Jeff Tweedy vs. Jay Farrar: Alt-Country Conflict

Before they started their own successful bands, Jeff Tweedy and Jay Farrar were boyhood friends who formed a group called Uncle Tupelo in the 1980s. Uncle Tupelo wasn't all that famous or successful in their time, but historically they would prove hugely influential on a generation of alt-country acts. Farrar was the creatively dominant force in that band, but Tweedy quickly came into his own, which created tension that eventually boiled over. Even after the success of Tweedy's band Wilco and Farrar's band Son Volt, fans continue to debate over who was in the right.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Rivals as a production of I Heart Radio. Hello everyone,
and welcome to Rivals, the show about music beefs and
feuds and long simmering resentments between musicians. I'm Steve and

(00:23):
I'm Jordan's and today we're gonna be talking about a
band that is probably more famous for the groups that
started after this band broke up. Like, Jordan, have you
heard of sun Volts? Yes? I have. Now, Steve, let
me ask you are you Are you familiar with Wilcome. Yes,
I believe I've heard of the band Will Go. As

(00:43):
a matter of fact, I believe that they're one of
the great American bands of all time. But we'll get
into that as we get into this episode. But before
sun Volts and Will Go, there was a band called
Uncle Tupelo. And Uncle Tupelo was a pioneering band of
a genre called alt country. And I just want to
Jordan that, as a resident and the native of the Midwest,

(01:04):
that old country means a lot to me. You know,
this is music about real Americans drinking in saloons and
losing their jobs, living in dead end small towns. It's
it's very uplifting music. Jordan's, Well, I'm from Boston. So
nurses welcome newborns by playing drop Kick Murphy's in Naustal,
So that's where I'm coming from. They pour a plane

(01:24):
of Sam adams into a baby bottle. So that's that's
when we get to uh, drop Kick Murphy's episode. That's
when I'll really shine. But I can't wait for now,
Uncle Tupelow, What would drop Kick Murphy's rival be like Sobriety?
Is that their rivalry? I don't Was it like another
Irish rock band that is, you know, gonna intrude on

(01:45):
their turf? I mean the pots I don't even know. Yeah,
well we'll gonna say it's Sam Adams versus Michaelobaltra or something. Well,
we digress. We're not gonna be talking about drop Kick
Murphy's in in Sobriety or Irish rock bands today. We're
gonna be talking about a Tupelow and we're gonna be
talking about the rivalry between Jeff Tweetie and Jay Ferrar,

(02:06):
which in a way has been put to bed. But
I feel like if you walk up to any like
middle aged midwestern man at a party and you asked
them about this, they will be able to talk for
two hours about it. I feel like this there's something
about these two guys and what they went through almost
thirty years ago that is still very intriguing to some
of us. I love how personal those feels for you.

(02:26):
This is really gonna be fun. I'm excited to talk
to you. It is it is. We're gonna get deep.
I think this is gonna this is gonna feel like
psychoanalysis for me. Well, alright, let's dive into this mess. Alright.
So Jeff and j they go way back. They are
born and raised in the small town of Belleville, Illinois,

(02:47):
kind of a dead on the vine farm town, if
you will. The industry has dried up. It's it's not
a happy place to be. Is that Is that a
fair thing to say? Yeah? I mean this is really
like the middle of nowhere, and I think especially at
this moment in time, I mean, we're decades away from
the Internet becoming a thing, and you know, there's not
a lot of culture. And it's interesting like how these
two guys ended up being drawn to each other because

(03:09):
they were really the only two people in their town
that were into punk rock. I think Jeff was into
the Ramons and and Jay was into into the sex pistols, right.
They meet in their high school English class was like
an icebreaker game at the beginning, and it comes out
that they're both there into punk and as anyone who
grew up in a small town like I did, and
it sounds like you did too, can tell you. When
you find someone, especially at that age, who's into the

(03:30):
same kind of niche music as you are, you you
cling to those people. I mean, it's really hard to
overstate how much that person means to you. So I
think that that really forms the foundation of their relationship.
Is this this this kinship of punk rock? Yeah, And
and it's interesting, like if you look at the totality
of the relationship, because you feel like in a way,
there wasn't a whole lot else maybe that would ultimately

(03:53):
bonded them, you know, because they see them like opposites
in a lot of ways. But like you said, I think,
especially at that moment in time, um where you couldn't
just go on Facebook or Twitter and connect with people
anywhere in the world over shared interests, you know, if
you found someone in your town that was into this
very specific sort of music, it was like finding like

(04:15):
a long lost cousin, and it seems like these two
guys gravitated to each other for that reason, and it
was kind of an unequal partnership or unequal friendship because
Jeff absolutely idolized Ja and looked up to him like
an older brother, even though he was only I think
eight months older, and he would later say he was
in all of him. Jay was playing in bands with
his with his older brother. He came from a very
musical family, and Jeff would later talk about going to

(04:36):
see them perform and just have his teenage mind totally
blown by watching Jay sing Gang of Four songs they
were playing, and he'd never seen a garage band performed before,
so this was huge for him. Yeah, And I feel
like a lot of people, you know, have friends like
this at certain times in their lives where it's like
you have one friend who is clearly in the power
position and the other friend who's constantly trying to impress

(04:59):
that friend because they almost feel like they don't deserve
to be friends with this person. And you know, Jeff
Tweedy when he wrote his book which is called of
Course Let's Go so we can get back. Have you
read that book, by the way, Yeah, And I did
read it when it came out. It's uh, I mean,
it's like his songs, it's very warm, very intimate. But yeah,
he talks a lot about their early years. Yeah, it's

(05:19):
like one of the great memoirs that's come out in
recent years. And and he does talk about how in
the beginning he felt like he had to hide his
enthusiasm around Jay Ferrar because you know, Jeff, I think,
was more naturally effusive person, someone who's going to wear
his heart on his sleeve, whereas Jay, even at that time,
was very taciturn and wouldn't show his emotions and and

(05:42):
almost would look down on people that were like too
happy or or expressing themselves too much. And as you
go along and Uncle two below, it seems like that
dynamic never really changed and eventually it became a problem, right,
I mean I always got the idea that Jeff was
kind of almost a puppy figure. He created the tension
in a action and love and interaction and Jay I
just kind of got off. Was in his room with

(06:04):
a ball of bourbon, like you know, listening to Woody
Guthrie and a twelve string acoustic or something, or an
old National guitar or something. I don't know. The very
very different people. As you said earlier, music really seems
to be the only thing that's botting them together at
this this point. So they start playing in a band together.
First was called the Plebs. I believe Plebs, pleaves. I

(06:24):
think it might be Please Please, and and then they
kind of morph into a rockabilly band called the Primitives,
which rockabilly is not the first thing that comes to
mind when I when I think of forming sort of
a great American band, right, Yeah, And I feel like
that came more from j I think Jeff was ultimately
the one that was like encouraged, happy to be there. Yeah,

(06:47):
But I think Jeff was like saying, Okay, we need
to somehow combine this roots music that we're playing in
the Primitives with something more contemporary, like the punk rock
that's happening right now. And you mentioned, you know, getting
a four. You know, obviously the Minute Men were big
with these guys, as with the replacements in Hohosker Do,
and when Uncle Tupelo starts to take shape in the

