the beat

TWEEDY: ZORAN ORLIC

D

DURING A MUSIC CLASS IN HIS

freshman year of high school,

Whitney guitarist Max Kakacek

watched the 2002 documentary I Am

Trying to Break Your Heart: A Film

About Wilco, which chronicles the alt-

rockers during an especially pivotal

time in their storied career. “They

were trying to teach us some version

of a grass-roots way to make music

and not go the major-label route,” he

remembers. “That was ingrained in

me. That’s how I figured it out.”

Today, the 28-year-old Chicago

native is sharing this memory with

Whitney vocalist-drummer Julien

Ehrlich and Wilco frontman Jeff

Tweedy, who responds with a

stunned, “Oh wow.” Sitting in Wilco’s

Chicago warehouse/studio, The

Loft, Kakacek and Ehrlich are taking

a breather at home before going to

Europe to play a few festivals. On

Aug. 30, Whitney will release its

second album, Forever Turned Around,

on Secretly Canadian, pre-empting a

tour that will run through the end of

the year, capped by four Chicago dates

at the 900-capacity Thalia Hall.

Kakacek first met Tweedy in

2011, when his former band Smith

Westerns — in which Ehrlich, 27,

often played drums — opened a

week’s worth of shows for Wilco.

After Smith Westerns broke up,

Kakacek and Ehrlich formed

Whitney and released the acclaimed

debut Light Upon the Lake. They’ve

since racked up 110 million streams,

according to Nielsen Music, and have

performed at Chicago’s Lollapalooza

and Pitchfork Music Festival.

When Tweedy, 51, first heard

Whitney, he remembers feeling

excited to hear a new Chicago band,

especially one “making music that

was drawing on parts of my record

collection that I hadn’t heard a lot

of people exploring,” like Allen

Toussaint. The guitar riffs, which

provide a backbone for Ehrlich’s

steady drumming and soft falsetto

vocals, seemed immediately familiar.

“My idea of being in a band was

romanticized to be cool in a way that

we were perceived as separate.”

—Max Kakacek

Tweedy was born and raised

in Belleville, Ill., but has become

something of a musical mascot for

Chicago. “When people talk about

music here, they talk about you,” says

Ehrlich, who is from Portland, Ore.,

to Tweedy, who released his third

solo album, WARMER, in April. On

Oct. 4, Wilco’s 11th album, Ode to

Joy, will arrive on its own dBpm label.

Before both acts go back on tour,

they met up to talk about the reality

of streaming in rock music while

bonding over Leonard Cohen.

Max and Julien, you have

recently talked about

how touring informs your

recording process.

JEFF TWEEDY When you made the

last record and toured, did you wish

that you had been able to record that

version, the one you had after playing

the songs a bunch?

MAX KAKACEK We were playing

Chicago, basically the set of songs

that was the first album, for six or

eight months. So when we got into

the studio to record, it kind of was

the tour versions. For this album,

Julien and I isolated ourselves more

to write — just us two. Now we’re

figuring out the songs live. We

played our first show [with this new

material] at Pitchfork, and you can

feel them changing.

TWEEDY Your experience in Chicago

is different than mine — you’ve been

at the center of a more grass-roots

scene. A lot of [my son] Spencer’s

friends know a lot of your friends. It

wasn’t like that when I was growing

up, there were more lines in the sand.

KAKACEK I feel like I had that attitude

thing at once so they can actually

hear what you’ve done?

TWEEDY It’s important to do it a

different way each time. It’s not a

one-size-fits-all approach to putting

music out. Most people your age just

don’t have a real fear of streaming,

and a lot of people my age have seen

it cut into their paychecks. And I

always think that they’re kind of

short-sighted or blaming something

that’s technologically out of their

control. Technology has mostly

democratized the whole thing.

KAKACEK Sometimes it takes a

while to make a song that won’t

later sound like, “This is so 2019.”

Searching for timelessness is the

easiest way to put it.

TWEEDY I don’t really think about

it. I’m trying to make something

that’s exciting to me, based on how

I feel about music in the moment.

Of all those records we made,

only a handful of things sound

technologically dated — Summerteeth

sounds like early digital music to me.

EHRLICH How do you feel about

lyrics?

TWEEDY It’s probably wise to

consciously avoid time-stamping

your music with cultural references.

That’s one of the things I think is

going to be hilarious about hip-hop

in 30 years, how totally tied to the

technological world we live in it is.

It’s going to sound hilarious to talk

about tweeting. But maybe it’s not

all meant to last forever.

How does the idea of a “career

song” that defines an artist

influence your creative process?

KAKACEK There’s a famous quote

by Leonard Cohen when he talks

about “Suzanne” because he didn’t

get any of the rights to that song. He

unknowingly signed them away, and

he said something along the lines

of, “I got paid because I got to write

that song.”

TWEEDY I’ve always been

mesmerized by pop artists that

go at it like, “I’m trying to have a

hit,” whereas I’ve always looked at

that as a miracle if it happens.

There are a lot of pop hits now

where several songwriters

are credited.

TWEEDY Which is really

interesting, because music isn’t

that fucking complicated.

EHRLICH It seems wrong. It’s not

wrong, but... maybe we’re just scared.

TWEEDY Scared of what you could

unleash.

when I was younger. My idea of being

in a band was romanticized to be cool

in a way that we were perceived as

separate from other people.

TWEEDY Or more empowered than

other people.

KAKACEK Yeah, and I realized that’s

a terrible way to operate.

TWEEDY It’s much more empowering

to be part of a supportive network

and community.

JULIEN EHRLICH That’s what’s

happening here now.

Within the music scene here, the

independent community seems

to be thriving.

TWEEDY Chicago has had a really

strong independent music scene for

a long, long time. There are still a

number of independent labels — for

indie rock especially, like Drag City,

and there was Touch and Go. And

now, I think the Chicago hip-hop

world has pioneered [its own] type

of independence.

KAKACEK The biggest difference

that I see is not needing a label

anymore. It doesn’t even matter if it’s

an independent label — the artist is

the label. It’s definitely an effect of the

streaming era. You don’t need a ton of

money to be able to produce records.

You can just put it on the Internet.

What do you consider about

streaming when you decide

how to release music?

KAKACEK When we first started

releasing music in Smith Westerns,

there were always track reviews:

You put out music and get criticism

back, and how much you value that

criticism is up to you. But now, when

you release music and it gets added to

a playlist, that’s the review. There are

no words spoken about it. Someone

just hits the “Add” sign and decides.

TWEEDY It’s the algorithm, man.

EHRLICH I remember one of the

producers we were working with

on this record started talking about

streaming in the studio, and I just

left the room. It’s a vibe killer, for

sure. But it’s a reality.

KAKACEK What’s your take on the

whole single rollout strategy? Is it

better to give everyone the whole

Twe e d y in W il c o ’s s t u d i o,

The Loft, in 2011.