Sonic Adventures

As part of the Don’t Look Back series of concerts (which features alternative artists performing a classic album from their repertoire in its entirety), legendary New York noiseniks Sonic Youth have recently been playing all of their landmark 1988 album Daydream Nation at a number of shows throughout the US and Europe.

Indeed, on the day I speak to the group’s drummer, Steve Shelley, the band are due to play the whole record once again at a show in Glasgow that evening. How have the band found the experience so far?
“It is strange,” considers Steve. “I don’t think we ever did it like that even back in ’88, where we play it from song one to song 14, or however many tracks are on there. It’s a bit like doing a Broadway play (laughs), cos we know what’s gonna come next. But it’s been a lot of fun, I’ve been really enjoying it.”
Daydream Nation’s richly deserved classic status was further acknowledged last year, when it was one of 50 recordings chosen by the Library of Congress to be added to the US National Recording Registry. What does the process entail?
“I think it’s just listed up there with a bunch of other really interesting and great recordings,” says Steve. “It’s an honour, but sort of a strange one, cos there’s no statue or anything (laughs). Which is fine, but it’s on a list somewhere of important recordings.”
Sonic Youth’s most recent album, Rather Ripped, is the last under their current contract with Geffen. Will they make another record for the company?
“It’s possible. Our deal is sort of done with Geffen, but we’re continuing to work on these re-releases with them. We just released Daydream Nation as an expanded CD, for example. We don’t have a contract with them right now, but it’s certainly possible that we’ll work with them again. At the moment, the music business is in such a flux that we don’t know really know where we’ll end up.”
For the best 10 years, Sonic Youth have been releasing their more experimental records on their own SYR label. The band recently announced on their website that the latest instalments in the series, SYR 7 and 8, are nearing completion. Will they be released shortly?
“It’s taking a while, but those are coming together,” explains Steve. “One of them is made up of a live recording from the Roskilde Festival a couple of summers ago, where we had a number of guests play with us, including Jim O’Rourke, Mats Gustafsson and Merzbow. That will come out as a CD, and the other one is going to be a 12-inch only, and that’s made up of a few pieces recorded in various places.”
As it happens, Simpsons creator Matt Groening mentioned in a recent interview that Sonic Youth are one of his favourite ever guests on the show.
“It’s nice that he said that,” enthuses Steve. “Matt has contributed a lot to American culture… or the lack of (laughs). We’ve met him a couple of times. Before we did that episode, he came to a show and introduced himself. We actually did the theme song for the end of that show, which for me was the best part of appearing in the episode; it was a fun time to record it. We recorded it at Electric Lady Studios in New York, so that was fun. We also did our speaking parts at a studio in New York, and someone cut and pasted them in for us.”
Over the years, Sonic Youth have had fruitful collaborations with a number of filmmakers, including Being John Malkovich/Adaptation director Spike Jonze (who appeared in the video for ‘100%’ with future My Name Is Earl star Jason Lee), and Kids/Gummo wunderkind Harmony Korine, who directed former child star Macaulay Culkin in the ‘Sunday’ promo (amazingly, it worked). Have the band seen much of either director lately?
“We see Spike occasionally,” replies Steve. “We just played in LA and he came by. He’s working on Where The Wild Things Are, and I think he’s in the second year or more of doing it. It’ll be completed within the year, I think. It sounds like it’ll be amazing, it was a kids’ book by this guy Maurice Sendak, and it’ll be interesting to see what Spike will do with it. I know that they had live actors, but I think there’s gonna be a lot of CGI in it, so who knows what he’ll come up with.
“I haven’t seen too much of Harmony lately; I’m curious as to what he’ll do next. It was fun to work with him, he’s a real character.”
Sonic Youth’s performance at Electric Picnic wraps up yet another tour for the band, and the group have now been together for 25 years. To what does Steve attribute the band’s longevity?
“I don’t know how to answer that question,” he admits. “I know that we all really love what we do, and maybe that helps us through difficult times. Because being in a group is definitely not the easiest thing. Sometimes you have to forget about your ego and think about what will work for the group. So I’m not really sure. I think that probably the less I analyse it, the better!”