(07:08):
late eighties, you can hear those influences starting to come together,
you know, the punk rock and the more sort of
country roots music. Yeah, and a lot of the early lyrics.
It's funny their styles developed early on, and there's really
sort of two key songs the point to first for Jay,
and Jay really emerges in Uncle Tupola early on as
the most fully formed artist of the two. He's really
out of the gate, incredibly strong, and he writes a song,

(07:30):
one of his first songs called I Got Drunk, and
he sounds like the world's youngest old man, his world
weary at twenty years old. He's singing in this cracked,
ravaged voice at twenty. I grabbed me a fifth, poured
me a shot. I thought about all the things that
I haven't got, which is incredible from from a twenty

(07:52):
year old. I mean, he's clearly an old soul, and
there's his songs definitely have weight, and depending on your
point of view, it either comes across us as gravitas
or it just comes across as like heavy and modeling.
I mean, and I'm sort of in the middle, depends
on the song. But I incredibly gifted lyricists. I mean,
I think the fact that it doesn't automatically sound contrived

(08:17):
says a lot about how strong of a personality j
Farr was at this time, because as you said, he
was just like this twenty year old kid and he's
singing songs about, you know, being like a lifelong alcoholic
who's like working in factories for twenty years, and you know,
you look and I always think of like the track
loost thing on the first Uncle Uncle Tubulo record from
called No Depression, And there's like songs called Graveyard Shift

(08:40):
and Factory Belt and Whiskey Bottle, and there's even a
song called Flatness, you know, which I think just kind
of speaks to the desolation that was existing, especially in
Jay Ferrar's songs. But what really put those songs across
I think at that time was his voice. He had

(09:01):
I think the greatest voice in the history of all country, uh.
And defining all country pretty narrowly as the music from
like the late eighties to the early two thousand's, Like
I'm not getting like Grand Parsons and all the precursors.
To me, that's something different, but like what all country
was in that sort of decade or so span for
our to me, like just the sound of his voice

(09:23):
singing a song like Moonshiner, which ended up on the
third Uncle Tupelo record, the March six record. Um and Moonshiner,
of course, is this old folk song that's been performed
by Bob Dylan and the Clancy Brothers, Davon Ronk, all
of these legends, and yet to me the way for
our sings it. He has the definitive version of that song,

(09:46):
and he it's like this sort of baritone, very rich.
I remember Jeff Tweety describing it as like an Old
Testament sounding voice. Uh. And it's a voice that I
think a lot of other singers tried to effect and
they couldn't pull it off. It just sounded corny. It
sounded like someone trying to sound like they were from
the South. They're trying to sound like they had this

(10:09):
tremendous wisdom or gravitas. And Ferrar had that naturally at
that age, and it really defined Uncle Tupelo in a
lot of ways. Like I always think of Uncle Tupelo
as being like a grittier version of the Replacements, Like
the Replacements being this band that was I think a
party band that had darkness on the edges. You know,

(10:30):
they'd have a song like here Comes a Regular, which
was about you know, drinking yourself to death in a
small town bar. And that's pretty much all of Uncle
Tupelo's first album exactly. It's like We're gonna do here
comes a regular all the time, and that comes mainly
from Ferrar because Jeff Tweedy's songwriting style is much different, right,
Jeff said, Well, think about Jay and as you said,

(10:51):
his his voice is as great as strength, and the
fact that he's able to sing these kind of songs
at age twenty and have them not sound contrived is
just a testament to how great a singer he is.
There is something to me that always felt that it
did seem a little almost like a facade. I mean,
I know he grew up in this environment that was,
you know, economically depressed and not a lot going on,
but I don't know it. I know he worked at

(11:13):
his mother's bookshop, and I always kind of got the
impression that he was reading like a ton of Steinbeck
novels and stuff like that, and it felt more like
literature as opposed to something that was more intimate and
from his soul, which is where Jeff Tweety comes from.
And I always thought that his lyrics, he's not afraid
to wear his heart on his sleeve in his songs,

(11:33):
and one of Jeff Tweety's crucial early songs a song
called screen Door, which is this optimistic little folk song
that he sings in this his voice at that time
is probably the polar opposite of Jay's. Right. It's this
really sort of thin, ready poppy. It's got a decent
pop quality to it, I think, would you say, but
very different. Yeah, there's a line in screen Door where

(11:55):
Jeff Tweety says, down here where we're at, everyone is
equally poor, and there's something about the way he sings
that it sounds a little awkward in the song. I
was kind of laugh at it when I hear it,
just because like, if you were actually in a you know,
lower middle class situation, you probably wouldn't describe everyone as
being equally poor, you know. I feel like you would say,

(12:17):
you know, we're all. I feel like, when you're actually
poor and you're surrounded by other poor people, you don't
necessarily notice how poor you are. You know, there's no
context for there's no way to compare it, you know,
So to write it that way it always seems kind
of weird. But you know, you're talking about you feel
like Jay Ferrar was maybe a little contrived. I feel
like for this kind of music, he was perfectly suited

(12:40):
for what this genre demanded, and it demanded a voice
like that, and it demanded that sort of songwriting perspective,
Whereas I think when Jeff Tweety was writing in this style,
he wasn't a strict all country artist, you know, and
I think for him it was maybe more of a
contrivance than it was for Ferrar. And ultimately, you look

(13:00):
at the totality of his career, the limitations that you
hear in a song like screen Door ultimately end up
being strengths because I think as he moves into Wilco,
Tweety proves to be a much more malleable artist, someone
who can evolve much easier because he's not as fixed
into into certain thematic qualities or sonic qualities the way

(13:22):
that ferraris. But we're getting a little ahead of ourselves
with that. It's that's some foreshadowing for later in the episode.
It's just fascinating to me that you can hear both
of these guys who they are and where they're going
to be going this early in their career. Yeah, and
what they write about to mean ja much like how
he is in person, and his lyrics is not very
open with this feeling. So he speaks through these characters

(13:44):
and these archetypes that represent Middle America. It's sort of
like continuation of Nixon's silent majority, and it's sort of
foreshadows Trump's America in a lot of ways, whatever you
want to call it. These people that are struggling factory workers, unemployed,
desperate people propping up the bar because of the only
place that go to forever leaf um. And whereas Jeff
kind of coming he writes about what he knows, which

(14:04):
is himself, he doesn't really tackle a lot of like
social issues are populist issues in his songs right, and
I think too, there's a dynamic here that reminds me
a little bit of like what existed in Who's Crew Do,
where you could say that like Jay Farrar was like
the Bob Mould type of figure who you know, Bob
Mould was much more intense and you know, he was

(14:27):
the guy that was screaming, especially on the earlier records
and very cathartic type music, whereas Grant Heart was the
guy who would write these beautiful pop songs and set
them to buzz saw guitars. But he was like the
sweet to the spice or the vinegar that that Mold
would bring. And as Uncle Tupola evolved and there was

(14:49):
more songwriting parody in the band, it seemed like they
might have started to achieve that sort of balance. Um,
but of course the band ended up falling apart before that.
It's also worth noting that Mold and grand Heart also
ended up hating each other by the end of their band,
and we'll probably end up talking about that at some point.
I'd imagine in this show two for two for the

