As any Smoke-Filled Room regular can tell you, we spend a lot of time in this space talking about what it means to be politically active and socially engaged. Some of the musicians who stop by to chat with us are activists in word, some in deed, and perhaps a few in both. Sonic Youth, though, is one of those rare bands that have demonstrated their politics largely via their creative process and career choices—creating an unusually democratic songwriting process, maintaining a DIY ethic while recording for a major label, and nurturing a burgeoning alternative rock movement that followed in their wake. While Sonic Youth members Kim Gordon and Thurston Moore are perhaps the most visible of the bunch, especially when it comes to politics (Gordon was, most recently, a much-celebrated and high-profile member of “Obama Youth”), guitarist Lee Ranaldo still manages to make his influence felt with his guitar playing and songwriting—particularly on the band’s just-released record The Eternal. We caught up with Ranaldo, the man Rolling Stone calls the “33rd Greatest Guitarist of All Time,” to chat about how it feels to come home to an independent label, Gordon’s headline-making Radiohead dig, and elevating subtlety over sloganeering.

Crawdaddy!: Congratulations on the new record! Let’s talk a bit about the songwriting process and then transition into some more political talk. To an outsider, and perhaps some fans, Sonic Youth is somewhat unusual in that you all seem to be influential in the creative process. Is that a fair assessment?

Ranaldo: Yeah, I would say that’s a fair assessment. Our music is credited to the whole band and the idea is that, no matter who is singing or taking lead, the music wouldn’t be there without all four or five of us being there and developing it. No one person comes in and says, “Here are the songs,” and then everyone scrambles to learn them. We’re much more of a band that works from the ground up as a collective. We’ve always worked that way. That’s what makes Sonic Youth music what it is to a large degree, not by any one person.

Crawdaddy!: Because you employ that kind of group approach, how do things work when it comes to expressing a political point of view or social critique? Are those songs collective expressions?

Ranaldo: Well, it is a collective expression in that usually we’re all on the same page as far as that kind of stuff. We share similar views. Not in every case, but we’re not a band that makes too many overt political statements and usually, if we do, we’re all on the same page. I tend to think that if we are really political in any way, it is on the level of the way we’ve conducted our career and our time together—politics on a smaller scale. We’ve kept our house in order and kind of let our influence move out in concentric circles rather than sloganeering. We’ve tried to make interesting music and tried not to be swayed by money and fame. In a way, that’s as much a political statement as anything else. And if we’ve been able to set an example, that’s as political as a band gets.

Crawdaddy!: Your bandmate, Kim Gordon, caused a bit of controversy last week, telling the Guardian over in the UK that Radiohead’s In Rainbows model of pay-what-you-wish was a marketing ploy. Do you agree? Perhaps the machinery that’s usually involved in making and distributing a record is still necessary?

Ranaldo: Well, I think at the moment it’s still necessary. We’re in a shaky period now and things have become somewhat free for people who want to find them. For most musicians, with the exceptions of those selling millions of albums, livelihoods come from playing concerts because that’s something you can’t replicate. I haven’t read the interview where she said that, so I don’t want to comment on that directly. They [Radiohead] were the first ones to try to do that, so it was a novelty thing, if nothing else. That’s not a model that’s going to come to bear. People that make records are interested in selling them because it is your work and, on some level, you want to get paid for that. On some levels, the business in the ’90s over-inflated what it cost and that model was worthy of being torn down. I think it will shake down to a comfortable number of what people are willing to pay for an album worth of music and what artists are willing to accept for an album’s worth of music. I think it will all balance out.

Crawdaddy!: You have a new album just out, The Eternal, and it’s your first on Matador. How was the experience of working with an independent after all the years you spent on a major label?

Ranaldo: The thing that’s different is it really feels like we’re working with a label made up of music fans as opposed to business people. Most of our tenure at Geffen was fine, but the more we went on, there weren’t a lot of people left that understood what we were about. We were there because we never lost money for the label. But people didn’t really understand what we were about. At Matador, you have serious music lovers out seeing music every night and talking about music in a very sincere way—and also people tied in and excited to have us there—compared to a label where Sonic Youth is just another name on a roster. There are people at Matador who have been working with the band in some capacity or another from our very earliest times. So, it feels very good. It’s very familial as opposed to corporate.

Crawdaddy!: You and the rest of the band were vocal supporters of Obama when he was running for office. Do you like what you see so far?

Ranaldo: Most of what I see I like very much. It’s hard to judge a presidency on six months, but in terms of trying to step in and make broad, sweeping changes from eight years that came before, he’s doing an admirable job of sticking to his guns and trying honestly to bring forth a lot of change—and change in the way the world sees America. That can’t help but happen once you take Bush out of that seat. He has caused a reversal in the way the world sees the country. It’s been apparent in the trips I’ve taken since Bush left. There’s positivity toward America that has gone up in leaps and bounds. He seems like a very serious guy who is not as much swayed by the powers of the office as he is determined to make the changes he’s discussed. There is demand for very intense changes in our use of oil, transportation, health care—all different areas where there are wrenching changes that must be grappled with.

Watch: Lee Ranaldo [at youtube.com]

Tags:Lee Ranaldo, Sonic Youth, interview

Read more articles like this:

Classic Vantage: Here Come the Noise Terrorists: Sonic Youth

Album review: Sonic Youth, The Eternal

Over a Beer: Thurston Moore and Ian MacKaye on Indie Culture