As the stellar guitarist and one of the singers and principal songwriters for the Minneapolis indie-rock band Husker Du, Bob Mould and his estranged former bandmates Grant Hart (drums, vocals, songwriting) and Greg Norton (bass) are among the most important and influential musicians in laying the groundwork for the alternative rock explosion of the early 1990s.
Mould, at the Largo Theatre in Los Angeles on Wednesday night to promote his new memoir, See a Little Light, described his time in Husker Du as a “primal, visceral kind of experience. We just threw that band together, traveled all over the world, making records really fast and furious.”
The band was together from 1979 until early 1988, and Mould said the “first 6½ years were really good. We were very united in the cause to try to shape music, and to be heard.”
While the “conventional folklore on Husker Du is that there was this incredible tension and acrimony and bickering and infighting,” Mould somewhat jokingly claimed “that didn’t really exist, because it was Minnesota and that’s the land of passive aggression. There wasn’t a whole lot of outward fighting.”
In addition to the passive aggression, two factors that contributed to the breakup were Norton getting married and losing some of his interest in the band, and Hart making “some well-documented choices with his life (heroin addiction) that took him down a different path that was very, very far away from my sobriety,” a reference to Mould’s then-new alcohol-free life after drinking every day since he was 13 years old.
While the specter of Husker Du hovered over the whole evening, it was amply illustrated that there is much more to Mould’s story than just that band. The evening started with his performance of “See a Little Light” from his solo debut Workbook, on which, as for the later songs, he accompanied himself on super-distorted guitar rather than the original’s acoustic instrumentation.
After he gave a quick summary of his early years — “Born in northern New York ... drinking dad, quiet mom ... fights on the weekends ... I knew I was a homosexual really early ... I was a smart kid, I got a big scholarship ... I got out of the little farm town I grew up in, went to the Twin Cities, and Husker Du” — he described how after Husker Du broke up he spent most of his time alone in his newly purchased house outside Pine City, Minn.,, feeding chickens, mowing the lawn and “trying to find a sound that had nothing to do with my past.”
The result was the aforementioned Workbook album from which Mould then performed three more tracks: “Wishing Well,” “Sinners and Their Repentances” and “Lonely Afternoon.”
When his long-term relationship with his partner fell apart, Mould moved to the New York City area and fairly quickly found a new long-term boyfriend. On the business side, he was incensed to learn that his manager had signed away his publishing rights without consulting him, which led Mould to get on a plane to the West Coast and storm into offices to fire everybody. When it was time “to reckon with the (Virgin Records) label,” he was advised by entertainment attorney Josh Grier “to walk away and don’t look back.” He did so, and ended up on the road for nine months in 1991, averaging 300 miles of driving each day, a “lonely and inspiring” experience that allowed “plenty of time for reflection” and led him to write lots of songs.
He recalled one show in Germany from this time, an outdoor festival with about 7,000 people where he had to follow the about-to-release-Nevermind Nirvana who had “customarily trashed the joint.” Mould admitted that “pounding away on a 12-string acoustic by myself at an outdoor festival in the middle of the afternoon was no easy feat. Nirvana destroys the stage, then it’s me carrying on like Richie Havens at Woodstock. Then Sonic Youth comes out with their army of guitars.” However, he feels that such experiences “made me a better player in the long run.”
Shortly thereafter, Mould plugged his guitar back in and formed the band Sugar, saying “what a fun ride that was. That was like 0 to 100 in about eight seconds.” Sugar hit it big with their acclaimed 1992 album Copper Blue, from which he performed “The Act We Act,” “Changes,” “Hoover Dam” and “If I Can’t Change Your Mind.”
Mould said he was grateful that “I had 13 years of experience under my belt before the rocket got strapped to my a**,” saying that such success can lead to pressures — “everybody wants everything all the time” — that result in deadly behavior, as he noted appears to be the case with the recently deceased singer Amy Winehouse.
Eventually wearying of alternative rock — “I think anybody who was a music fan can remember the endless parade of flannel d*****bag bands” — and wanting to “get a semblance of a gay identity,” Mould had a “fabulously gay” period of “going to the gym, going to bars and hanging out with porn stars.” On the music front, he released the electronica album Modulate. He eventually found a home in the “bear” gay sub-community, which he describes as “incredibly similar to my previous life as a rock guitarist in a flannel shirt looking normal, acting normal, acting like a guy.”
He has since returned to rock music and performed some songs from his latest album, Life and Times, into which he gave some intriguing insight. The song “Life and Times” came from his sorting through boxes that had picked up the “haunting and familiar smell” from when he lived near the World Trade Center on 9/11. The lyrics include “What kicked up all this dust? / You’re taking me back to the places I’ve left behind / The old life and times.”
The song “The Breach” chronicles the end of a relationship. And “I’m Sorry, Baby, But You Can’t Stand in My Light Anymore,” his “attempt at writing an all-out ‘70s AM gold hit,” is about trying to “fix” somebody, but recognizing he’s the broken one who needs to fix himself before helping others. Poignantly, he said he has always been “a fixer”: “I was the only one that could stop my parents from fighting. Put on a show, and my parents stopped.”
Husker Du got another nod at the end, with spirited performances of “I Apologize,” “Something I Learned Today” and “Chartered Trips,” the latter two from their 1984 masterwork Zen Arcade. Sweet!
Early in the evening, Mould said he hoped to “establish a theme about songwriting, that the environment is really, really key to what makes the work happen.” He succeeded. Clearly the place where he is — physically, emotionally and relationship-wise — has had a huge impact on his music. Learning more about his life from his performance in Los Angeles has certainly given me a greater appreciation of his music. I look forward to reading his memoir and listening some more.
— Noozhawk contributor Jeff Moehlis is an associate professor of mechanical engineering at UCSB. Upcoming show recommendations, advice from musicians, interviews and more are available on his Web site, music-illuminati.com.
Comments
