Best known as the drummer with mercurial Chicago-based rock outfit Wilco, Kotche further immerses himself in stimulating ventures such as avant-garde trio Loose Fur (a Wilco side project) and jazz duo On Fillmore (with bassist Darin Gray).  Glenn also cultivates a thriving solo career indulging his electric excursions in polyrhythm.  If that weren’t enough to keep any musician creatively fulfilled, Glenn recently completed his first commissioned orchestral composition, “Anomaly,” which debuted in Autumn 2007 with the eminent Kronos Quartet.

A Chicago-native, Kotche attended the prestigious music school at the University of Kentucky earning a degree in percussion.  He went on to teach music to literally hundred of high school student over the years, while also appearing on dozens of recordings throughout the late ‘90s.  Joining Wilco in 2001, Kotche contributed to the highly acclaimed Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (2002), the Grammy-winning A Ghost Is Born (2004) and the group’s latest masterpiece, Sky Blue Sky (2007).

Wilco is the perfect foil for Kotche’s diverse musical predilections.  Each Wilco member is supremely accomplished musician in their own right, delivering powerfully poignant songs saturated with staggering gorgeous melodies, stripped down slide guitars, and alluring rhythmic twists evident on their latest album (and arguably their best).

On a recent swing thorough London on tour to support Sky Blue Sky, Glenn discussed his diverse musical endeavors and how he approaches music as much more than just a singular profession.

DRUMHEAD: Your have the chops, education and technical savvy to master just about any style or genre of music. Is there an aspect of your playing that you’d like to develop further?

GLENN KOTCHE: There are so many areas that I have to work on, and the more I learn, the more I realize that there is more to learn.  The more comfortable I get, the better I get, and then more possibilities get unlocked.  I’m not in college anymore so I can’t practice eight hours a day working on all the technical aspects. I have to prioritize and try to choose things that make musical sense to me.

DH: Like what, specifically?

GK: I’m always exploring technical things like working on my left foot, ostinato things, and my feel.  My whole approach for the Sky Blue Sky is feel.  There is nothing technical about this record from my end. I wanted to get a buoyant swing feel that my heroes had like Levon Helm, Al Jackson Jr., the Motown guys, even a lot of rock drummers like Mitch Mitchell and John Bonham.  Those guys grew up listening to R & B music and R & B guys like Earl Palmer were essentially jazzers. Straightening out the eight notes, and that inherent swing that feels so good, is what I’m referring to. With Wilco, my first record with them was Yankee Hotel Fox Trot, and I had the chance to play everything: multiple drum kits on every song, junk, homemade stuff, a lot of percussion.  Same thing with A Ghost Is Born, where I used hammered dulcimers instead of vibes.  This record, there’s six of us now, the way we recorded it was live, in a circle, in our own studio in Chicago.  The only overdubs I think I did were a shaker and a tambourine.  No one punched in, and the vocals were sung at the same time I was doing my drum takes.  No separation, no Pro Tools, just live.

DH: Sonically, it’s a really warm-sounding album, a throwback to the early “70s when recording was strictly analog and the process was more organic. Is that what your were going for?

GK: I think we wanted to go for what felt comfortable for us and we knew that playing live always feels comfortable.  We took this same approach when writing the record. We knew that this was the way we wanted record it.  With all of us playing at the same time and no overdubs, my whole goal for this was to try get a soulful, deep feel and go for a really good groove. To answer your question, it is that huge thing of feel and grooving that I want to learn to improve.

DH: Did recording as a unit speed up or slow down the process in the studio?

GK: Both. Because we all didn’t feel we all got our perfect takes at the same time, we’d sometimes have to record a track ten times or more.  I may have felt I had my perfect take on the second take.  But there are so many elements involved like pianos, vocals, two guitars that we tried to get a performance that felt right in a general sense.  We weren’t going for a “no mistakes” approach, and there are plenty of mistakes on the record which add character.  It was down to what made the songs and the lyrics feel the best.  At the end of the day for me, it’s all about supporting Jeff’s [Tweedy, vocals, guitar] lyrics.  Having feel in the song is more important than a flawless drum take.  This was also the most collaborative Wilco record I’ve been involved with when it came to writing.

DH: Take us through the process of how you collaborate and record.

GK: On past records, Jeff would bring in more completed songs and we’d all supply our parts and arrange them.  For this one, he only brought in a couple songs that had chords and lyrics already.  Nels [Cline, guitar] would start with a chord progression, or Pat would play a piano part, and we’d work the entire day developing it, playing it over and over while making little changes each time.  That’s how the songs developed, and they are credited as songs by “Wilco.”  So we all had a collaborative input on this record. We all love playing with each other and we love the music and Jeff’s lyrics.

