The group disbanded prematurely in 1983, but its records made a sizable mark: Mission of Burma became a band's band; leaving noticeable impressions on the likes of Pearl Jam, R.E.M., Sonic Youth and Yo La Tengo.
Pixies and Sonic Youth were so important to the eighties.
I never really thought of myself as a musician. I'm not saying Sonic Youth was a conceptual-art project for me, but in a way, it was an extension of Warhol. Instead of making criticism about popular culture, as a lot of artists do, I worked within it to do something.
There's only so many small shows you can do. A lot of the smaller things are more side project things. Not everything is appropriate for Sonic Youth to do.
I think that certainly, whenever you have a new band, the first record always has a certain energy to it before you know what you're doing. I think some of the early Sonic Youth stuff was maybe like that.
Sonic Youth, for better or worse, is/was a machine that carried me along through pregnancy, motherhood, and creative opportunities I never would have achieved on my own. I'm grateful and surprised that we were listened to, loved, ignored, and overrated.
I can't think about whether I'll disappoint Sonic Youth fans. It's not like I want people to be disappointed, but I just can't control that.
I think Thurston's and my weird tunings lent Sonic Youth a very different sound from the get-go. In the band's 30 years - aside from covers - there are maybe two or three songs we wrote using traditional tuning.
When Sonic Youth writes music, we write everything in a very communal way. It doesn't matter who brought something in initially; it all gets transformed by the band.
In Sonic Youth, at the end of 'Expressway to Yr. Skull,' we'd tap on the backs of our guitars to get this low-level feedback, and if I leaned forward, and the guitar hung off my body, it would resonate differently.
