Wilco to release Wilco

Wilco's eighth album, and seventh studio effort, "Wilco (The Album)," (Nonesuch) was leaked on the Internet five weeks before its official June 30th release date. Then came news of former member Jay Bennett death on May 24th.

"It was really kind of a shock and it was difficult to put a lot of it together," Wilco singer Jeff Tweedy said of his former band mate's unexpected death. "I think it's a real tragic loss and just really sad, a sad, short life that I really wished had been able to flourish and thrive for a lot longer than he was able to."

"The philosophy of the band for close to 10 years now has been we do not as a rule go out of our way to prevent people from hearing our music. It's bad karma and antithetical to making music," the 41-year-old frontman explained. "We don't consider it a God-given right to make a lot of money from the fact that I learned how to play guitar."

"In the grand scheme of things, I believe in our music. I want it to be heard. It's really not an argument, it's not a contentious conversation with the record company," he said. "We just do what we do. It's not even a big marketing philosophy, to be honest. I'd rather have people come to you to hear it rather than all the different (Web) sites that may or may not be corrupting what it sounds like."

The new album is Wilco's third with the current lineup of guitarist Nels Cline, guitarist-keyboardist Pat Sansone, keyboardist Mike Jorgenson, longtime bassist John Stirratt, drummer Glenn Kotche and Tweedy.

"It's obvious. I think this lineup of the band is the ultimate version of the band," says,Tweedy. "This is Wilco to me, what I've always hoped it would be. We've managed to stumble across the chemistry and environment and level of musicianship that I think I really thought I could only dream about."

The single, "You Never Know" is at Alternative radio.



"Wilco" by Wilco - release date: 06/30/09..