(15:09):
Midwest sweet and sour songwriting duos. Yeah, well, that's the
way we are in the Midwest. We we hold our
feelings in for like, you know, six seven, eight years,
and then we end up screaming at each other and
ruining our friends, our relationships forever. You can see it,
Uncle Tupelow. You can see it in Who's Krew Do?
And yeah, when we do the Who's Crew Do episode,
it'll be fun to explore that again. Oh yeah, we're

(15:30):
gonna take a quick break to get a word from
our sponsor before we get two more rivals. Well, let's
go through the problems that are kind of emerging in
a two below. As they released the first album No Depression,

(15:51):
which really kind of a misnomal title should be Yes,
probably some depression there, excessive depression. So they're moving on.
Really the primary problem is the group progresses, is Jeff
coming into his own creatively? Yeah, the second album still
Feel Gone where that's really what the competition truly begins.
I think you have Jeff songs like black Eye Nothing

(16:13):
Dee Boone, which are a huge leap forward. But I
think Gun is really the moment when he comes out
as a songwriter, that that's the first time he wrote
something I think was equal to Ferrar, wouldn't you say? Yeah, definitely,
And and it's interesting that that's one of the only
Uncle Tupelo songs that Tweety will still play with. Wilco
doesn't play Gun very often, but you know, he's not

(16:34):
playing anything really off of No Depression, And that seems
to be an acknowledgment that Gun was the beginning of
him starting to discover his own style. And to reiterate
what we were saying before, you know, Gun, it's not
a song about gun control. It's not a song about
getting drunk and shooting your your foreman at the factory,
you know, like as you would expect from like a

(16:56):
j fer our song that it was called Gun. You know,
Gun is a song about falling in love and feeling
like you're about to explode, you know, like like a gun.
You know that it's a romantic song and it's an
expression of romantic intensity, and that is the zone where
Jeff Tweety lives. And in a way, it's not typical

(17:19):
of the types of things that Uncle Tupola were doing
at that time. It's much more personal, much more expressive,
much more poppy, much more poppy. It's catchy song, and
it's just not the kind of song that you would
expect someone like Jay Farrard, who was very self contained,
would write. Which is why I probably really pissed Jay
off when not only was it the lead track on
the album, but it was the lead single for the

(17:40):
album too. And it must have been like when the
Beatles chose something as a side. I mean, it must
have been a total shock for him to think, Oh
my god, like this is this guy was such a
junior partner for me for so long. Now has the
lead single and the lead track on the album. Yeah,
and and it's going to be the beginning of things
like that happening. Uncle Tupola will not be the last

(18:00):
time that a Jeff Tweetie song is pushed to the
forefront at the expense of j Ferrar And the thing
comes up again and again. They really they aren't communicating,
they aren't expressing their feelings. There's a great story where
Jeff and Jay and the drummer Mike Hydro and are
all living sort of monkeys style in this apartment, uninsulated
apartment in Belleville, And I think it was Mike said

(18:23):
later on that if if Jay wanted to tell the
band to learn a song to cover for their set,
he wouldn't actually tell them. He would just play a
song on their on the stereo system over and over
and over again and just point the speakers like towards
their bedroom and kind of like hope they got the hint,
which totally normal, totally normal way to communicate, by the way,

(18:43):
which again also a very Midwestern trick to do, by
the way, sort of like a you know, passive aggressive
like you should know what I want type move um
and very common. I feel like I have parents in
my life that have done this sort of thing, And
like I said, this, this might be psychotherapy for me.
So I don't want to delve too deep into that,

(19:05):
but I feel like it's a very common attribute of
many Midwesterners. Um. But along with the noncommunication, you also
have drinking problems, especially for for Jeff tweety which I
feel like was in a way of manifestation of the
communication or non communication now is happening in the band
because Tweetie essentially felt the burden of being the spokesman

(19:29):
of the band because they would be in interview situations
and Jay Farr wouldn't communicate, so Jeff Tweetye would often
barge in answer all the questions, and then when they
would be at shows, he would be the social one
talking to fans after the gigs, and often that meant
drinking with fans and drinking too much. And uh. At

(19:51):
some point, Tweete realizes that this is something that's going
to be destructive for him because he has a history
of alcoholism and his family there's a strong history of
acoholism throughout the Midwest. Again, this is a very strong regional,
uh you know problem. Um, So he's feeling like this
is something he needs to stop. Although of course Jeff

(20:12):
will later on have other addiction issues that that crop
up once he gets into Wilco. But yeah, it's fascinating how,
you know, all these things start to come together and
how Ferrars reacting to it, because Ferrars basically looking at
Tweetie like you're a raging egomaniac, you know, like your barge.
You know, he's probably looking at Tweetie during these interview situations,

(20:35):
always speaking up and then it shows, you know, always
sort of taking the lead and engaging with fans and tweeting.
In his mind is probably thinking like I need to
do this because Jay won't do it. But in Jay's mind,
I mean, he's looking at Jeff like, who does this
guy think he is? Like he thinks he's like Steven
Tyler or something. I mean, right, I mean it seems
to be like like a serious crack that's starting to form,

(20:58):
like over that sort of thing. Yeah, I mean they
both feel that they're in the right and doing what
they have to do and for and for Jeff, I
think it's worth noting that it's probably not easy for Ammy.
He has a kid. When when Jay first met him.
He was incredibly shy and kind of one of those
only speaks when spoken to types. So it's probably a
lot of things that fed that. A big reason that
fed into his drinking too, is that he probably needed
the courage to put himself out there because he, as

(21:20):
he said, he felt like Jay wasn't going to you know,
I was just thinking. There's a story from Greg Cott's book,
Greg Caught by the Way. He wrote a great book
about Wilco called Learning How to Die, which is also
a great history of Uncle Tupelo. There's a bunch of
Uncle Tupolo stuff in there, and there's a story in
there that Jeff Tweete tells about how like around this
time they'd be performing and you know, Jay wouldn't say

(21:43):
anything in the microphone, so Jeff would engage with the audience.
And to this day, Jeff Tweety is one of the
great banter people at shows, Like he has great banter games.
He's like a stand up he's incredible, he's so he's
the stand up comedian. He's he's hilarious. But he would
talk between songs and like Jay Fur would pull him
aside on stage and say, you know, don't you ever

(22:04):
fucking talk into that microphone ever again, getting really piste
off about him basically being a frontman. Instead of saying,
you know, I don't want to talk to the audience.
Someone should talk to the audience, and I'm glad that
Jeff is doing it, instead of saying that he felt
threatened essentially by Jeff doing this and frankly annoyed, you know,

(22:26):
And it seems like Jay felt that no one should
be talking to the audience. Everyone should be as you know, uncommunic,
as he was. And so that basically leads up to
the fourth and final Uncle Tupolo record, which is Anna
Dyne that comes in out and really this record is
like a mess. I mean, the record itself is great,

(22:48):
but everything behind, like the story behind the album and
like what happened afterward, it just sounds like it was
a miserable time to be an Uncle Tupelo. I always
felt like this was their rumors, their Fleetwood Mac rumors,
like they can't actually talk to each other, they're like
in person, so they just like take it out on
each other in their songs and they're like that's the
way they get points across. I mean, if you just
totally so many of the different tracks. I mean, ferrar

(23:09):
Slate addresses all because Anna Dyne is their first major
label release on Sire, and he's not really comfortable with
with going on a major and he talks about he
sings about um working in the halls of Shame, which
is what I always thought that was about, and which
and then um, I can never say this Chickamauga check
Chickamauga one of the worst bloodiest battles of the Civil War.

