Page "Uncle Tupelo" Paragraph 26

As The Primitives, Tweedy and Farrar were highly influenced by punk bands such as The Ramones and The Sex Pistols.

However, they began to listen to country music because punk rock was not well received in the Belleville and St. Louis music scenes.

While they originally were introduced to country by their parents, it wasn't until this time that they began to listen to it for leisure.

Farrar typically wrote songs about Middle America, while Tweedy wrote about more mainstream topics such as relationships.

Farrar took influence from authors such as Kurt Vonnegut and Jack Kerouac, whom he read while working at his mother's bookstore.

As the lead singer of Uncle Tupelo, Farrar's lyrics would be front-and-center during performances, but the band's musical style was mostly driven by Tweedy and Heidorn ( seen in the music's Minutemen-influenced start-stop arrangement ).

Jeff Tweedy said in an interview with the St. Louis Post-Dispatch: