group's troubles seem long gone. Having signed with Nonesuch Records late in 2001, the band is back on track and about to embark on an extensive tour. Lead by the fresh and fluid song writing of front man Jeff Tweedy, Wilco is more potent than ever on the band's newest album. Two years in the making, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot has received both critical acclaim and popular success. Recently, Street got the chance to catch up with Wilco's new guy, drummer Glenn Kotche -- who joined the band almost two years ago.
Street: Did you know the guys in Wilco before you joined?
Kotche: I knew all the guys, but I had been playing with Jeff [Tweedy] in a couple of side projects. He invited me to do the soundtrack to Chelsea Walls with him, and then we did a side project with Jim O'Rourke, who mixed Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. I've been playing with [O'Rourke] for a long time and that was how I met Jeff. Jeff and I were playing together, and knew each other for about a year before they asked me to join.
Street: When did you start playing the drums?
Kotche: When I was really, really young. I don't know exactly when. I was a little kid, age four or five.
Street: Do you play any other instruments besides the drums?
Kotche: Well it's all basically percussion. But with Wilco that means drums and vibraphone and crotales -- you know, all sorts of different percussions. I can play keyboard, too, a little bit, but Leroy's such an amazing keyboard player there's no need for it.
Street: Are you excited to go on tour again?
Kotche: Yeah, we've been touring pretty heavily so the breaks are a little shorter than we're used to, but we're having a really good time. The shows have been a lot of fun and we keep on changing our live show, altering it so that makes it a lot easier for us to throw in new songs or pull back some old songs, to keep changing up to keep it interesting for us and the listeners.
Street: Is it hard to be on tour and away from home so often?
Kotche: Yeah it's difficult, but the tour is going great. We usually keep a better balance between time out on the road and time at home because Jeff has two kids. He's married, I'm married. We all have relationships and obligations
Street: Is it interesting for you to play some of the older Wilco material that you didn't originally record?
Kotche: Yeah, I love playing the older stuff. I was a big fan of those records -- Summer Teeth, Being There -- I still really get off being able to play those songs with the band who did it.
Street: What was the 2001 tour like without a record contract?
Kotche: Well, last year when we were out East, that's when Reprise didn't want to put the record out, so we put the record out on the Internet. We didn't want to wait around forever, we wanted to continue doing what we do -- which is recording and playing live music -- and so we toured even though it was just on the Internet. But people seemed to have a great response to the new stuff; it seemed like a lot of people were familiar with it and downloaded it.
Street: How do you think this tour is going to differ from the 2001 tour?
Kotche: I think on that tour... maybe people weren't as familiar [with Wilco's new songs], and also we were still getting used to being a four piece. This tour will be a little different. We have a fifth guy touring with us now, who's doing keyboard stuff and some laptop manipulation of our live sound, and so that's going to be a little different. I think the song selection will be different. We're going back all the way. We might even be playing a couple Uncle Tupelo songs from way back [dating from Tweedy and Wilco bassist John Stiratt's previous group] -- as well as several new songs that no one's heard yet, stuff that we've recorded that isn't released. So that's probably different from last year, too.
Street: What made you leave Warner Brothers?
Kotche: When we left they wanted us to make changes to the record. We didn't want to change anything. We were happy with it the way it was. So they didn't want to put the record out in the state it was. Basically they weren't behind the record. They didn't believe in it; they wanted to change it. We were behind the record; we believed in it, we didn't want to change it, so that's why we parted ways with them. They actually behaved very professionally, and they treated us really, really well throughout the process.
Street: Why did you guys decide to sign with Nonesuch Records, a subsidiary of Warner Brothers Records -- the label you originally left?
Kotche: Probably close to 40 labels were interested, from big majors to obscure Indie labels, and it seemed like Nonesuch, even though they're an arm of, they're part of, the Warner family, they're independent. They always seem to put out music that they really believe in, that they love. It didn't seem like the bottom line is their overriding concern as much as putting stuff out that they believe in. So that's the perfect home for a band like Wilco.
Street: The cover art for Yankee Hotel Foxtrot is great -- even my mom likes it. Where are the photos from?
Kotche: Sam Jones, who made the movie on us, he approached us about making a movie and while he was here filming us he took a lot of photographs stills and footage of the city. The album cover was one of the ones he took of the Marina Towers. They're right on the Chicago River in Downtown Chicago on the loop.