(23:33):
It sounds to me like he's addressing Tweetie saying the
time is right for getting out while we still can.
Solitude is where I'm bound. And I have to say, like,
I interviewed J ferrar Uh in seventeen and I asked
him about that song specifically, and I and I said,
you know, it's been speculated among fans that you were
writing about the impending breakup of Uncle Tupelo in this song.

(23:56):
And I have to say that Ferrar was much more
you know, I going in this interview than I expected.
Like it was a really good interview, and I really
enjoyed his insight because you know, we were I was
asking him about songs from throughout his career. He went, Mum,
on Chickamauga, he would not engage. You hit a nerve.
I hit a nerve. So I ended up not even

(24:17):
putting it in my story because he gave like a
pretty non response response to what I said, so, which
to me confirms that it is about that. And come on,
it is about that because it seems pretty clear when
you listen to the song. But then like Tweety has
his own songs where he seems to be talking about
fer our right on that record right I was. The
long cut was kind of you know what, we've been

(24:38):
in a deep rut and it's been killing me, but
we'll get there eventually. He always thought was something that
he's directing a j and no sense in love and
you might think that I don't care, but I do,
which is pretty tender. Exactly. It's just him that it's
like they're back in high school again, trying to talk
about punk bands. It's like, I just want to tell
you that I love you J and you won't let me.

(25:00):
You know, this is my fan fiction for Jeff tweet
Jake for if I've gone over this. I got over
many scenarios over this in my mind. But yeah, I
feel like, you know from j It seems like you
have these almost defiant expressions of disgust over where Uncle
Tupelo is at this moment and his expressing his desire
to to exit the situation, and with tweeting, it's almost

(25:21):
expressions of more hurt or confusion, like a white flag,
which which which again seems to be how it actually
played out with these guys behind the scenes, right. I mean,
this is the album where I think it's almost I
think it's about in terms of who wrote each song.
I think it's also the first album where they take
individual song credits because before that, right, weren't they credited

(25:43):
just Uncle Tupelo. And this is the first time when
they actually split it up. Yeah, although I wonder I
think maybe in retrospect those albums are now I think
they're credited to like the specific writers. I was looking
at the liner notes online and stuff. But yeah, I
think there was an idea that they were more part
Nurse before Anna Dine and then Anna Dyne made it

(26:03):
pretty clear that you know that there were j songs
and they were Jeff songs, and you know, circling back
to what we were saying before, you know, Gun ends
up being a single off of Steel Field Gone, and
then in the early part of four, Uncle Tupelo makes
their first appearance on national television, which, by the way,

(26:24):
I think this should illustrate that as legendaries Uncle Tupolo
is now, they were not a popular band in their
in their day. I mean, this is like their fourth
album and they're finally getting on a major network show,
you know, like it took them a long time, and
it's Conan O'Brian. Yeah, it's not The Tonight Show, it's
not Letterman. You know it's on It's on Conan. But

(26:45):
this on the end of playing is the long cut,
the Jeff Tweedie song, really great poppy, fun rock song.
And when you watch the show, and you can watch
it on YouTube, you know, ja far are just staring
at his feet. I've never seen someone more miserable on
National tell which you know, it's it's hard to say, like, okay,
it's like Jay Farrar. He's not the most joyous stage presence,

(27:09):
even like in the best of times, so you know,
you almost don't want to read too much into it.
But at the same time, he seems extra sellen in
this clip, and I'm sure that he was not happy,
and of course we're going to talk about this, Like,
I mean, he was already on the band essentially at
that point, because he had quit in early, right, he

(27:30):
quit over Christmas, which I'm sure made him real popular
in the Uncle Pepelow I just picture like right, So,
so Jay calls. He doesn't even call Jeff. He calls
the band's manager, Tony Margherita, right before Christmas, and Tony
relays the message to Jeff, who is hurt and furious
that Jay didn't talk to him first, I mean, which

(27:51):
is just like, you know, he's known this guy since
high school and he doesn't even give him the courtesy
of quitting telling him first, So that leads to a
show down. Yeah, and this scene, it's like Uncle Tupelo.
They're not famous enough to get their own biopic, but
like I almost I feel like this scene justifies them
getting their own biopic. It's like, oh my god, I

(28:14):
don't I can't even act it out. I think I'll
burst into tears. I think you should just recount it dispassionately.
But it's it's intense. This is like marriage story. You know,
this should be like Scar Joe and Adam Driver acting
at this scene. You know, like like the like the
like the two dude heterosexual version of that, like, you know,

(28:36):
just screaming at each other in an apartment, like yeah,
you need to say this. I can't even recount this
because my my chin will start quivering. I think so.
So they're in the apartment that they've shared for years.
This is little, tiny apartment. Uh. Tweetie goes up to
Jay and says, tell me, to my face, why do

(28:57):
you hate me? And I can just imagine he takes
a deep maybe takes a drag off a cigarette, looks
off to the side, looks back at him, and says,
you don't know what it's like to stand on stage
with somebody every night who loves themselves as much as
you do. And Tweetie, you know, there's nothing to say
to this. He just says, you know, you're right, I

(29:19):
don't have any idea, just brutal. And which kills me
about this story is that I feel like Jeff Tweety,
you know, admired j Ferrar. You know, as we've said,
I think he looked up to him for a long time,
and they did have that dynamic in the relationship where
you know, Tweetie was the one in the position of
having to please Ferrar. You know, Ferrar is like the

(29:41):
cold father, you know, the father who does never gives
any affection, and like tweeting, is trying to get affection
and to have that person in your life say basically
that you know, I hate you, you know, and I
don't want anything to do with you just must have
been devastay. Think there's another aspect of this story too,

(30:02):
where in Greg Coott's book he says that for our
called Tweety a mama's boy. Down here here, I'll call
you a mama's boy. It's just that bad. That's like
salt and the wounds, pretty emasculating and will go. Fans
of course, will recognize that. In the song Misunderstood from
Being There, there's a line in there where Tweety refers

(30:26):
to himself as a mama's boy, and he said that
that was a reference to what j Ferrar said during
this argument. Um, I think it's interesting that in Tweety's book,
his own book, he doesn't make reference to the mama's
boy comment. He talks about this confrontation and you know,
recounts everything else almost word for word from the Greg

(30:47):
cock book. But he doesn't say the mama's boy thing.
And I wonder, and this is me totally so, you know, psychoanalyzing,
but like I've interviewed Jeff Tweetie, and I interviewed him, um,
you know, around the time that his that his mom died,
and he talked about how close he was to his mother,
and I just wonder, like if that dig just went

(31:09):
over the line, Like it's one thing to say like
you're Prima Donna on stage, but to go there that
is like that that's a real sign of malice at
that point. And it's probably something that I would imagine
the chief ship cuts deep. Yeah, it's a cheap shot
that like you don't really get over. Uh So, so
even if he wanted to keep the band going, if

(31:31):
you hear your partners say stuff like that, you're probably like, Okay,
we're done, you know, I think it's time to move on. Yeah,
And so this is sort of the state of mind.
This happened. This happens in early and they they agree
to do one more tour, mostly out of loyalty to
their manager who sunk in all of his all of
his money into the band, and they feel like they
own this and so the tour goes on in spring

(31:52):
of nine, and it takes two weeks for the wheels
that totally come off. There they Jeff and j brawl
in a park a lot of a North Carolina club
after Jay refused to sing harmonies on Cheff's songs. Probably
wasn't much of a brawl, to be honest, Yeah, I mean,
it's probably was spit and you know, maybe some slaps.

