[Moshe]

http://www.tinymixtapes.com/interviews/sonic_youth.htm
Sonic Youth Interview
In Smaller Steps, In Smaller Pieces
(May 2006)

by p funk

If I've learned anything about Sonic Youth in my years of listening to and enjoying their work, it's that every single note they lay to tape asks its hearers to make a significant investment. This much seems blatantly clear when it comes to feedback deluges like "Anagrama" or the end of "Karen Revisited," but I've also found that even the band's most immediate material is less simple than it first seems. Even the grunge pop ditties on Experimental Jet Set, Trash and No Star challenge me each time I hear them, forcing me to recognize new nuances like subtle wavers in the vocal melody or a barely perceptible guitar stab. So although I may have spent more time over the past month with the group's latest effort, Rather Ripped, than I have with any other new release, it still hasn't revealed itself to me – hell, I just got around to feeling comfortable with Sonic Nurse a week before I conducted this interview. Thinking it better to let Rather Ripped marinate than pursue banal lines of questioning in regards to it, I saw this opportunity to chat with drummer Steve Shelley as a chance to glean some broader insights into his character and the group's dynamic. Just as skimming a Sonic Youth album too lightly can lead to reductive summaries (Daydream Nation as the masterpiece, Dirty as the pop record, Murray Street as the comeback, and so on), reading the band members as simply Arbiters of Cool or Rock's Ambassadors to High Art misses the meat of the story. Here's one more conversation to give us more frames and angles for thinking about one of rock's most uncharacteristic legends.

Sonic Nurse debuted higher on the charts than any of your albums from the last decade.

Steve Shelley: Really?

Yeah. I was just wondering whether there was any pressure this time around to continue that success?

Because of the album charting? No, we don't really pay too much attention to that kind of stuff.

Yeah, that's what I'd imagine. But for awhile there – probably after Dirty, before Murray Street – there was a period where a lot of critics and fans were turning away, and now it seems that no one's saying the types of negative things about you guys that they were then. Is there the fear that that could happen again?

When you put something out like this, there's always the possibility that people won't like what you're doing. So I don't know if it's really fear, but always when you finish a record you wonder how it's gonna be received. And what the public and the press think about your work once it's been released – that becomes more real than what you think of it while you're making it.

How do you feel looking back on some of those albums that weren't as well received, especially NYC Ghosts & Flowers?

I like that album a lot, so I think it's kind of funny, the criticisms that it gets. I realize some of the limitations of the record or some of the things it didn't do successfully, but some of the songs I like a great deal. If you like what you're doing, those criticisms really don't hurt you as much. I really love some of the spoken word stuff that Thurston does on that record, and that "Small Flowers Crack Concrete" song is one of my favorites.

And I feel like songs like "Free City Rhymes" were a natural transition into Murray Street. Does it feel strange to you that – I've read this in a few reviews – that some people like Murray Street but still discount NYC Ghosts & Flowers or A Thousand Leaves? Does that seem a bit contradictory?

Well, I don't know if it's contradictory, but yeah, I guess there's this weird thing where we've kind of done enough of these albums that they don't even have to stand alone. They can stand as a piece of a body of work. That's kind of interesting to me. I'm kind of a fan of bodies of work, starting when I was a kid and liking The Beatles' body of work, or getting older and enjoying Neil Young's body of work. So to me each record is a piece of the puzzle or one year on a timeline. They just represent something that happened. It's not like each record has to mean everything to me. You can kind of say this is their "so and so" record.

What do you think of Neil Young's new album?

I've only gotten to hear it a few times, but I'm really enjoying it, and more than just enjoying it, I'm really glad he did it. I'm really glad that he talked about the subjects he's talking about, and I'm just a complete Neil fan. I really love his music. I haven't gotten to sit down with the album as much as I want to, but so far I'm enjoying it. You know, the ideas on it are very simple, and they're ones that a lot of us have shared, so I don't feel like he's teaching me anything new on this record, but I'm just glad that someone like him put this out there.

I think Neil's an interesting guy to think about in relation to Sonic Youth, because he's really one of the only people I can think of right now – Johnny Cash would be another example – who's sustained a really high level of creativity over a number of decades. He never really fell off like a number of musicians from his time period. When you started playing music, did you ever think of it as this thing that would be with you for a number of decades, or is it something you just wanted to go with until it ran its course?

I don't think it was something we really thought about too much. I don't think we knew where we would be in 2006. But you dream that you'll have a career, but you spend more time working on the day-to-day stuff.

Did you guys ever come close to going on hiatus?

No. I think the biggest thing was when Kim was pregnant with Coco. I don't think we've taken really long breaks.

Does it feel a bit strange to you to be putting out such consistent albums this far into your career? Do you feel like you have no grand rock narrative to look to for what your band theoretically should be doing right now?

I guess I don't think about it too much. I guess we question why bands can't do that, and why aren't they doing better albums in their twentieth year. Why is it such a given that people's quality of work goes down? Those are the questions that come to my mind.