Q&A: Sonic Youth's Ranaldo contemplates "The Eternal"

By Jason Lipshutz

NEW YORK (Billboard) - Thirty years into their career, the members of the art-rock band Sonic Youth are consistent as ever in the studio, although they're changing their strategy outside of it.

For "The Eternal," their 16th studio album (June 9), the band left longtime label Geffen Records and returned to the indie world, signing a one-record deal with Matador Records.

Guitarist Lee Ranaldo, a key element of the band's noise-fueled sound since its early days, spoke to Billboard about Twitter, Joy Division and his visual arts projects.

Billboard: Where did the title "The Eternal" come from?

Lee Ranaldo: Thurston (Moore, Sonic Youth's lead singer) thought it up, and I'm not sure if he knew what the connotations were. Obviously, it's an immediate reference to the longevity of the band. But we also found out that there's a Joy Division song called "Eternal," which we didn't realize at the time. I don't know if that was in the back of Thurston's head, but it's funny that we called this "The Eternal" right when we were really interested in Joy Division.

Billboard: Why did you decide not to continue with Geffen?

Ranaldo: We'd been on Geffen for a long time, and I think we felt that we needed a change. I just don't think we felt very close to the people at the label after all this time or that they understood what we were trying to do. I don't have any regrets, because at the time we signed with Geffen, it was the right thing to do. For the first couple (of) records like "Goo" and "Dirty," it afforded us some larger budgets and allowed us to play around. But to some degree it doesn't matter what label we're on, because it doesn't really affect our process at this point.

Billboard: Did you immediately jump to Matador, or did you consider other options?