How Wilco Became the Biggest Indie Band This Millennium

Wilco is the quintessential indie band, a self-made institution with a cult-like following that carved its own path, despite not being embraced by the mainstream early on.

In some ways, the Chicago group is the modern-day indie version of the Grateful Dead. But it didn’t happen overnight.

“I feel like Wilco was able to navigate the very shifting sands of the music industry starting back in [the] Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (2001) era and having enough of a fanbase before what the internet was able to assist with, and then using the ability to have our own network and continue to cultivate that and word of mouth,” says Mikael Jorgensen, the group's keys player since 2002.

Wilco’s decision to initially self-release and stream Yankee Hotel Foxtrot proved to be a blessing in disguise, after its record label at the time, Reprise Records, rejected the album and subsequently dropped the band. Reprise gave Wilco the rights to the album for free, and Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, which Nonesuch Records eventually picked up, would become the band’s most successful album, topping more than 670,000 copies sold to date. It’s since been considered one of the best records of the 2000s.

The follow-up, 2004’s A Ghost Is Born, took home a pair of Grammy's. Wilco had arrived.
“I feel like it was always the goal,” Jorgensen says of the six-piece building a career through its loyal audience and legendary live shows. “There are many comparisons to the Grateful Dead from a business-structure standpoint, where they were independent and didn’t really require as much institutional traditional record company support because they had found their audience and continued to tour and play and cultivate a relationship with that group of people. Same thing for us, just our version. I don’t claim to be responsible for any of that decision-making, but that is definitely the model that was always in place, to just eventually do everything ourselves or in-house, so to speak.”

Earlier this month, Wilco honored the Dead at Willie Nelson’s Outlaw Music Festival on Long Island, during which Jorgensen, iconic frontman Jeff Tweedy, bassist John Stirratt, drummer Glenn Kotche, guitarist Nels Cline and multi-instrumentalist Pat Sansone shared their rendition of “U.S. Blues” on Jerry Garcia’s birthday, August 1.

“It was kind of profound and incredible. We sang ‘I’ll Fly Away’ with Willie a few nights in a row, too,” Jorgensen shares. “I need to come up with a name for things that weren’t on my bucket list that I did, and after that fact were on my bucket list. It was pretty amazing.”

Wilco’s current tour, An August Evening With Wilco, is also amazing. The band plays Mission Ballroom on Saturday, August 16.

The career-spanning set pulls from all thirteen albums and more, including 2023 full-length Cousin and last year’s EP, Hot Sun Cool Shroud. Plus, Wilco recently reissued 2010’s The Whole Love, via its own dBpm label, and A Ghost Is Born.

Jorgensen recalls those early days working on A Ghost Is Born, his first album as an official member. “Revisiting it, twenty-plus years after, it’s like a time travel machine. It brings me straight back to when I was living in Chicago, and we had just finished building and renovating the Soma Electronic Music Studios space, John McEntire from Tortoise’s place. That’s where I was working at the time,” he shares.

“Meeting Jeff and the guys and really having a great time being in the studio making music and being creative. That overall emotion and feeling is what comes flooding back when I listen to the outtakes and the different versions of songs we were working on,” Jorgensen continues.

“We could feel this optimism and wander, but with less idea of how the world actually worked back then. Not really fully understanding, maybe deep down, I knew it was really good, but it was going to be ongoing 23 years later.”

The Recording Academy agreed, naming A Ghost Is Born the Best Alternative Music Album that year, further legitimizing Wilco’s status as beloved 21^st century underdogs. While many bands have tried to emulate the blueprint, none have replicated it as prosperously. Jorgensen again points to the ultimate X-factor — the fans.

“We treat our audience with the respect that we always have,” he says. “We wouldn’t be where we are without all of them.”

That’s why Wilco started its own festival, Solid Sound, in 2010 and is known to comprise fan-requested setlists. Like the Dead, recording shows is encouraged, too, and easier to find online nowadays.

“The good news for us, we get on the road and place shows,” Jorgensen concludes, “and people love to come see us.”

Wilco, 6:30 p.m. Saturday, August 16, Mission Ballroom, 4242 Wynkoop St. Tickets are $76-$346.