Wilco's Glenn Kotche Talks Preshow Rituals, Drumming for Taylor Swift

"Oh, I sincerely miss those heavy metal bands/I used to go see on the landing in the summer/She fell in love with the drummer," is how one of Wilco's most streamed songs, "Heavy Metal Drummer," goes. Even though it was one of the first Wilco songs drummer Glenn Kotche ever played on, he insists he had nothing to do with the lyrics.

"Oh no, that was all Jeff Tweedy," Kotche says. "That was about him seeing bands in St. Louis as a kid. That was well underway when I joined, but I did play live drums on it."

Growing up in the suburbs of Chicago, Kotche learned to stay on the beat on toy drum sets as a toddler. By the time he joined Wilco in 2001, he was a veteran on the drums. He got on Wilco's radar through musician Jim O'Rourke when the pair played with Tweedy at a Noise Pop Fest in Chicago.

"We got to play with a lot of ideas. Jeff liked that I could play a lot of different percussion and that I could play quietly and supportively," Kotche says.

Wilco was already three albums deep into a critically acclaimed career, but the band broke into the mainstream after Kotche joined in part because a camera crew filmed every step of those recordings for the documentary I Am Trying to Break Your Heart: A Film About Wilco.

"I played a bunch of vibraphone and percussion while the cameras were rolling. I ended up playing drums, too," he remembers. The documentary captured the recording of their beloved record, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. It also caught animosity between members and the band being dropped by their label. Kotche only has fond memories of that record, citing it as one of his favorites from the band's output. "Maybe because it was my first? The band was going in a different direction, trying to ditch the alt-country tag. As time went on, we kept growing. We even went back to making a country record."

Among Kotche's other favorite Wilco records is 2007's Sky Blue Sky, partly because they all wrote and recorded it in one room. He's also a big fan of their latest full-length 2023's Cousin. "I loved working with producer Cate Le Bon. She had cool percussion ideas. To Jeff's credit, he really handed over the reins to her and let her be an extra set of ears. Our new EP, Hot Sun Cool Shroud, is great, too, and our weirdest. I think we're all just getting better as musicians, writers and as our friendship deepens."

On April 29, Wilco will take the stage at the Fillmore Miami Beach for the band's first South Florida show since its appearance at SunFest in West Palm Beach in 2015. "We'll play something from every record. In December, we did three residencies where we played 90 different songs over three nights. Hopefully, we can continue to be freewheeling. There's a lot of Wilco tunes, so it can be challenging to decide on a setlist."

Sometimes, the setlist is decided during a preshow ritual, during which the band gets together to warm up before taking the stage. "Everyone's got their instruments, their little amps, my mini drum kit, and we'll play for 30 minutes. That's how we sometimes find new arrangements. We like what we hear, and we ask each other if we should play it that way on stage."

Kotche had a very different musical collaboration when he played drums on Taylor Swift's 2024 album The Tortured Poets Department. "I've known producer Aaron Dessner for a long time. We went in the studio and recorded it." But he never was in the same room as Taylor. "We record separately. There are several drummers, and they Frankenstein it. But all kinds of musicians have done that. Steely Dan was famous for using lots of drummers." Regardless, Kotche says he could still recognize his drumming on the finished product.

Does working with the biggest pop star in the world help him seem cooler to his kids? "I have a daughter and a son, and you'd think that would up the way they see me, but I'm still dad," Kotche responds.

Regardless, Kotche is keeping busy with the Wilco tour and his solo project. Eventually, there will be more Wilco recordings, too. "We'll reconvene and start recording late this year or next. We don't like to go too long without recording," he says.

Wilco. With Waxahatchee. 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, April 29, at the Fillmore Miami Beach, 1700 Washington Ave., Miami Beach; 305-938-2509; fillmore-miami.com. Tickets cost $64 to $86.50 via livenation.com.