In an essay published this week, Wilco band leader Jeff Tweedy writes about his painkiller addiction, brought about by persistent headaches throughout his career.
“I honestly do not remember a time in my life when I did not have headaches,” he reveals on the New York Times blog. “At one point they determined my migraines were the result of allergies, so I got numerous allergy tests and it turned out I was allergic to everything.”
Despite never missing a show due to a migraine, Tweedy concedes he’s “played some really horrible shows and cut them short because there was very little I could do to keep going”.
On the band’s 2004 album, A Ghost Is Born, the frontman chanelled his physical pain into the songs. ”[It] ends with a 12-minute drone. That was an attempt to express the slow, painful rise and dissipation of migraine in music.”
An addiction to painkillers soon followed. “I’ve always been turned off by that idea of the suffering drugged-out artist,” he concludes. “It’s always made me sort of nauseated to think that I could fit in to that stereotype.”
Wilco begin their Australian tour next week.
