Pulse: Between the Greg Kot book (“Wilco: Learning to Die”) and Sam Jones’ documentary (“I Am Trying to Break Your Heart”) there’s a lot of info in the public eye now about Wilco beyond just the music. Are you uncomfortable with fans knowing so much about the band members’ personal lives?

Stirratt: I hate it, frankly. I’ll go so far as to say I hate it. I think the documentary had some merit in terms of just being something that stands on its own artistically, but I didn’t like doing it. And the book ... I mean Greg [Kot, rock critic for the Chicago Tribune] has been a fan and a great supporter of us over the years, but frankly I saw nothing but trouble [with the book being written]. I couldn’t even bring myself to read it, the idea of a tell-all or some kind of expose about our little thing - it just seems crazy. Granted, it’s not so little anymore and I realize that, but still ... a whole book about Jeff and us, I have a hard time imagining enough people would even want to buy it to justify it being published. I didn’t enjoy being involved with it very much, it was something that was going to go down regardless though, so I felt like I had to sit down with [Greg Kot] and at least be represented in my own words because I’d probably come off worse if I didn’t do that. I guess Jeff has a lot more fame where he warrants that kind of attention, but I still have this feeling that there’s a band dynamic involved in all of this and I don’t know if our fans are even that interested in this kind of thing. I just know that I’m totally uncomfortable with it.

Pulse: It does seem to take some of the focus away from the actual music.

Stirratt: That’s never been what Wilco’s about. Just talking about how much money we make and stuff like that. I think you can be private about certain things that you do, even when you’re creating art in a public forum and are sort of a commercial entity.

Pulse: When there’s a lineup shift like this most recent one, does Wilco become a completely different musical experience for you? Or does it still feel like one sort of continuous experience since you’ve been working with Jeff for more than a decade?

Stirratt: The new lineup really changes everything completely. The band has always reflected the personalities of the people involved in it. And this is really kind of an exciting mode now, just to have a larger ensemble. With Yankee Hotel we were unable to play a lot of the sounds live, so we had to rely more on samples, which at the time we looked at with excitement because it was something that we hadn’t done. But I think that this lineup really reflects a lot of the goals that we had when making [A Ghost is Born], which was really to capture the sound of people playing in a room and creating nontraditional sounds but doing it by hand and in the moment, not after the fact.

Pulse: Sort of getting a more organically derived weirdness.

Stirratt: Yeah. In a way, the lineup reflects the philosophy that was driving that record. It’s also just exciting; I’m definitely happy to have a lead guitar player again. I think it really frees Jeff up and there’s just a lot more to look at on stage. There were times in the post-Bennett era where it was just Jeff and I up front and it felt a little strange. The theater of rock kind of relies on being able to look at a singer and then look over at a guitar player. It’s a traditional kind of thing in rock and I’m glad we tried getting away from it, but having Nels, who is really an exciting lead guitar player, it helps quite a bit in both the sound but also the look of the show.

Pulse: From the outside it would seem like getting the chance to shift gears into presenting older songs with this new larger line-up would be exciting, particularly because you toured behind YHF for so long with the same smaller band lineup.

Stirratt: Totally—and we were just getting to the point where it was really working too [laughs]. The more line-up changes that happen, there’s a tendency to make Jeff the focus more than ever. In Europe I really saw that in a big way. It was a situation where I became very aware that all eyes were on him. I think with all the line-up changes I was kind of fearing that the band dynamic might suffer, or at least the idea that it’s still a collaboration of sorts. But this group kind of quickly quelled those fears for me.

Pulse: Especially when you have someone with as big a presence as Nels [Cline] it’s not like he’s going to really quietly blend in. It’s pretty obvious that there’s more than one talent and vision going into what’s happening.

Stirratt: That’s definitely true. Nels is pretty much a tour de force.

Pulse: One thing that’s always remained constant regardless of the goings on in Wilco land is your continuing work as a front man and songwriter in other side-projects. You’ve put out a couple of records as the Autumn Defense [with new Wilco member Pat Sansone] and just released an album with your twin sister [Arabella, under the name John and Laurie]. How important is it for you artistically to lead those other projects, and do you feel that the work you do in them informs your music-making in Wilco and vice versa?

Stirratt: They really do. It’s really still about collaboration, regardless of what I’m doing. There are so many more similarities with the side projects and the stuff I do in Wilco than there are differences. Even with some of my more solo-type records it’s still about finding that magic and synergy that comes from good collaboration. Just the musician life and not having a full-time job is a great opportunity that I don’t take for granted. I know a lot of people who still have full-time jobs and are able to make a lot of music—which is amazing. For me there’s always going to be down time where I can be creative, I can always write on the road. The beautiful thing about the life I have now is just the freedom and the freedom of time that I have. Everyone in the band is a creative person and we’re always thinking about making different records. Glenn works on so many different projects —he’s always busy.

