More Q&A with Jeff Tweedy

Here are more excerpts from a phone interview with Wilco frontman Jeff Tweedy earlier this week, including further discussion on the new record, "Wilco (The Album)." His band heads up the Thursday night lineup of next week's 10,000 Lakes Festival in Detroit Lakes.

Q How and why did you wind up shooting the new album's cover art at Mader's German restaurant in Milwaukee?

A We were around the corner from Mader's doing a gig at the Pabst Theater, and our hotel wasn't far from there.

We were scrambling to get the artwork done for the record. We had a lot of different concepts. The original idea was the art that wound up inside [the CD sleeve] with the country-western suits and the storefront -- the concept being all these other people were wearing the suits as if they'd been purchased. It was supposed to be a subtle commentary on identity and how people pour themselves into the identity of the music they like, and appropriate personas. There's some commentary like that on the record, too.

With Autumn de Wilde [the photographer], I sent her a bunch of reference photos, and I wanted one that made people say, "What the hell is going on? And why wasn't I invited?" The reference photo we used was the picture of the Who with a baby elephant. We couldn't find a baby elephant, though, so we wound up with the camel [laughs], which worked great in the end because the humps formed a "W."

Q And did you get to eat any of Mader's fine German cuisine that day?

A No, unfortunately. We did another round of photos with one of the waitresses from Mader's, who served us beer and food at the table with the camel there, so it was kind of like a St. Pauli Girl situation. But those didn't make the cut. The people there were real nice, though, and offered to serve us food. But there's a lot of vegetarians in the crew, and we had already eaten, to be honest. We also had a show that night, and it looked like everything on that menu would've knocked us out for eight hours.

A A lot of the songs on the record are written from the point of view of a character singing to another specific character, as opposed to a character just singing about his life. Like the song "Fight" is kind of about a conscript singing to someone that purchased their services in a war.

"Bull Black Nova" is sung from the point of view of a murderer calling the person he murdered, the idea that his flight from reality is so severe he's hoping he can wind back the clock and have that person answer, and end it there. The music then sort of lent itself to sounding like a phone off the hook.

Q "Bull Black Nova" is the track where we most get to hear [guitarist] Nels Cline do his thing. He has probably been the most-debated addition to the current Wilco lineup. Most fans love him, but some people think his very innovative way of playing pushes the band too far into more of an experimental style. Is that at all accurate to say?

A It's really unfair when people say that. Jim O'Rourke [mixer/co-producer of Wilco's 2002-2004 albums] actually got saddled with that way before Nels was even in the band. Whenever the band is pushed outside our listeners' comfort zone -- or even our own comfort zone -- people assume it's coming from somewhere else. The truth of it is, Jim O'Rourke probably pushed us back toward pop more than anything. Maybe he was cognizant of whether he was going to get blamed for us going the other direction [laughs]. The same goes for Nels now.

I think Nels' agenda is all about the songs. He wants the songs to be right. He's a part of our ensemble 100 percent, and he doesn't come at anything thinking there's a shred quotient that has to be fulfilled. He grew up listening to classic '60s pop-rock music and has that sensibility that we all share along with our left-of-center interests. So yeah, there's a lot of [b.s] going around about Nels. He even gets singled out in positive and negative ways for "A Ghost Is Born," and obviously he wasn't even on the record.

A I'd thought of it before, but it never happened. This time around, I really liked Leslie's voice, and then we met at the Grammys, of all places. We expressed a mutual admiration for each other's records. It seemed like it would be fun to try something. There wasn't any big plan. We just started sending ideas back and forth, and that one worked.

Q You guys have appeared with and talked to Barack Obama going back to when he was your local state senator. Did you think then he might be president one day?

A Yeah, actually. We had high hopes he was going to be president some day, early on even. He always struck us as someone who's a very conscientious leader, someone who has very carefully considered opinions. That's always struck us as rare in a politician, so we've always been very supportive.

Q Your show coming up here is at the 10,000 Lakes Festival, which has a real north-woods camping kind of setting. Have you taken your boys [Spencer, 13, and Sam, 9] camping?

A No, I'm not so much into camping. I definitely enjoy a lot of outdoor activities, especially hiking. Going on hikes has been a pretty constant part of my touring life. The kids are going to be at camp when we're up there, so unfortunately they won't be able to enjoy it up there, but I'm sure I'll get out.