(32:13):
I don't know, but it probably wasn't like roadhouse or
anything like that. But but they had to be pulled
apart by their tour manager and they had a big
band meeting the next day, and the tour manager basically
as for our you know, what's what's your problem for?
I said, I don't have a problem with anyone here
but with you, and he points at Tweetie and at
that moment, and this sounds like a Neil Simon play

(32:34):
or something, that moment there, sound man couldn't handle the tension.
He passes out and hits his head on the coffee table,
which I'm with the sound man. I'm about to pass
out just hearing about this thirty years later. I mean,
what pulls my mind about these stories is that, like
the hatred seems to be one sided. Um that you

(32:56):
don't really hear Tweety talking about having the reciprocated feelings
of hostility towards Ferrar. If anything, he's feeling sort of
amused by how far as acting at this at this time.
And although you know, as we talked about this stuff now,
I mean, Tweeties talked a lot more about this time

(33:17):
than Ferrar has. I mean, we're getting more of his
perspective than we are from Ferrar. So maybe it's the
in fairness to Jay, maybe there's some sort of askewed
perspective on this, right, I mean, Jeff's version is kind
of an accepted as fact from being a Greg Cotts book.
And as you said that the many many, many many
more interviews that he's done than Jay. But in two
thousand five, j does give an interview to Anthony de

(33:38):
Curtis in In Relics, and he said that it was
more than just musical differences. He claims that a few
years before their breakup, Jeff was drunk in the backseat
of the Uncle Tupelo van and he started coming on
to Jay's girlfriend, stroking her hair and basically confessing drunkenly
confessing to two feelings of love for her and UH.

(34:01):
To him, this was the ultimate betrayal, and according to
the interview, he quit the band for a couple of
weeks before ultimately coming back. I for one, believe that
that could be something that you know, you don't want
to completely blow up this band that you put so
much into that actually seems to be going somewhere. I
think it might have been right around when they got
Peter Buck to produce their third album. Probably wanted to

(34:21):
do his best to kind of stifle any kind of
interpersonal drama. But I don't think you come back from that.
I think that that could have really been the start
of the of the schism, even with all the songwriting
disparity and and ego that went on there. I wouldn't
blame him at least. Yeah, I mean my my feelings
about this story because I've heard this story. And there's
also a part of the story where Jay says that

(34:45):
Jeff called him a pussy for like a couple of
weeks afterward, which I have a hard time believing that
part of the story, and that part totally wrong. I
don't know Jeff Tweedy personally, and I've interviewed him several times,
but I can't say I know him at all all
as a guy. He's not someone that strikes me as
someone who would call somewhat a pussy like repeatedly. I

(35:07):
don't know, it just seems strange to me. I mean,
I do see the other part of the story. Does
seem like that could have happened. I do think that
a story like that takes on more weight if you
are already inclined to look at your bandmate as an
egomaniac or as a glory hog, which seems to have
been how Jay Farrar looked at Jeff Tweety as this

(35:30):
guy that was who wanted to be a rock star,
and that was very antithetical to how Jay fer Our
conducted himself. So if he saw or he heard about
his bandmate hitting on his girlfriend in a drunken way,
you know, like basically, and you know, maybe Jeff Tweety
was was fooling around, you know, goofing off, but crossing

(35:52):
a line regardless, you know, I think if you were
cool with someone like that, you'd be pissed about your
friend doing that, but you would get over it. But
if you already look at your friend or your supposed
friend as being this, you know, arrogant, egomaniac guy. That
just adds fuel to the fire and it just reinforces

(36:14):
what you already believe about him. So that's how I'm
inclined to view that story. If if that's j f
ours sort of origin story for their split, I do
think that overall, like Jeff Tweeties argument that for our
felt threatened by Tweeties artistic ascendants, and that Tweety was
essentially not taking over the band but taking over the band.

(36:38):
I mean that that just makes more sense to me
because Uncle Tupola ultimately was j far Oar's band. I mean,
he was the dominant person for the majority of that
band's history. And to feel like this is my band,
but now I'm going to be in a situation where
I only get like half the songs on the record.
That seems like eventually you're just gonna say, screw this,

(37:00):
I'm just gonna form my own band, And that seems
to have been when that happened in the situation. Yeah,
I mean, I think the girlfriend think probably didn't help,
but I think it was probably those two together probably
paying in my opinion, a more full picture probably how
it really went down at Yeah, I mean Jay resented
him for a whole laundry list of reasons. All right, hey,
and we'll be right back with more rivals. We get

(37:31):
a situation now where they break up at the end
of that tour necking eighty four and tweety forms will
go immediately like days after with the like the leftover
remnants of Uncle tupelow and um. I interviewed Tweety about this,
uh Ineen. We talked about the first two Willco records,

(37:54):
and he talked about how and he's very upfront about this.
He said, like, when he was working on the first
Wilco record, which was AM, he felt a pressure to
keep the momentum from Anodyne going because Anodyne was the
highest profile Uncle Tupelo record up until that point, and
he felt a pressure two continue servicing that audience, you know,

(38:17):
like he didn't want those people to go away, and
that definitely influenced the speed at which he made AM.
And of course the content of AM, which for all
intents of purposes, is the fifth Uncle Tupolo record. I mean,
it sounds like Uncle Tupelo without j fur Our, wouldn't
you say, I mean, I feel like that's a pretty
straightforward reading of that record. Yeah, I mean it feels

(38:41):
almost like an impression of Uncle Tupelo. And also, I mean,
not only is he competing with his own pass with
Uncle Tuplo, and he's like it or not the j
f Our forms some vault and he's recording his own
album there on the same parent label with the same producer,
and they're being released not that along apart. Comparisons are inevitable,

(39:02):
so I'm sure he feels pressure on all sides to too,
not only measure up to his own pass, measure up
to whatever Ja is gonna do. And what Jay does
is great. Trace is incredible. Yeah, it's great. And it's
funny to talk about this now because you know, Wilco
obviously has this great reputation, They have a great catalog.
We all no, Willco a lot more than people know

(39:25):
Sun Volt. I mean, sun Volt is more of a
cult act now, but in you know, Jay Farrar was
the better regarded one out of the two, and Sun
Volt was the band that people looked at as the
next great American band, like this was going to be
the great band to come out of Uncle Tupelow. And
that was even true within the record company, like uh

(39:47):
Tweeties told the story about how someone from from the
label told him that Am the Wilco record, which came
out I believe in March of was essentially setting the
table for Trace the sun Bowl record, which came out,
you know a few months later. I think it came
out like in the summer or fall of of which