Pulse: Some of what you’re saying reminds me of when I interviewed [R.E.M. guitarist] Peter Buck and he talked about the importance of enjoying a widely ranging musical life. He explained how getting the chance to work on a smaller scale and play nightclubs with his side project bands Tuatara and the Minus 5 was just as exciting, in a different way, as playing arenas with R.E.M. By living both the small-scale and large-scale musical life he found he was able to appreciate the merits of both more. I remember the Autumn Defense coming through town and playing the 400 Bar.

Stirratt: Oh yeah, that’s true. I still remember being stuck in the snow behind the 400 Bar in February on a tour in a van. It was a huge eye-opener, it’s wonderful because it totally makes me appreciate the Wilco scenario more and never take it for granted. I’ve done enough van tours along the way to really remember the brutality of it.

Pulse: It seems like a pretty good way to keep the proper perspective on things.

Stirratt: It’s a good thing to do – I would recommend it for anybody in a larger band (laughs).

Pulse: Preparing for this interview I was being nerdy and reading a bunch of older interviews you had done, and I came across one from Rolling Stone awhile back where you were quoted as saying that most bands have about a four or five year run, and that you felt pretty lucky to still be making the music 10 years on from Wilco’s beginning. I’m wondering since it has been so long and the interest level only continues to grow if you still have that mentality of seeing the band as inherently having a finite period of time in which to get things done or whether it’s hard to envision a time when you wouldn’t be making music with Jeff?

Stirratt: I think it’s actually kind of healthy to have that attitude and look at the band as a finite thing. It lets you sort of go in with a certain excitement when you’re making a record, just thinking “Oh, this could be our last one.” And I mean obviously this isn’t going to be our last record—I guess I’m kidding myself in that way (laughs). I think just the appreciation of what we have is one thing that Jeff and I have in common. After the rehab thing I realized you just never know what’s going to happen in the future. When people get sober a lot of things can change. At that point when Jeff was in treatment and people were asking me, ‘are you afraid the band might be done?’ Frankly I wasn’t worried about it at all—it was strange. I’m glad to see how everything turned out.

Pulse: Obviously that’s a situation where the band is really a secondary concern and your friend’s health is more important.

Stirratt: Absolutely, someone’s health obviously takes precedence over something like rock n’ roll. That was the case right from the beginning. It’s good to be able to come out of that whole period with I think the best live lineup we’ve ever had. We feel really lucky and fortunate to keep doing it.

Pulse: When you become one of these bands that has so much written about them and discussed on internet message boards and the like invariably certain misconceptions take hold over the years. What do you feel is the biggest misconception about the band?

Stirratt: I think in Europe there’s a certain fascination with authorship that results in some misconceptions. I was fielding questions with interviewers overseas recently and at a certain point it became clear that a few people thought I hadn’t even played on the record and that Jeff played all of the instruments (laughs). I mean that’s a little frustrating for sure. I think they’ve confused vision with someone going in and playing all the instruments. That was definitely the misconception that bothered me the most.

Pulse: That’s understandable, to be reduced to being thought of as a hired gun for the live show is pretty insulting.

Stirratt: Yeah, I mean if I’m a hired gun things are in a sad state of affairs (laughs). I’m pretty far off from an L.A. session band kind of guy.

Pulse: I’m curious about your perspective on aging and music-making as someone who’s been in the game pretty much non-stop for the last 15 years or so. Do you feel the same sense of energy and excitement as when you first started out? Or is your relationship with music substantially different today?

Stirratt: You think about [the process] more when you’re older. When you’re younger you kind of just hope to be this conduit for something heavenly to happen whenever you pick up a guitar and play it. You tend to think a little bit more and edit yourself as you age, but I can still sort of get into that zone where you feel like you’re 18, or at least where you’re that naïve. I still feel pretty naïve in a lot of ways about everything (laughs). I think putting yourself in that position of openness is the most important thing, just being able to kind of communicate something that’s in the ether. Jeff has been able to really combine those two different ways of thinking in a lot of ways. To kind of have this sort of spontaneity and to be able to write things beautifully—but also to edit and incorporate things he’s thought about a little bit more.

Pulse: Sort of being open enough emotionally and musically to throw a lot of things at the wall but then having the experience to step back and figure out what should stick.

Stirratt: Exactly. Trying to have good decision-making skills after the fact but not wrecking that moment of creation. ||

Wilco plays on Mon., Oct. 25 and Tues., Oct. 26, at the Orpheum Theatre with special guests Deerhoof. 7:30 p.m. All Ages. $32. 910 Hennepin Ave., Mpls. 612-339-7007.

Check out Wilco on their official website.