AYESHA RASCOE, HOST:
Aging isn't easy. The former co-founder of the band Sonic Youth, Thurston Moore, is feeling some - you could call them growing pains.
THURSTON MOORE: It's typical mid-60s kind of health troubles. I have a bit of atrial fibrillation, A-fib, as they call it. It slows me down. I can't, like, run up inclines or stairs very readily.
RASCOE: But he's got it under control.
MOORE: There's no real cure for A-fib, but you can actually really regulate it and have a continued and productive life for as long as you stay out of the way of a bus running down the street (laughter).
RASCOE: So Thurston Moore hasn't been able to travel or tour as much as he used to. But that means he can spend a lot more time making music...
(SOUNDBITE OF THURSTON MOORE SONG, "SANS LIMITES")
RASCOE: ...Which is why he's out now with his ninth solo album. It's called "Flow Critical Lucidity." He can explain that, too.
MOORE: It refers to just this idea of finding a balance between, you know, your reality, your groundedness and your ambitions and your dreams and this idea of being awake, being woke. I'm very pro-woke. I know woke is a very sort of demonized word.
RASCOE: And what do you mean by woke? - 'cause woke, like, has, like, so many meanings now.
MOORE: I just like the idea of just it referencing being aware. And it reminded me of the language that I would hear in, like, the early hardcore punk scene coming out of Washington, D.C., where it was all about this idea of understanding that you can live your dreams and have respect for dreams and fantasies.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "SANS LIMITES")
MOORE: (Singing) Shelter my naked soldier, fixed on future. Remember the things you told her. This daylight is yours. These risks will define your life. This is the daylight of your own time. Grow up to the stars. Speak to infinity. This time...
RASCOE: The song "Sans Limites" - it's very poetic but also very cryptic. What are you driving at there?
MOORE: Radieux Radio is the lyricist, the woman I'm married to. We're very aware - to get back to that again - of each other's sentiments, and we have a lot of debate and dialogue about it. And I think what's going on in these lyrics is this idea of having respect for those who want to protect the world and the culture that they live in but to also understand how essentially wrong war is. So this idea of the naked soldier - and Angela Davis is quoted in the song. It's like, Angela says, bolster my naked soldiers, you know, be proud of what you're doing and yourself, but be concerned about having that dignity of knowing that you're really having to fight against this oppression of war. So that, to me, is what's going on lyrically in this song.
RASCOE: I read that one of your earliest rock influences - maybe the one that kind of knocked you off your feet - was "Louie Louie" by the Kingsmen.
(SOUNDBITE OF THE KINGSMEN SONG, "LOUIE LOUIE")
RASCOE: You were living in South Miami, and your brother came inside one day, holding that seven-inch black vinyl.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "LOUIE LOUIE")
THE KINGSMEN: (Singing) Louie, Louie, oh, no. You take me where you got to go. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, baby. Louie, Louie, oh...
RASCOE: How did that - it impact you?
MOORE: A lot of your most critical influence comes at such an early age, and those are the things that really inform you to such a profound degree for almost your entire life. So that is my initial reckoning with early '60s rock 'n' roll music coming out of North America. And it was "Louie Louie," a song - you know, like, these four kids up in the Pacific Northwest had taken from a bit of a Caribbean ditty of sorts, and did this really expedient 7 inch. And it didn't really just rock my world. I think it had quite an effect around the world, that song, you know?
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "LOUIE LOUIE")
THE KINGSMEN: (Singing) I dream she there. I smell the rose...
RASCOE: Obviously, you were part of Sonic Youth. It was always edgy and experimental.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "SCHIZOPHRENIA")
SONIC YOUTH: (Singing) I went away to see an old friend of mine. His sister came over. She was out of her mind. She said Jesus had a twin who knew nothing about sin. She was...
RASCOE: That was back in the '80s, kind of amid New York's downtown scene. Like, are there some things that you miss most about that period?
MOORE: I don't really have a feeling of any kind of romantic nostalgia like I would want to go back and be there and wallow in that again. I think it was actually a very challenging time trying to make ends meet and getting from one day to the next and trying to find employment here and there just so you could get through the day. And it was a bit of a Wild West at that time in the late '70s, early '80s in New York, and it was fairly dangerous, and you had to know which streets not to go down. And so I don't really miss it on that account, but being able to write about it and reflect on it was enough for me. And I'm always very much interested in what's around the corner as opposed to, like, what has already transpired.
(SOUNDBITE OF THURSTON MOORE SONG, "THE DIVER")
RASCOE: What do you ultimately want people to take away from your new album?
MOORE: To be uplifted, to be intrigued, to be inspired, to - you know, the greatest feedback I get is just anybody of any age saying, you made me want to pick up a guitar and do something.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "THE DIVER")
MOORE: (Singing) They found your watercolors and your field notes, pen, a bowfin, bluegill, beauty in the sand. You cupped a grayling into your hand.
So that's the feedback I'm very gracious for, you know? I think if it was just indifference, I would probably go look for a different gig. But it's always been very encouraging.
RASCOE: That's Thurston Moore. His new album is out now. It's called "Flow Critical Lucidity." Thank you so much.
MOORE: Thank you. It was wonderful to talk to you.
(SOUNDBITE OF THURSTON MOORE SONG, "THE DIVER") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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