(40:08):
that's something you really want to hear from your record
company that you are merely setting up. You're an appetizer,
right exactly, And you're the appetizer for your rival, right,
who we respect more as an artist than we expect
him to be more successful than you, And we put
him on Warner Brothers. And you get on this off
shoot Raprise label, which has you know, kind of the

(40:29):
more ald people like Van Dyke Parks and Randy Newman
and Neil Young. I mean kind of kind of more
of the the the the weirder, riskier people, if I may,
people who I love, Yeah, yeah, like more of the
niche ye, yeah exactly. But yeah, you're going to be
more of like the niche band and you know also
the guy right yeah, which is kind of funny because really,

(40:51):
I mean, you would think that Ferrar would have may
be preferred to be on the smaller subsidiary than the
main label, you know, because that does seem more his
speed and more of his outlook. Like when people compare
the trajectories of Willco and Sunvolt. You know, I actually
don't think that Ferrar would have wanted will Goes trajectory.
I think that he was happy with the path that's

(41:12):
unvolved ultimately took because he didn't really want to be famous.
He didn't want to be hugely successful. I think he
just wanted to do his own thing, whereas Tweety was
always more ambitious and you know, wanted to engage the
public and wanted to have hits. Um and really at
that time, I mean the tweety was looked at it
like this lightweight pop guy basically, whereas Ferrar was like

(41:37):
the serious, you know, furrowed browed, you know, heavy artist,
and and that's how those records were perceived, like when
they came out in Yeah. I mean, I again, I
like Trace far better than Am. I think that's not
an uncommon opinion. Um Am has some moments. I like
box follow letters because it sounds like a bird song,

(41:57):
Passenger sides, a great song Cassino queen Um. But yeah,
it did not sell or get anywhere near the same
kind of reviews as as Trace did. Yeah, I mean
Traces like maybe the greatest old country record ever made,
you know, again defining our country as that decade of time, say,

(42:18):
from like the first Uncle Tupelo record in to like
Heartbreaker by Ryan Adams, if you want to call it
the old Country era, I think Sunfold, Trace, along with
those Uncle Tupelo records, those are like the great records
of all country. You know. Put those in a vault,
and I think of like the first track from Trace, Windfall,

(42:39):
you know, let the Wind Take your troubles away, you know,
beautiful song. Jay Farrar's voice sounds incredible. That was his peak,
I think in terms of his critical esteem is popularity
and really like artistic peak. Just an incredible song, and
it just sets up that record beautifully. And then you
have a record like a m which I think has

(43:02):
suffered in comparison to the other Wilco records. You know,
I feel like people tend to downgrade it because it's
not as good as being There or Summer Teeth or
a Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, and it's much simpler than those records.
It's not, you know, as experimental, it's not inventing anything.
It's basically reiterating what Uncle Tupolo did. But the defense

(43:26):
I'd make of AM is that I don't think Jeff
Tweedy wrote great songs and Uncle Tupolo, like, there's not
a song from his time in Uncle Tupelo that's as
good as Passenger Side is or Box full of Letters
or shouldn't be ashamed like he was at that time
exponentially getting better, I think with each album as a songwriter,

(43:49):
and AM ultimately ended up setting up better records afterward,
which maybe makes it seem a little weaker in retrospect,
and it also seems weaker in comparison to the sun
Bolt record, But on its own I think it's still
pretty good. So I'm going to defend AM, and I
am a total Jeff Tweety apologist too. I have to
say that right now, so I know he's your guy.

(44:10):
But it's interesting to like with Wilco as we dig
into Wilco, because you and I were talking about this
as we were outlining this episode. Because I feel like
if you talk about his relationship with j Ferrar, which
is so fraught and fascinating, there's also the subplot of
his relationship with Jay Bennett and Wilco, which is almost
like a weird mirror version of what happened to Uncle Tupelo,

(44:33):
but now with Jeff tweety in the power position, right.
I mean, initially, some of his early Weoco bandmates talk
about Jeff pitching the band to him as a true collective,
and it became clear very early on that this was
going to be Jeff's band. It was his name on
the contract, it was I think John Stroutt said that
he went with Wilco because he thought he'd be able
to get more songs on the record as opposed to Jay,

(44:54):
because j robbe better songs. And then he got one
song on I Am I Think um so and no
songs afterwards. I think that's like, I think that's the
only John Starrett's song on any Wilco rerecord. I think
I think you're right, and I I love Jay Bennett.
I love the I think the albums that they did together,
that he did with Wolco are my favorite Willco albums.

(45:14):
Some of my favorite albums ever Jay Benn. I mean,
how would you describe him? I always kind of picture
him as like David Foster Wallace with dreads instead of
a bandanna do rag like disassembling a melotron. Like he's
this mathematician, mad genius, musical maximalist, could play any instrument,
had sort of intuitive understanding of recording studio and all

(45:35):
the technology. I just picture him as this like musical scientists.
Is that sort of a fair assessment, Yeah, I I
always thought it was a shame that like Philip symour
Hoffman didn't play Jay Bennett in a movie, like if
they had done like a like like a fictional adaptation
of I Am Trying to Break Your Heart, like Philip
simour Hoffman would have been perfect as Jay Bennett. And

(45:58):
to me, j Bennett is like one of the great
sidemen in recent music history. You know, he added so
much to the sound of Wilco Records, and he could
play so many different instruments so beautifully, and you know,
he ended up co writing a lot of songs which
have tweety around this time, and it just seemed like

(46:19):
he was a great facilitator of tweeties ideas he could
take them to another place he had. Yes, I'm really
beautiful embroidery. Beautiful embroidery. And I think, like if you
listen to his solo records, like he has a record
called The Palace at four Am, I love that album,
which I really like it too, but I like it
more as sort of it's a view into what he

(46:41):
contributed to Wilco. I think, because the production on that
record is beautiful, the instrumentation on that record is beautiful,
and the songs are just okay to me, Like it's
what Wilco would sound like if you didn't have someone
like Tweety at the center writing these great songs. And
I think when they were together, you know, they made
these great records. But when they separated, Tweeting could still

(47:03):
make great records on his own, and Bennett, I don't
think could do that as easily. Now. I know that
there's Wilco super fans out there whose heads are probably
exploding right now because there are a lot of Jay
Bennett loyalists out there, and this is an ongoing argument
in Wilco fan circles about whether the band went downhill
after Ja Bennett was fired. There's also all the things

(47:27):
there's many reasons why Jay Bennett was ultimately fired. It
seems like, you know, there's the power struggle aspect that
was going on between him and Tweety, where I think
Bennett felt that he had more importance in the bandit
he than he actually did. And you see that in
Sam Jones documentary to I think he even says Jeff
was threatened by me. It's clear by the attention I
was starting again. And he's telling Sam Jones in the

(47:49):
I'm Trying to Make Your Heart documentary. Yeah, I mean
it's definitely he viewed it as as a duo and
not as a band. He sort of songs I was
like the Prince region of Wilco. Yeah, And there's the
line in there where he says that Tweetie supposedly told
him that a circle can only have one center and
it wasn't gonna be j Bennett. It's interesting when you
read Jeff Tweety's book because Tweety writes about how he

(48:12):
felt that Jay Bennett was essentially posturing for the cameras
for that documentary and making himself look more important in
the band than he actually was, which is kind of
a weird thing to say. I mean, there's a little
bit of weirdness with that, just because Jay Bennett can't
defend himself obviously at this point. He died sadly in
two thousand nine. But I think ultimately the big thing

(48:32):
that I take from Tweety when he writes about their
relationship and why I fell apart, is that Tweetie and
Bennett were essentially drug buddies, and they would do a
lot of self destructive things together, and from Tweet's point
of view, he felt like he had to get Bennett
out of the band or else it would kill him.
And of course Tweete ended up going into rehab a

(48:53):
few years after that whole thing went down, and then
and then of course Jay Bennett had his own sort
of sad slide into addiction that turned out really sad
and had a tragic end in two thousand nine. Right.
I think he ended up suing Jeff towards the end
of his life for unpaid royalties so we could, I think,
afford hip replacement surgery that his health insurance wouldn't cover.

