“I don’t feel like there’s anything left unsaid”: Thurston Moore on the likelihood of a Sonic Youth reunion
More than a decade since Sonic Youth’s split, Thurston Moore is certain about one thing: fans hoping for a reunion shouldn’t hold their breath.
It’s a stance that has held firm even after the guitarist briefly reconnected with former bandmates Lee Ranaldo and Steve Shelley late last year at New York’s the Stone. The trio’s hour-long set of improvised noise had shades of Sonic Youth’s old magic, but Moore insists it wasn’t meant as a prelude to something bigger.
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“It was a gig I had at the Stone, and I initially asked Lee to do a guitar duo,” the musician explains in a recent chat with Rolling Stone. “We’ve done this before in different places, and I thought it would be cool to ask Steve to play, because he’s in town, and he plays drums. And I thought that would be cool. So that’s all it was.”
Asked if the performance stirred any nostalgia, Moore quickly shakes it off: “I didn’t think about that. I don’t, like, miss things. I miss the future,” he says. “As far as music is concerned, reformation doesn’t really come into it so much.”
“We had a solid career of 30-plus years, far longer than most bands have had. The legacy of the recordings stands on its own. I don’t feel like there’s anything left unsaid as far as what we were doing.”
As unique as Sonic Youth’s sound was, the guitarist says he has little interest in recreating it: “We’re all kind of long in the tooth now. I don’t know if that can ever be recaptured. And I don’t like the whole ‘re’ thing, you know, reforming.”
Kim Gordon, Sonic Youth co-founder and Moore’s ex-wife has echoed similar sentiments. Speaking with Rolling Stone last year, Gordon said that any reunion “would never be as good as it was.” And Moore agrees.
“I find bands that get back together to be just an exercise,” he says. “A lot of the time it’s less to do with the band and has more to do with the brand. Unless it’s the OG members, you know, but even, a lot of the aspects of bands that are so important is their youth. And to replicate that is a little bit like a grandmother in a mini-dress, which I don’t want to be.”
Despite frequent offers, he’s content to leave Sonic Youth where it ended.
“I get asked every day. We all do. It’s a constant thing,” Moore says. “I like it because I’m glad we had such an effect and left such a mark… I’m so proud of it, and it’s such a big part of my life experience. But it’s very encapsulated. It has a great beginning and middle and end.”
With that chapter closed, Thurston continues to focus on his solo work. Earlier this year, the musician released a new single, The Serpentine, followed last month by a cover of the Velvet Underground’s Temptation Inside Your Heart.
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