Sonic Youth Gossip - Thurston interview

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Super Sonic
Twenty-five years after Sonic Youth sprouted from the New York underground, alt-rock icon Thurston Moore is still letting loose.
By Mike Wolf

“After the first jam I was like, ‘Dude, can we put your record out?’ ”
Illustration: Rob Kelly

Things seem pretty sweet for Thurston Moore. It’s Sonic Youth’s silver-anniversary year, and the band has made its best and most direct album in years, Rather Ripped. Besides looking forward to a hectic summer of global touring, Moore recently inked a deal with Universal to distribute his label, the vastly respected Ecstatic Peace—and promptly signed a wad of new bands, including hyped Nashville teenage quartet Be Your Own Pet and TONY faves Awesome Color. While Moore, 45, is considered an NYC legend, he’s been enjoying life in relatively sleepy Northampton, Massachusetts, for years with his wife, Sonic Youth bassist Kim Gordon, and their preteen daughter, Coco—and all three of them just appeared on the season finale of their favorite TV show, Gilmore Girls. Yup, sounds rough. We reached Moore by phone, where he was at home after enduring a strenuous day of “jamming, record shopping and grilling out.”

Rather Ripped is great—was it refreshing to write regular rock songs again?
Since [guitarist-producer] Jim O’Rourke wasn’t going to be on the record, I wanted a situation that was more immediate; it’s what the title’s about. It’s an aspect of songwriting I really like, that quick-take rock & roll. We’d gotten so involved with noise extrapolations lately that I felt like maybe it’d be a good thing not to utilize that element.
You just signed a major-label deal for Ecstatic Peace. Why make that move now?
Because I get so many people soliciting me with things to put out, and some of it is very straight-up indie rock, stuff that could have a competitive margin out there. But I don’t have time to do all the work, and I definitely don’t have the business acumen.
I heard you signed Awesome Color without having seen them play.
That’s true—they played up here and I missed the gig, but I was really intrigued by the name. A friend who went said nobody was there when they went on but that they were this totally rocking, incredible thing, so I went to their MySpace page. After 30 seconds of the first jam, I e-mailed [frontman] Derek Stanton and was like, “Dude, can we put your record out?” He wrote back, “Fuck yes!” [Laughs]
How long have you lived in Northampton?
Since, like, ’99.
Were you looking for a better place to raise a kid?
It worked out that way, but it wasn’t our motive. Coco started getting older and we were getting crowded out of our Manhattan apartment. We looked around NYC but couldn’t afford anything. We came to look at a house on the Smith College campus, and it had a huge basement and a backyard, and it was half the price of things we were looking at in NYC. Days like today, the beautiful first days of summer, make it all worthwhile.
You have a show at CBGB coming up. Would you be playing there if the club weren’t about to close?
I don’t know. [Pauses] I was walking past CB’s one afternoon and Hilly [Kristal, the owner] was there. Nothing was going on and the beer lights were on, and it felt so iconic. Hilly’s always been good to me, even before Sonic Youth. What always made that place special is that the booking was dictated by whatever artistic movement was going on. In a way, that’s fantastic; any joe could get a gig and at least get this one chance. But no one looks for talent there anymore ’cause it got so watered-down.
How did the Gilmore Girls appearance come about?
I was flipping channels in a hotel room one morning and it came on; my daughter said, “Stop!” The dialogue blew my mind—all these arcane literary references and clever repartee—and I got addicted. There was an episode where one character said to another, “You’re boyfriend and girlfriend. You can’t be in a band together; it won’t work.” The other one said, “Oh yeah, what about Sonic Youth?” And my fucking jaw dropped. So I called our management, and they made a couple of calls, and the show’s people—Amy Palladino and her husband, Daniel, who are supercool—invited us to come on. So me, Kim and Coco played “What a Waste” from the new album. We weren’t Sonic Youth—we were this horrible thing that annoys the whole town.
Rather Ripped is out Tuesday 13. Sonic Youth plays CBGB Tuesday 13 and McCarren Pool August 11 and 12.