DH: You mentioned “supporting Jeff’s lyrics” with your playing.  How do you go about prioritizing what words to accent and how to structure your parts around lyrics?

GK: You have to think of drums as any other part of the music, not always as a timekeeper.  But sometimes, that’s the main function, as timekeeper, which is basically what I do on the new record.  That works. It has a place.  I come from a background where I studied a lot of orchestral music, free improvising and my college professor, Jim Campbell, put in my head the idea of incorporating more of a multiple percussion approach.  I went to school for a percussion performance degree but I knew I wanted to play drumset, what he said didn’t sink in until a few years after I graduated:  that I can incorporate all the time I spent on marimba, timpani, ethnic styles of percussion, on a drumset, to think of the kit not just as a rhythmic instrument, but as a way of adding color an texture to music.  I guess examples of what you’re asking about would be on “I am Trying to Break Your Hear:” it’s a three chord song, repeats over and over for four or five verses and then there’s the chorus. The drums are pretty instrumental in providing the scene changes.  Going from this ramshackle, broken, off-kilter beat and slowly, as the verses progress, the drumming becomes more normal and focused until the chorus hits, the drums lay out and then everything erupts into chaos after that.  For the other tines, I might be contrasting the lyrics, playing freely over what Jeff is singing.  Sometimes, I’ll just be supporting him playing a nice easy groove.  On the new record there ate little things. “Hate It Here” is a steady groove with all these drum fills and the character is venting throughout, and then frustration comes out and the drums illustrate that.  I sometimes try to provide contrast like “You Are My Face,” where the drums are simple in parts, but when the middle section comes in, it’s a lot louder, which makes you focus on the lyrics more because you can hear something different is happening.

DH: Guitarist Richard Thompson has said that he notates his solos so that he doesn’t repeat similar patterns, which helps push him musically.  Whit all your compositional work, do you tend to notate so as not to repeat yourself?
GK: For most of the solo pieces I do, I writhe just beyond what I can actually play.  I writhe them because I’m curious about things, and I just need to explore that more.  I’ll get a concept in my head and then I’ll writhe it down.  Some things are dictated exactly as I think of them, while some things are more general.  But yes, I do try and push myself a little further by writing things that are harder to play.  Like the Kronos Quartet piece, there are drum parts on there that I’ve written which I couldn’t play initially, but I had to learn when we debuted it in October.  It’s my way of forcing me to practice, and this pushes me to do so.

DH: Your extensive musical education has made you a different musician than had you been self-taught. Have you ever contemplated that?

GK: I get kind of jealous of those guys who were never at school like Buddy Rich, of Maureen Tucker (Velvet Underground).  She’s as far from Buddy as you can get, but what she does is as perfectly suitable for those albums as what he did.  I spent all those years on lessons and schooling, yet unschooled drummers blow my mind.  But that’s what I like about composing. I never had a composition class, so I get to be the outsider, figuring it all out from a beginner’s perspective.

DH: Your most recent solo CD mobile, veers from the austere and minimal in terms of instrumentation, to an ornate, complex layered platform of sounds, utilizing cymbals, vibes, marimbas, tom toms, kalimba, all conveying the dynamically expressive nature of percussion.  What originally inspired you to take that route?
GK: Mobile was drawn from visual art and a lot of the ideas came from listening to all sorts of different styles too.  I get ideas from a lot of things. At the time I did that, I was listening to a lot of the Nonsuch Explorer Series: Balinese music, African music and contemporary classic music.  Plus Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Zeppelin. I get ideas from all those places, and I get curious about working with those ideas and exploring them.  I don’t think that comes from my educational background, although it might be easier for me to write music out.  I’m just curious and naïve- you can ask my wife about that, too (laughs). And that gives me the drive to try these ideas out.

DH: “Clapping Music Variations” is so compelling and rich that it’s easy to forget that it’s entirely derived from percussive instruments.

GK: The whole record is like that. The piano is used a bit, that’s also “technically” a percussive instrument.  I also used a cimbalom which are the strings of a piano you hit with a hammer (mallets).  It’s all pitched percussion.  Sometimes I get too conscious of being too busy and I do try to incorporate space into what I play, and the last thing I want to do is to overplay.  But on some songs I can go from shaker, mallet to sampled sound to a drumbeat and it’s all percussive sounds, not only drum kit.

