from:
http://www.cleveland.com/entertainment/index.ssf/2008/02/x_founder_john_doe_whos\
_perfor.html

X founder John Doe, who's performing with Wilco, plans
to keep on writing
by John Soeder/Plain Dealer Pop Music Critic
Thursday February 21, 2008, 11:52 AM
Autumn De Wilde.

PREVIEW
John Doe
When: 7:30 p.m. Friday, Feb. 22.
Headliner: Wilco.
Where: Lakewood Civic Auditorium, 14100 Franklin Blvd.
Tickets: Sold out.

John Doe, co-founder of the influential punk band X,
is on tour with Wilco to plug his latest solo album,
the roosty "A Year in the Wilderness." We gave Doe,
who turns 55 on Monday, a call last week at home in
Bakersfield, Calif.

Word has it you recorded "A Year in the Wilderness" on
a tight schedule.

Yeah. . . . Because of the business, you have to
schedule release dates way far in advance. I think
Jennifer Lopez probably already has scheduled her
record for 2010.

So we scheduled the release and I didn't have all the
songs finished. I thought, "We'll figure it out once
we get there." And it worked out great.

This was more of a rock record than "Forever Hasn't
Happened Yet" [Doe's 2005 album]. . . . And hopefully,
it's the last chapter in John Doe's very sad heart.
But I doubt it.

Everyone does variations on a theme. Once you've
written 20 songs . . . if you're still creative,
you're determined to continue the experiment and
adventure.

Dan Auerbach of Akron's Black Keys plays guitar on
your album. How did you hook up with him?

The first person who ever said "Black Keys" to me was
Juliana Hatfield. That was probably after their first
record.

I didn't know Dan. I'd never played with him. I just
thought there were some blues songs on this record,
and they do a sort of version of the blues. I like
'em.

At the South by Southwest music conference a few years
ago, I heard you speak about art and activism. Are you
involved in this year's presidential election?

I hope to be. I'm not booking the talent for the Obama
campaign, so I can't say. But I'm gonna try, yeah.

Do you wear different hats if you're writing songs for
your solo career or for X? Or is it the same hat,
turned sideways?

To write successfully, you just have to write. It's
hard to write with a specific goal in mind.

I find it hard to write an X song by thinking, "I've
gotta write an X song." Whereas if you just write, you
just write. That's liberating. That's good. And that's
the adventure.

There are definitely songs on this last record that
could've been X songs. "There's a Hole" could be an X
song.

It's down to how you arrange it and what speed you
play it at.

Exene [Cervenka, X vocalist and Doe's ex-wife] and I
are trying to write more together. . . . We're talking
about doing some X stuff.

X will be touring all summer and into the fall.

So can we pencil in some new X music alongside that
J.Lo record in 2010?

[laughs] Yeah.


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