***this interview first appeared in Weedbus fanzine no7, August 1994***

With no tour to promote the release of the 'Experimental Jet Set, Trash and No Star' album, the various members of Sonic Youth have been up to all sorts of different things. As well as expecting her first child Kim Gordon has been concentrating on her Free Kitten project, and Thurston Moore and Steve Shelley formed the Dim Stars with Richard Hell. Both Thurston and Lee Ranaldo have been doing separate solo peformances while Steve was dividing his time inbetween running his own Smells Like... Records and touring with legendary English band the Raincoats. I was lucky to grab a chat with Steve Shelley while he was in London recording a Peel session with the Raincoats. At the time of the interview he was preparing for some selected UK dates supporting Nirvana, which sadly never happened. When I spoke to him he began by giving me the lowdown on the Sonic Youth record....

"Some of 'Experimental Jet Set was premiered at our Euopean festival dates in the summer of 1993. It has about six songs left over from that, and there's eight newer tunes. The material is more in the vein of 'EVOL' or 'Sister'. It's not as hard rocking as 'Goo' or 'Dirty', even though some of it does get going. It's still rock n roll in its way. We just felt it was time to do some other things from our musical vocabulary."

Has there been any pressure from Geffen to make more records like 'Goo' and let the experimental material take a back seat?

"No, we weren't really trying to do anything, we were just trying to make the best records that we could at that time. I just think that 'Goo' and 'Dirty' are indicators of what was going on, they didn't come about because the record company was putting pressure on us to sound a certain way. They've never told us what to do, I think that they're pretty happy to have Sonic Youth for what we are, and I think they know that Sonic Youth is the kind of band that if you tried to change them you really wouldn't have Sonic Youth anymore."

Does Sonic Youth activity ever clash with your side projects like the Dim Stars or this Raincoats tour?

"Luckily there is time for both, and usually it doesn't clash because we'll be able to set aside some time where one person has something else planned then you know that you could have that month off and do something. Right now, with Kim expecting a baby, it's a good time for me to do something like the Raincoats. It just so happened that they needed a drummer and I wasn't terribly busy! It usually works out fine and you're always very happy to come back to Sonic Youth afterwards."

Were you a fan of the Raincoats the first time around?

"Oh sure. The Raincoats were the sort of band that where I came from not everyone had the albums, but they were a 'tape' band - where your friends would make you compilations and so on, and songs like 'In Love' would just get passed along. So, yes, I was a fan and I was amazed that in the States he records have been re-issued on Geffen, so now they're actually on the same label as us!"

A big question now. How do you think that Sonic Youth has changed and progressed snce you joined in 1985?

"Wow, that's a tricky one! We change with every record, we're always learning things, we're always being influenced or checking out new music that inspires us - but that question really needs an essay to answer it!"

Tell me about the writing input in the band. It seems to me that 'Dirty' in particular was very much a Thurston and Kim album.

"Well, we all write in different ways but usually the music is written together, and if Kim or whoever ends up singing a particular song, then the chances are that they wrote the lyrics to that one. In the case of 'Dirty' I wouldn't say that it was Thurston or Kim album or anything like that. With 'Experimental Jet Set' Thurston brought in a lot of song ideas and they were then put through the Sonic Youth blender, or whatever. He did bring a lot of original chord progressions because he had played some of the material live in Japan. So this time more of the songs had been played without Sonic Youth before we had recorded them. That's not the usual way. I think he has done it once before , but when the band comes in it gets personalised with parts from Lee, Kim and myself."

So what sort of music are you listening to yourself?

"Sebadoh for one, I really enjoy them right now. Royal Trux, the Palace Brothers - their debut was one of my favourite records of last year."

Mine too, but I had the misfortune to interview Will Oldham though!

"That must have been tough! As for other bands I haven't heard a lot of Guided By Voices but a lot of people seem to be really into them. Other than that, there are little things here and there, but those are the bands that I'm most interested in at the moment."

interview by Jonathan Greer