(49:15):
I mean, his story is is one of the truly sad,
ye heartbreaking. It's awful, super talented guy. I mean it's
so horrible what happened to him, and that it couldn't
that they couldn't keep it together. But getting back to
the Jay Ferrar parallel to this, you know, and this

(49:36):
is a somewhat reductive thing, but it does seem like
that was almost like a drug adult version of what
happened in Uncle tupelow. Only now you know, Tweetie was
the one who had to decide you have to expel somebody.
You know that that I'm the one who has to
break away, Yeah, because Jay Ferrar had to do that.
And when I was when I als, I was interesting

(49:57):
too about the j Ferrar Jeff Tweete break up and
Uncle Tupe lows that. I think Jay Ferrar ultimately did
Tweety a favor by doing that. Oh yeah, you know,
because in a way you would think that Tweeting would
be the one to want to get out of the
band because he was the one who was ascending, He
was writing more songs and he was going to be
stifled in that band if he stayed in there. You know,

(50:18):
maybe he was just he was just used to a
dynamic and Uncle Tupelo where he was going to be
deferential to Ferrara, and he just couldn't leave the band.
So it was up to ferrar to say that this
band is over, and he left. That's where I think
that that the the Bennett for our thing is a
little different because I feel like Jeff didn't have the
the blatant show of ego that Jay did, at least

(50:41):
before Sam Jones cameras in the documentary of sort of
like making it apparent that he was an important creative
force in this group. I feel like maybe I'm wrong,
but I feel like Jeff was sort of more almost
like puppy, like, hey, I wrote this song like let's
let's do it, and it seemed less um manipulative or

(51:02):
or less not malicious, but less you go driven and
more more of a just born of a desire to
to share and contribute. I mean, what do you think
about that? Is that just a really reductive way of
putting that. I don't know, Man, I feel like we
gotta do a Jeff tweetye j Bennett episode. Man, don't
have to do sequel to this because there's so much
I feel like this is a tangent that I could

(51:23):
talk about for another two hours. That between those guys
it's crazy. So maybe we should just table that for
now and go back to Jeff and Jay. You know,
there is something with Jeff Tweedie and Jay's though. It's like,
if your name is Jay, You're never going to be
an advant with Jeff Tweedie. Again, I feel like you
can be the greatest guitar player or the greatest keyboard player.

(51:44):
He's never going to have another J in his band
and you are blacklisted. Don't don't Jay's need not apply.
That name is cursed. So okay, getting back to the
Jeff Tweety j fur Our rivalry. You know, if you're
going to make a pro case for j fur Our, like,
what would be basis of that? I mean, so much
of it I think is his personal taste. I like

(52:04):
his lyrics better overall. I like sort of his his
more literate, sort of the small town existentialism grade dry shift.
I think it's an amazing song. Whiskey Bottle. I think
is maybe I have to sit down and look, but
maybe my favorite song either of them have written. I
should check that. I should really sit down and think
about that before I put that out there. But yeah,

(52:26):
I think he's incredible lyricist and even though sometimes it
feels contrived or like a facade to me, I I
really do appreciate that, especially at his age too. He
makes these songs that sound a hundred years old, like
songs that Robbie Robertson would have written or something. I mean,
he's an incredible gift for for making something of substance. Yeah.
My my argument for Ferrar would be that in terms
of Uncle tupelow he is without question the dominant creative force.

(52:50):
He was the best songwriter in that band at that time.
He was the best singer in that band at that time,
and he had the most charisma at that time. I'm
qualifying everything specific Uncle Tupelo, but it's true that, um,
you know whatever, if you love Uncle Tupelo, and and
I really love Uncle Tupelo, most of what is great

(53:13):
about that band comes from Jay Farrar. You know, he'd
defined that band's aesthetic. You know, they're thematic concerns, um.
And he was just coming up with the best material
at that time. And and I said this earlier, and
I really think it's true that in terms of all
country music, Jay Farrar is the greatest artist to come
out of there. I think he made the best records,

(53:35):
and he wrote the greatest songs. And and I'm excluding
Jeff Tweety from that because I think ultimately Tweety was
not an all country artist. No, that wasn't what he was. No,
he started an all country band, but I don't think
he was of that music. I think he used it
as a vehicle to get his foot in the door,

(53:56):
and then once he got into Wilco, he just went
in a totally different direction. And he's written songs that
are country ish or folky, you know, in in some
of their spare parts. But I think overall he's he
doesn't come from there in the same way that I
think Jay Ferrar does and the way that he still does.
And you know, we talked about Trace being a great record.

(54:18):
I'll defend the entire sun Volt catalog. I think that
they've made a lot of great records, uh, you know,
in the nineties and up through today. I think it's
a much narrower sonic and thematic palette that you than
you get from Wilco. He's definitely more consistent than Wilco.
I think that it's just like you said, it's more
one note and it's a great note, But I think

(54:42):
that I admire Wolco's sort of musical adventures more than
his sort of purest streak. And I know I don't
think he started up to be a purist, but I
think that's sort of what he became. Yeah, I mean,
I just feel like for our had the blessing or
the curse to be fully formed on that first Uncle's
Buel record, and I think he I think he's become um.

(55:02):
I think he's refined his skills over the years. But
essentially he knew who he was at the beginning, and
Tweety didn't. You know. It took several years for Tweeting
to figure that out, and in a way, you could
say that tweet is still figuring that out. He's an
artist who doesn't allow himself as much to be fixed
in one place in the same way that Ferrar does,
which is infuriating but also incredible to be a part

(55:24):
of that journey too. I mean, you never really know
what's coming with that which he's I mean, it's like
Neil Young putting out trans or something. It's like what
doing I see a lot of Neil Young and and
Jeff uh In just there stubborn refusal to really be
pegged down, and I think that that's probably the thing
I admire about him most. Yeah, we've we've kind of
bled into the pro Jeff Tweety argument already, the pro

(55:48):
jeft Tweete argument as hijacked the pro Jay Farr argument.
But yeah, the idea of him being a more adventurous
artist ultimately having a more varied and eclectic and I
think overall at her catalog over the past twenty five years,
and you know, I can't be impartial here, Like, Jeff
Tweedy is one of my heroes, not just because I

