Over the past 13 years, Moore and his band Sonic
Youth have arguably jilted rock and roll as much as Led Zeppelin or any
of the biggies ever did. In the early 80s, they put out a string of
five albums that employed bizarre guitar tunings to construct towering
walls of sound behind punk anthems and essentially gave birth to what
is now called alternative music (and all the bad fashion statements
that sprang from it). Countless bands--good and awful alike--owe Moore
and his band a kiss on the butt cheek for inventing their style of
playing and for inspiring them with their off-kilter recordings and "do
it yourself" approach.
By 1990, the band was signed to Geffen
Records, a move that opened the underground's floodgates to the
mainstream and paved the way for such bands as Nirvana. Since then, the
band has become a huge force in the recording industry. So huge, in
fact, they've been asked to headline this year's Lallapalooza tour once
again, after refusing the prized gig for the last couple of years. On
top of that, both Thurston Moore and drummer Steve Shelley run their
own independent record labels, and guitarist Lee Ranoldo is involved in
production work for several up-and-coming bands.
Last year, with
the release of the band's 10th full length album, Experimental Jet Set
Trash and No Star, they took a break for bassist Kim Gordon (who's
hitched to Moore) to squeeze out a puppy, Coco Hayley Gordon Moore, and
for the rest of the band to work on their various outside projects.
Moore also took this time to write and record his first solo album,
Psychic Hearts, (now available).
As for Sonic Youth as a whole, the
band has worked up some of their strangest material to date, and
they're using the Lallapallooza tour to unleash it on an unsuspecting
public. MELVIN spoke with Thurston Moore from his SoHo
loft shortly before the band's West Coast tour with REM.
