Critics and fans just about deified singer Jeff Tweedy and his alt-country band, Wilco, when the group released its album Yankee Hotel Foxtrot in 2002. But now, on the cusp of Wilco's next release, a small British label has forced Tweedy to fork over tens of thousands of dollars for questionable samples that gave his previous star-making record its title.

"I think as things were getting darker, words were something that became more and more painful, The guitar felt more cathartic, almost therapeutic.

One of the great things about music, is that you can take these really white-hot-intense feelings, even if it's anger or frustration or anxiety, and follow them into some sort of expression you could never plan. And sometimes they become an illustration of what the lyrics are trying to get at.

You're looking for anything in your life that can take you outside of yourself, we all are. You find drugs and things like that, and they're not something you can really sustain. That guitar, that's free. And it's pure.

You have to be willing to trust it, and when you do, it flies completely in the face of that trapped feeling. It just goes... . There's nothing else even close to that."