(56:08):
think he's a great songwriter, but I just admire how
he's conducted himself in his career, being someone from the
middle of the country who stayed, you know, in Illinois,
who's always done his own thing. You know, will Go
as a band that is an island in the music business.
They always just make Will Go records, and they're not
affected by outside trends or like what is going on

(56:31):
in the rest of the world, at least not in
the sense of trying to cater to it or you know,
to like trend hop the way a lot of bands do.
He does what he does and it's really great. You know,
he always writes great he puts he writes great songs,
puts up great records, and he conducts his career I
think in a really admirable way. And I've always admired that,

(56:53):
and it's something that I aspired to my own life
and my own career. So I think you got this, David. Yeah,
I'm about to sing the Wind beneath my Wings. I
think I was about to do. I appreciate you stopping me.
Oh no, I mean like I think you. I think
you reached Jeff tweety level of of you know, skills
and adventure, adventurous spirit. And I mean, for me, Wilco

(57:17):
was my entry point to to Jeff and Jay's music.
I just a ghost was born. Came out when I
was in high school and um, and so I really
didn't know much about Uncle Tupelo. For many years, I
knew Wilco, and honestly, the news that he came out
of an old country band was kind of shocking to
me when I first learned that. Later on, you couldn't
really find me. The Uncle Tupelo CDs in out you know,

(57:38):
kind of out in the sticks where I grew up
and I think that almost speaks more to how impressed
I am that he ventured so far beyond that realm
is just so incredible, see how far he's come. I
also really admire, and I kind of alluded to to
this earlier in the episode, how he's really not afraid
to to wear his heart on his sleeve and his
songs I think a lot more so than than jay Um.

(58:01):
He does have this desire for intimacy and he shows
you his really ugly sides and shameful thoughts. I mean,
I think of the songs like via Chicago and and
She's a jar uh I almost saying like you do
you love me? Now? Do you love me still? Will
you stay? If I change my sound? Will you still stay?
I don't know. There's something really um again not to

(58:23):
get two psycho analytical that that I like that that
kind of trust with fans, and that kind of vulnerability
I I always have admired with with him and all
my favorite artists I think have that in common, Brangleson
being Um being another one. Yeah. I think that vulnerability
is why people like me end up rattling on for
minutes on end On podcast about how jeffries our hero,

(58:44):
and we want to be like him because we feel
like we know him or we feel connected to him
in some sort of way, which I'm sure would be
very disturbing to him if he heard this show. Um,
bringing these two guys together, because we always like to
end on a note of reconciliation. I feel like these
two guys have in a way reconciled, at least behind

(59:06):
the scenes. Like there was an interview that Jay Ferrard
did in Seen where he said that him and Jeff
were emailing each other. Um. I think the spark of
that was that there was maybe going to be like
an Uncle Tupelo archival release, which as of now has
not seen the light of day. I don't know if
that's still under discussion or not. But the idea was

(59:26):
basically that, you know, there's been enough water under the
bridge with us, and we've you know, we've lived our
own lives. There's been a lot of things that have happened.
We don't really need to hold a grudge over, you know,
whether you hit on my girl friend in two or
whether you know you called me a mama's boy, and
then you know, shortly after that, you know, we can

(59:47):
get over that uh, which warms my heart. Actually, I
don't know if you've seen this, but there's a great
clip on YouTube of Jeff Tweety telling a story at
a show, and I think it was like in the
late odds of the beach thing, Yeah, beach then like
where he was he went on vacation in Mexico and
he was like I think like he was like walking
down the beach and there was someone in the distance

(01:00:09):
and he realized that it was Jay Farrar And apparently
they had both rented like houses on the same beach
and there was one house between them, and apparently the
guy renting that house was an uncle Tupelo fan. Like random,
How random can you be? And how awesome would that be?

(01:00:31):
By the way, Like, if you have, yeah, j Ferrar
and Jeff Tweedy on either side of you were either
awesome or I mean, if they were fighting, that could
have been the worst vacation was life too, It's like, oh,
it seems like it seems like they were pretty good.
They gave each other like a bro nod, I think,
you know, like like hey man, what's up, you know,
and they didn't jam together though you know, they weren't playing. Uh, Satan,

(01:00:53):
your kingdom must come down by the campfire or anything
like that, which is a shame. I mean, you know,
I think basically they both couldn't have stayed in the
same band. You know, they were destined to break up
and form their own bands. And I think, really, as
I said before, I feel like each guy got the
band that they wanted. Yeah, I mean, the comparison almost

(01:01:14):
seems like unfair. It's like you're comparing yourself to like
your high school girlfriend or boyfriend, and there really just
becomes a point when you think, you know, we were
thrown together at the time by proximity and mutual interests,
and then the world got bigger, we found out who
we are and what we really wanted and what we
wanted to do and where we wanted to go, and
we went there, and you know what, no hard feelings.

(01:01:36):
I always got the impression that might be kind of reductive.
But Jay stayed true to his roots and Jeff stayed
true to his muse, and both of those are admirable
things to do. And I think it's safe to say
that because they're both happy where they are, that there
is a snowballs chance in hell of Uncle Tupela reunion.
I don't think that they will ever play together again,
but you know, I have no inside knowledge of that.

(01:01:58):
But it's just I feel like Ferrar would probably be
more open to it than Tweetie would be. Really like
I could see I I really think that Ferrar would
probably be more open to it than tweet Ee. But
I feel like Tweeties at is at a moment like
where he's so used to having his own kingdom and
willco do you really go into a situation like where

(01:02:20):
you're like a co leader with a guy that you
went to high school with, you know, I I just
don't see that being something he'd want to do. Oh
I see Jeff thinking that it would be great. I
could see Jeff thinking it would be great, and then
it's like five minutes and you would be like, oh
hell no, oh no, this is and immediately regretting it.
That's where I fall on And I could see j
dragon his feet. But when he finally agrees, Jeff being like,

(01:02:41):
oh cool, and then two songs into the rehearsal being
like all right, Nope, this is done. I mean, I
think the best case scenario is that, like they do
a reunion show at like a supper club in Belleville,
like and there's and there's like fifteen people there, you know,
and they're all like friends and family, and someone ends
up shooting like a really grainy, you know, iPhone video

(01:03:04):
of it, and that's the only reunion that they do.
I could see that scenario happening, and that seems like
the best case scenario, just like a one off, just
having fun type of union. So hopefully that will happen.
I'm just putting that out in the universe, that scenario.
I think that's a good wish. That's a good wish.
I'd like to see that, and that would be happy.
It would be It would be a good way to
bring an end to this old country blood feud that

(01:03:28):
I've had so much fun talking about. I feel like, again,
this this means a lot to me, this this feud,
and I could talk about it forever, but we must
put an end to this episode at some point, and
hopefully we'll come back for the other Jay exactly coming
for you. J Bennett Stephen was great. It's always a
pleasure talking with you about this man so much fun.

(01:03:49):
All right, Well, thanks everyone, thanks for listening. Take care.
Rivals is a production of I Heart Radio. The executive
producers are shaun Tytone and Noel Brown. The supervising producers
are Taylor Chicogne and Tristan McNeil. I'm Jordan Run Talk.
I'm Stephen Hayden. If you like what you heard, please

(01:04:11):
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