Wilco: Bragging Writes.

Wilco play the Green Stage at 5pm at the Big Day Out at the Gold Coast Parklands on Sunday.

Snow coats the ground outside Glenn Kotche's Chicago home. Winter bites in the windy city. Not that Kotche, Wilco’s drummer, has time to worry about the weather. With Wilco taking a break before their Australian tour, Kotche is due on stage the following night as one-half of the instrumental duo On Fillmore with St Louis-based bassist Darin Gray who plays on all of Jim O'Rourke's records. Then there's another duo with New York percussionist Tim Barnes and his debut solo album Introducing which was released in July 2002 to critical acclaim.

O'Rourke and Kotche are great mates and have been playing together for years. Noted as one of the great indie artists, O'Rourke most recently became the fifth member of Sonic Youth. He's that good. "Jim sounds great with them," Kotche enthuses. "I've seen them a few times since he joined. Actually he's coming over with Jeff (Tweedy, Wilco founder and leader) to rehearse next week for a couple of shows we're doing in Brooklyn as Loose Fur.

"Loose Fur is how I met Jeff - through Jim. We did a show together about three years ago, and then went straight into the studio and made a record. I started playing with Jeff and then he invited me to join Wilco and now the record Jeff, Jim and I made three years ago is coming out on Drag City Records early in 2003." It's as if drumming on one of 2002's best 15 albums, Wilco's remarkable, swirling, song-blissed, at times just lovely, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, wasn't enough.

Yet another fine - and different - collection of songs from this band with a reputation for excellence, its predecessors - the guitar-strewn epic Being There (1996) and the poppier Summerteeth (1999) - were both outstanding, and that's not to mention the band's two stellar Mermaid Avenue collaborations with Billy Bragg on which they took the lyrics of unrecorded Woody Guthrie songs and gave them a musical life. Even their 1995 debut A.M. was more than acceptable.

"It's all pretty much the same core of people, so it's not too hard to keep track of which particular version of me I'm supposed to be," Kotche laughs. "And it's nice to do get a chance to these side projects. Wilco basically toured for a year non-stop behind Yankee Hotel Foxtrot because we had it on the website before it was in the shops.”

"We've been recording when we've had little breaks from the road. We've been in the studio for a week here and a week there. We're putting out an EP to coincide with the Australian tour. We were working on that last night. We've been recording a lot of stuff though and some of it has been resonating with us so once we get back from Australia we'll probably work out a schedule for finishing the record.”

As Kotche talks about how some of the new songs are very short and some very long - Wilco have always been capable of a sudden beauty or prolonged ecstasy - and the instrumentation varies wildly, it's important to remember that Yankee Hotel Foxtrot was one of the surprise US chart success stories of the year, debuting in the top 20 and selling consistently for months on end, despite the band's alleged lack of widespread commercial appeal. It says a lot about the strength of their fanbase and reinforces that if a song - or music - is good enough then people will find it and listen, whether radio plays it or not.

"Wilco fans have a lot of trust," Kotche says. "They are ready to be surprised. To be honest I couldn't be happier with Wilco. The line-up is great, we're all communicating really well, and we're all charged and excited about we're working on and the possibilities for the next record. It's a very democratic situation. All ideas and opinions are welcome, we trust each other, we're good friends. You need those elements to keep making strong records that offer you a challenge and offer the listener something a little different. The only thing I wish I had been part of was the Mermaid Avenue records. I love them but they were just before my time."

Ambition, of course, changes with experience, time and circumstance but Kotche isn't looking for too much more than what he's got. "I'm the drummer and percussionist with Wilco, a lot of people would say you can't ask for much more than that. It really satisfies me and leaves me enough time to make my solo records and sustain my duos. I guess my only ambition is to stick what I'm doing and hope people keep enjoying it.”

"As for band ambition, we really don't get caught up too much with anything like press or sales or stuff like that. The band has always been about the music - and I'm sure a lot of bands say that - but it's pretty evident in our case if you look at the history of the band and some of the decisions that have been made. I think it's healthier for the music and us to put that first and go on making music together as a band is supposed to and enjoy it and let the chips fall where they may."