From left, Mark Ibold, Lee Ranaldo, Steve Shelley, Kim Gordon, Thurston Moore make up te venerable Sonic Youth, which is on tour backing up The Eternal, the group's 16th album. Sonic Youth plays Massey Hall tonight and Vancouver later in July.

Sonic Youth owes Winnipeg an apology.

Again.

"I know," chuckles Lee Ranaldo, guitarist and vocalist for the influential New York noise-rock icons.

"We've never played up there. It's unbelievable, isn't it?"

Well, maybe not unbelievable. But it is kind of ironic, given that the 53-year-old Ranaldo visits the prairie city regularly with his wife, Winnipeg-born visual artist Leah Singer. (Full disclosure: Singer and I went to junior high school together in the Peg, where she was one of the cool kids and I was a geek, proving yet again that nothing ever really changes.)

"We get up there once or twice a year on average," continues Ranaldo.

"Usually once a summer -- though I'm not always available for that trip -- and again around the holidays. But not to play. I know there have been a couple of tours where Winnipeg was on the schedule, but it just never happens."

This summer, Ranaldo and his bandmates -- singer-guitarist Thurston Moore, drummer Steve Shelley, singer-guitarist-bassist Kim Gordon and recent recruit Mark Ibold (formerly of Pavement) on bass -- can also give their condolences to most of the rest of the country.

Although the 28-year-old band is touring for several weeks behind their 16th album The Eternal, they're only playing two shows north of the border: Tonight at Massey Hall, and a July 26 set at Vancouver's Virgin Festival.

While the rest of the nation waits for Ranaldo and Co. to pay a visit, here are some of his thoughts on their fiery CD, their newest member, and their recent move to the indie label Matador after nearly two decades in the majors.

That title The Eternal can work both ways for you, can't it? On your good days, it's a nice way to think of your legacy.

And on your bad days ...

It's the band that wouldn't die. (Laughs) Yeah. But really, I don't know if we chose it with any kind of serious thought. It just somehow fit the time and place and the cover art. We were pretty cavalier about it in some regards. But yeah, we have been around a long time and maybe it's a bit of a recognition of that. And we all thought this was a really confident record, and what better time to make this clear.

Not that you guys were sounding old, but you sound rejuvenated on this disc.

Yeah. That's attributable to a number of things. We've all been in a really good space together. And we just came off a period of time where we had some different things happen that allowed to see who we are in a historical sense. We spent almost a decade with (multi-instrumentalist) Jim O'Rourke and then he left before we made Rather Ripped in 2005. That was the first record the four of us had made together since the mid-'90s, and it was interesting to be back down to four and see how that worked. Then we revisited the (1988) Daydream Nation record, and went out and played that for the better part of a year. We had to be dragged kicking and screaming into doing that, partly because we're not a nostalgic band, and also because we didn't really remember how to play a lot of the songs and it took a fair amount of effort to re-learn them. (Laughs) But it was interesting to see what a ferocious band we were at that point. We were blown away by it. And that ferocity rubbed off when we started to make this record. And having Mark join the band was a factor. We had a new rhythm section all of a sudden, and that's always a rejuvenating thing.

Was the switch from a major label back to an indie a factor in any of that?

Only in that we were all excited about the move to Matador, and we wanted to make a good debut for them. But we make records to our own standards at this point; it's not that dependent on what label we're on. I think we probably would have made a pretty similar record no matter where it ended up.

Anything you miss about being on a major label?

Those big fat advances. (Laughs) That's pretty much all there is to miss. We had a pretty good deal and got good advances on our records. Sometimes we spent a lot of that making the records, but sometimes we didn't and put that in our pocket. That's not the case with an indie label. But you can do just as well financially on an indie label these days, when so much music is sold over the Internet. And Matador is a really good environment for us to be in. They're super-excited to have us. They're people who have grown up with our music and have been into it for a really long time. It's a different vibe than at the major where you're one in an infinite stable of acts. Even if some people there like what you're doing, you kind of get lost in the shuffle.

How does Mark fit in? I would think it might be tough for somebody new to find a place in your tightly knit group.

It's not as hard as you would think. We've known Mark since the early '80s, long before Pavement. And he's a real genial and easy-going guy, and a really good bass player. We didn't really know what to expect when we asked him to join on the writing sessions for these songs. It just worked out well. Certainly the four of us have this long-standing thing, but it's fairly open to collaboration.

There are a few new elements on this record, like harmony vocals between you, Thurston and Kim. Was that a plan you had going in?

(Laughs). We never, ever do that. There's never a moment where we say, 'Let's make this record sound like this.' We don't like the idea of starting with concepts and trying to fulfil them. We start with playing music together and let the music dictate where it goes. But yeah, it is kind of funny for a band that has three singers to take 20 years to have more than one person sing on a song on a regular basis. That's such a Sonic Youth way of doing things.

What's the live show like now? Is it mostly the new album, or does Mark have to go back and learn your entire catalogue?

He's learning stuff as we think we might do it. But as always, when we've got a new record, that's what we're playing. This tour, we're going to play everything from the new record -- that's 12 songs out of 18 or so in our show. We're happiest playing our newest material. But at the same time, we are slowly learning different older songs. There are some songs we play a lot, like Teenage Riot. We're interested in seeing if we can pull some different oldies out of the hat.

But every time you pull out another song, don't you have to drag another guitar on the road for the weird tuning?

Often that's true (laughs). But that's not really a problem. We're already hauling so many that a couple more one way or the other doesn't really make a difference. Plus, Thurston and I have been developing signature model Jazzmaster guitars with Fender, so we've got a good supply of new guitars now. If we need an extra, we can just call up Fender and tell them to send us another one.