Neko Case Just Published a Memoir. Here’s What She Had to Say About Life on the Road in 2001

Marc Vitali | February 3, 2025, 3:11 pm

Video: Neko Case talks about the possibilities of music in a July 2001 interview with WTTW News. (Marc Vitali / WTTW News)

“Singer-songwriter” seems inadequate.

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How about “singularly charismatic and plainspoken singer with a knack for lyrical storytelling and unpredictable music?”

Neko Case is her own category, and now she’s written the book on her sometimes wild life.

Case returns to Chicago on Tuesday for a Q&A on stage at the Studebaker Theater to talk about her memoir, “The Harder I Fight the More I Love You.”

Back in July 2001, Case was near the end of a three-year stay in Chicago, the city where her solo career really took off.

She was already a member of Canadian power pop outfit The New Pornographers, and her second album, “Furnace Room Lullaby,” had drawn attention to a rich voice with a distinctive point of view. Case’s songs were labeled “country noir.”

The following year, her LP “Blacklisted” on Chicago’s Bloodshot Records drew more ears and eyes to Case. Grammy nominations came in 2010 and 2014 for Best Contemporary Folk Album and Best Alternative Music Album.

On a hot and humid evening in 2001, WTTW News met the rising artist outside Schubas Tavern. She and her band, Her Boyfriends, had just driven from Nashville to play a show at an outdoor stage next to the club.

Tired from a long drive, they lugged equipment through a narrow space between an illegally parked car and an overflowing dumpster. It was a blunt view of the not-so-glamorous side of being in a touring band.

Before her performance, as the sun set, Case spoke with WTTW News about Chicago, country music and punk. At age 31, she was an artist in bloom and already a tested road warrior.

Note: This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

WTTW News: Welcome back to Chicago. Where are you coming from?

Neko Case: We just came in from Nashville. We played the Opry Plaza last night. The air conditioning broke on the way back. It was very hot.

Does Chicago feel like home to you yet?

Case: Yeah, it does, but I’m not here that much. I’m in Chicago like a week out of every two months sometimes. It’s laidback, people are friendly, lots of good music venues and musicians. I love Chicago. I’ve got nothing bad to say about it.

Some folks, like you, approach country music straight up, like they’d play soul music or the blues. Others do it as shtick. Your thoughts?

Case: It’s hard to talk about why you play music a certain way. It’s gratifying in that it’s just suddenly there in your brain, and you don’t know where it came from. It feels like the right thing to do.

Country music came from places where people were poor. There weren’t a lot of prospects and people were considered kind of trashy, and of course they weren’t. They were just people living in difficult circumstances. They didn’t have a lot of control, but music is this option that makes you feel like you do have control and maybe you have something that no one can ever take away from you. It sounds like a Walt Disney-a--ed feel-good movie, but it’s true.

Video: Neko Case performs in Chicago in July 2001. (WTTW News)

A lot of musicians playing country music these days came out of the punk scene. Why do you think that is?

Case: I was a little kid when punk rock started obviously — I was born in ’70. I was in school during the Reagan era, and all the arts and music programs got cut back. So if you were a person who expressed themselves that way, you were kind of marginalized and there wasn’t great outlets for you at school so you kind of just plugged your way through.

And I also grew up during a time when Elton John was really popular, and rock and roll was very baroque at the time in the ‘70s and even the ‘80s — new wave was kind of a decadent thing. It just didn’t seem accessible to me at all. It didn’t seem like something I could ever do. Music and art were always expressed in a way like it was kind of a pipe dream, and I think that had a negative effect on a lot of people, especially because arts and music on an accessible level, like punk rock or country, are just so important for people’s morale.

Did you listen to country growing up?

Case: My grandmother was hugely into country music, and that’s where I first heard everything. You name it, she played it. It wasn’t shoved down my throat. It just was there, and it was pleasant. And I don’t like to put a big feminist spin on everything, but I saw ladies doing things and, as a lady, felt I could do that, too. Or at least it planted the seed where later I would go, ‘I can do that. It can’t be so hard!’ [laughs]

What are you working on now?

Case: Well, I just made a record in my kitchen [“Canadian Amp”] because I wanted to figure out the technology. I’ve been recording for years, and it was bothering me that I didn’t know how to do it myself. Like I said, accessibility is a really important thing. It seems like such a hard thing when you look at it, the technology, but it’s actually really easy. Everyone should do it. Everyone should make music if they want to. They shouldn’t have to feel like they’re doing something detrimental to their future, but there also seems to be this thought in America that if you don’t know what you’re gonna do by the time you’re 30, you’re pretty much washed up, like your brain just suddenly goes stupid at that point, which is the most ridiculous thing ever.

You just drove eight hours to your next show. Talk about being on the road.

Case: There are times when you’re tired and you feel like you want to quit but ultimately you wake up later and feel more rested and everything’s OK.

And there’s a lot of fighting that goes on. Sometimes you gotta go in and say, ‘Look, if you’re not gonna pay me our guarantee, I’ll spend the night in jail for f---ing up your bar.’ You really gotta fight. I’ve never gone to jail luckily, but we’ve had to convince people rather strongly that they best give us the money. Sounds a little extreme, but people will rip you off at the drop of a hat.

There’s a lot of good people out there, too. I don’t want to make it sounds like the music business is all crooks because basically there’s a lot of independent labels and kind people out there working this circuit because they love the music, and it keeps it accessible for people who work regular jobs and just want to go see a rock show on the weekend.

Do you think music and art are underappreciated in this country?

Case: Absolutely, not necessarily by the citizens, but after living in Canada I realized how everything gets swept under the carpet here — grants for artists, grants for musicians. Our country is all just based on business: sell it, kill it, buy it, s--t all over it.

Anything else you’d like to say?

Case: I just want people to realize that music is art and art is important, all of it — people already realize that, but I guess they don’t realize how accessible it is and how happy it can make them. There’s a lot of people out there who I’m sure wonder if it’s just a big pipe dream, and if they should take out the loan to make their little studio or whatever. And they should do it, because it’ll make their lives so much better. It’s so worth it.

Neko Case appears at the Studebaker Theater in the Fine Arts Building at 7 p.m. Tuesday for a conversation hosted by the bookstore Exile in Bookville.