Nissue #15: Spencer Tweedy, Musician.
Full disclosure: I am a very big Wilco fan. Why does that matter? The subject of Nissue #15 is Spencer Tweedy, whose dad happens to be Jeff Tweedy, the singer, and guitarist of the band. I got to “know” Spencer by reading Rolling Stone and seeing photos of him playing with his father and brother Sammy when they were in their late teens.
I finally got to see Spencer play live in January 2020 when my wife and I flew to Mexico for the first annual Sky Blue Sky Festival (basically a Wilco and friends 3-day jam session named after one of their stellar albums), and it was then that I realized, wow this kid can really, really play hard.
What can a 25-year old tell us about life? Turns out a lot. I especially wanted my own son Dash, who is 13, to read this interview—and I think Proust, who only lived to 51, would soundly approve.
Nish: What is your idea of perfect happiness?
Spencer: Being able to spend my time doing things I love to do and being around people I love. It doesn’t get more cliché than that. The things I love to do, as I see them now, are making records, playing music with other people, and product design-ish. (I’m not trained in design but I like making, or at least daydreaming, about making things out of wood and metal. And programming simple digital products, too.)
I’m also not sure if I could be “perfectly” happy without trying to help other people. On a micro-scale, person-to-person, but also on some sort of macro level. If I could help improve a policy or be a part of an organization that makes life feel less painful for some people, that would be very, very fulfilling.
Nish: What was your worst job ever?
Spencer: I’ve hardly worked a day of a “real” job in my life. I’ve mostly been playing in bands (and, until the pandemic, working in a bar) since I was seven so I don’t have very much normal work experience. But when I was a teenager, I interned at a family friend’s record store and while I loved being there and all the nice people I was around, it wasn’t super fun to count LPs for inventory. Oy, that’s the best I can do. “I didn’t like to have to remember a number higher than 100.” Pathetic!
Nish: What was your first job ever?
Spencer: I think my first job ever, other than making $20 from my band the Blisters playing local shows, was doing freelance web development for a friend of mine in Canada. His then-girlfriend had designed a Tumblr theme and they hired me to convert her Photoshop mockup to code.
(Funnily enough, I’ve lost touch with that Canadian friend but he’s a kind of huge pseudo-Warren Buffett investor in British Columbia now.)
Nish: What was your best job ever?
Spencer: Drumming! For my dad especially.
Nish: What is the trait you most deplore in yourself? What is the trait you most deplore in others?
Spencer: I loathe my laziness. I would say I live in near-constant fear of letting my willpower muscle shrivel up and die. I want to always be ready to put the right amount of effort into something both for my sake and for others. And the moments where I can see the inclination to take a shortcut to make me feel awful like they would cause a domino fall to pure, irrecoverable sloth.
The trait I most deplore in others… probably social impatience. I’m proud to be patient AF and when I see others kinda being unkind because they’re moving too quickly, I feel judgmental.
Nish: What’s some advice you’d give to yourself at 23?
Spencer: So, me, two years ago? I’d say continue your journey of chilling your anxious brain out. Chilling out doesn’t mean stopping caring… it just means getting better at coping with things, trusting that things will turn out alright, not chasing down every minute problem as if the world will end if you don’t fix it.
Nish: What is your greatest extravagance?
Spencer: There’s no greater privilege than having the supportive family and girlfriend, Casey, that I have. Did I interpret that question correctly?
Nish: You have dinner reservations for 4 at Noma, excluding family and close friends, who are the 3 people (alive, dead, or imaginary) you’d invite?
Spencer: Right now, I’m feeling like I’d invite Mister Rogers, Carole King, and Kurt Vonnegut.
Nish: What is the theme song of your professional life?
Spencer: There is a playlist of about twelve songs that are always—and I mean always—on repeat in my head. One of them is “No Matter What” by Badfinger.
Nish: What is your motto?
Spencer: LoHeHa, the motto of the hundred-plus-year-old summer camp I went to when I was a kid. It means “love, health, and happiness,” a sort of priorities list. It helps me focus my thoughts when everything feels too sprawling. The list is in order because without love, health wouldn’t mean as much, and without health, happiness wouldn’t mean as much.
Nish: What is something you’re really excited about right now?
Spencer: I’m excited about the slow, safe return of live music. And about the studio building that my friend and I have been renovating. It’s going to be a music studio and a project workshop for miscellaneous things we’re building and I’m so excited to have a space that can facilitate all these different interests and skills we want to work on.
End Interview.