DH: You’ve actually toured the U.S. supporting your solo work. Is your audience comprised of Wilco fans or are they primarily drummers in search of a mind-blowing experience?
GK: I tour playing rock clubs in the U.S. I’m sure there’s a sprinkling of drummers, but there are Wilco fans there, I can tell, they get off on tines like “Monkey Chant.” I wish it was all because of the music, but it’s also due to the visual aspect of it.  They haven’t seen these instruments or heard these sounds before, like some of the cymbals that I’m using, or the amplified suspended fruit basket, which sounds like a gong but it folds down really small and compact.

DH: You’ve spent some time touring Brazil.  The Brazilians seems to have an intrinsic link to music, and music can be heard everywhere.  What did you take away from that experience?

GK: I’m totally in love with the place, as anyone is who goes down there.  My side bands and solo record have been going on for a long time, longer than my time with Wilco.  Whit On Fillmore, we were touring our record Sleeps with Fishes, which is all upright bass, vibraphone and all these field recordings. Darren Gray [bassist, one half of On Fillmore] lives in St. Louis, I live in Chicago, so he made field recordings of the Mississippi River, cicadas at night, all kinds of sounds.  I recorded sounds in my back alley, the Chicago River, things like that.  We put those on top of the music and it gave the music, a sense of geography, a sense of place.  When we went to Brazil to play, I played vibes, he played bass.  But we were also playing percussion parts, triggering effects and recordings, it was very precise and together.  We saw all these Brazilians bands and musicians perform where there is no head involved, only the heart.  That made a big impact on both of us.  The instruments, the music, the people, the attitude, it’s just super relaxed.  But the music there reminded us why you make music: to feel good.  It can be intellectually stimulating, which is nice.  But at the end of the day, it’s got to feel good.

DH: How do you manage to keep your personal life a priority when you are touring so often? 

GK: It’s hard.  We’ll pretty much down-to-earth guys, family guys, and no one is leading a rock star lifestyle.  When I’m on the road, I try to get as much work done as I can, writing music, so that when I am home I can really be there.  Mobile was written entirely while we [Wilco] were out on tour.  I’m writing another commissioned piece right now on the road so that I can be at home with my wife.  She’s studying for her PhD, so she can’t always come out on the road with me.

DH: How did drumming become your passion?

GK: I was born on New Years Eve, 1970, in what used to be a hospital that’s no longer there. It was right across from an armory.  At midnight to celebrate the New Year, the armory started shooting off cannons, so I think my first sound stimulus was these cannons going off right outside the nursery.  So maybe that’s why I’m a drummer (laughs).  I don’t know. I chalk my profession up to my birthday.

DH: Your father taught you how to play organ first, before you switched to drums.

GK: My dad is a longtime music teacher and easy to learn from, he’s totally laidback, just a beautiful man.  My dad taught on the side part-time, but he had a big student roster.  Organ really helped me with drums later on because there was the top keyboard and the bottom one and the foot pedals. It kick-started me with the independence thing you get with drumming.  When I was three, my sister gave me a toy drum. I remember putting the sticks through the head one day and I was heartbroken. I thought, “I can’t play this anymore.”  When I was five or six, my parents got me a tin drum set with paper heads, and I took immaculate care of that so that I wouldn’t break it.  I treated it like an instrument rather than a toy I would bash around.  From that moment I just felt I was a drummer.  I just thought that was what I would do.  I’m incredibly fortunate that I can do that for a living.  I’m very lucky.

DH: With all your varied playing experience, has your attitude towards music changed in terms of taste?

GK: When I was younger I would see a lot more divisions like “I hate this music,” or “I hate that drumming,” or “I love that style,” or “I love that drumming.”  Now I’m able to appreciate a lot more different things, and those boundaries have dissipated.  They say as you get older you’re supposed to get more jaded, but maybe I’m softening up; I’m not sure. I love everything form the athletic drumming of Thomas Lang to the simplicity of Mo Tucker, which I said earlier.  I like all spectrums that I can enjoy and find inspiring.  I try to pass that on to students, too.  Maybe world music is not your thing but give it a chance, or even jazz.  A lot of kids today don’t want to listen to Miles Davis, but there are things that you can learn, that can impart you years from now.  Keep an open mind.  We all constantly change as people and our tastes develop, too.  There’s always new music popping up when you’re around musicians all of the time.  Something come along and just kicks your ass and you become open to a whole new sound.

DH: What’s your favorite aspect of being able to play great music with so many different perspectives?

GK: I love being part of the band, part of the ensemble, but I also love the other projects, too. I love touring and playing live and I enjoy recording. I try to treat every gig as if it’s the last one. *