Sonic Youth: Eternally Inspired
Words: Scott Harrell
Photo: Andrew Kesin
One of the most original and revered rock acts of the last three decades, Sonic Youth recently celebrated the release of its 16th album, The Eternal. Drummer Steve Shelley recently braved an especially frustrating wireless connection to speak with REAX about the band’s ever-evolving lineup and process.
REAX: So, do you think The Eternal will be the band’s umpteenth album to be called a “return to form”?
Steve Shelley: They seem to say that every other record.
REAX: It seems like every time Sonic Youth puts out a record, it’s called a return to form, or more song-oriented, or both.
SS: Yeah, you’ve got ‘em all there.
REAX: There’s a sort of familiar pattern of bands stripping away elements of their sound as time goes by, and at some point trying to get back to basics. Of course, it’s much harder to say with a band as experimental as Sonic Youth. Do you feel like Sonic Youth has moved in that direction at all over the years?
SS: I think to a degree, we felt a little more comfortable playing with sounds or styles that maybe had happened before on this album. Often, you’re in a rehearsal room, and you start playing something, and it sounds like something from Daydream Nation, so you avoid going further in that direction because you’ve already done it. But I think this time, maybe if something happened like that we were just like, ‘well, nobody does that like we do,’ so some of that got through this time.
And I think playing with Mark Ibold, former Pavement bassist had a big effect on that, as well.
REAX: In the sense that maybe somebody who’s coming in knows the band from the old material, is familiar with that and has the idea that that’s what the band is about?
SS: I don’t even think that Mark is so familiar with the material, it’s just that his playing is from a similar place, more similar to my background. Mark and I are the same age, we grew up through some of the same musical influence, maybe even more so than Jim O’Rourke, so maybe that’s why some of the rhythm section stuff - to me, this record is very inspired by Joy Division and post-punk, and maybe it came through because of us playing together.
REAX: You mentioned Jim O’Rourke, who’s been in the band, and now there’s Mark, and I was just reading that you recently did a show without Lee Reynaldo -
SS: That was actually just a couple of days ago.
REAX: Has mixing it up as far as collaborators, or what’s in the toolbox at the time, as it were, become a vital part of keeping Sonic Youth interesting for the members over the years?
SS: I think it’s an aspect of it. I don’t know how much value we put on it. Being in a band for so long, it’s just a fact of life that you’re going to play music with other people. We don’t go out and have the same conversation with the same person every day. So it just sort of comes.
And it’s fun, you know? Getting together with other people and seeing what they have to offer. And it makes you think and react and play in different ways. There’s really no negative to it at all.
REAX: You’re all also extremely busy with peripheral or completely unrelated projects. Does that help get you psyched when it’s time to reconvene and work on new Sonic Youth material?
SS: I think as far as being a musician it helps, just using what you have, you know, rather than not doing anything. It’s fun. That’s the main reason we do that stuff, is that it’s really fun.
REAX: So it’s not about keeping busy all the time? More like, your friends have something coming up and they just ask you to be a part of it?
SS: Usually, it’s friends. It’s someone you like, you want spend some time with. Sometimes we don’t get to spend that much time with people because we’re all traveling so much, but if you go do a recording or a tour with someone else, you get to hang out with someone you’d like to be around for a while.
REAX: Sonic Youth has always approached how it gets its music out there a little differently, with the band’s own label SYR and some of the other things you’ve done. How has the advent of digital technology and file sharing and all that changed your perception of that?
SS: I guess we’re still learning about it. We all come from the vinyl age, buying 45s and LPs, and of course we’ve been around CDs for a while now. I think being on Matador has been a really nice thing, while the digital age continues, because they’re very much part of it, and they’re working hard to make the digital fan or consumer happy with things like the ‘buy early’ and ‘stream now’ plans for our record, people can join up on that.
This digital world is ever-changing, and there are a lot of aspects that I have nothing to do with. I like to go and record on audio tape, we’re still pretty old-fashioned as far as that. We’re hanging in there, and working with Matador, It’s nice to be with them while this is going on. Much nicer than being with a major label, all of which sort of took the digital revolution as something to be against.
REAX: What else made you go with Matador? I think it’s really interesting, because I see the label as hugely influenced by Sonic Youth and the other bands that in the ‘80s and ‘90s were laying the groundwork for basically what Matador and its bands are today.
SS: We just really liked the idea of Matador, we like the fact that a lot of the people are around our age, they’d had a lot of similar experiences. The band has worked with Gerard Cosloy, when he was at Homestead, back with Bad Moon Rising. It just felt very comfortable. And we were also very comfortable with their business plan. It’s a modest record label, but they’re able to adapt and survive along with everything that’s going on. There were a lot of good reasons. And since we signed, we’re just totally in love with our record label. We’ve had nothing but great experiences with them so far.
REAX: In the day-to-day operations of SY, are you very conscious of the band’s status as innovators, or the fact that your music is some of the most dissected and studied and sort of academically discussed of all time?
SS: I don’t think that’s something we think about. It’s certainly not something we discuss. In fact, we’ve said this for years, most of what we do is fairly intuitive. We don’t get together and sort of plan what would be innovative for this year, we sort of just get together and try to write songs. That’s the main goal. I guess our repertoire is a bit wider, as far as what we consider to be music, but ...
REAX: It seems to me that the way Sonic Youth came up, that combination of independence and successfully using every level of the industry, and the longevity that’s resulted, is largely a thing of the past. Do you ever look back wistfully at it as a sort of special bygone era, or think about how new artists won’t ever experience that?
SS: I don’t think it matters a whole lot. Important music is going to come out, no matter what the process is. Now, every band has a Myspace page. That’s one of the first things you do, whether you’re a teenager or an older person. I think the way that we were able to learn what it is that we do, by getting in a van and touring, it’s a very great experience, and it really helps you decide if this is really what you want to do. But I still think that good stuff will come out, and will somehow see the light of day. I guess I don’t really worry about the process. I just hope to be inspired by more good music out there.
The Eternal is out now on Matador Records. Sonic Youth is on tour in North America throughout July.
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