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Playboy.com: When Wilco was touring behind Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, the shows were intense. Not everyone seemed to be having a good time on stage. Lately, Wilco shows have been much more positive affairs. Has it become more fun for you, too?
Jeff Tweedy: Sure, absolutely. Especially in the last three years or so, since I've been out of the hospital. Not just easier to have fun. Just easier to be kind of present the whole way through most of the shows. My experience reflects that as well. I don't know if I can explain all the reasons that that might be, but it's certainly been more fun.
Playboy.com: Were you taking drugs because you weren't having fun, or were you not having fun because of the drugs you were taking?
Tweedy: Oh, I think it's probably hard to distinguish, you know? That's probably part of the reason it gets to be such a chore, to try and maintain with those kinds of chemicals. The answer would most likely be 'both.' I think that it certainly isn't fun having to try and sort things out every day, feeling like that. It also certainly wasn't very much fun trying to sort things out without those chemicals, at that time.
Playboy.com: How did the drugs actually affect what you were writing?
Tweedy: That's a question that seems to be at the fore of everybody's mind, considering how prevalent the myths are surrounding rock music and drugs. My answer would be that they didn't affect anything very positively, including my songwriting. I think that everything that happened that turned out well happened in spite of the drugs. What I feel like now is that I've regained the kind of enthusiasm and curiosity that was there all along - and that inspired me to write songs. When I first started writing songs, I was 14 years old. It was well, way before any of these things. It was certainly way before I had any painkillers or anything. It was sort of like regaining some sense of my true self.
Playboy.com: So it's not projecting too much to note a newfound clarity to the music?
Tweedy: No, I can understand that people hear that. I don't know if that's necessarily only because of the elimination of drugs. It might just be a natural artistic expression, some sense that after a certain amount of confusion that it would be nice to clear things up a little bit, you know? But at the same time, I can't discount the fact that there is a lot less to hide when you're not in denial. That allows you to express yourself a lot more clearly. It's all mixed up. I hate to sound so ambiguous, but I don't think it's ever that simple.
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