Bob Mould isn’t the type of guy to see himself as a punk elder, dispensing wisdom from the mountaintop to young rock-stars-to-be. But when the Ex-Hüsker Dü frontman describes the current musical landscape as “the crap era,” and muses that if he was a “21-year-old kid trying to do this, I would just go back to college,” the young pups may want to listen up.
“I hope that doesn’t sound too dire,” Mould muses, during a recent phone interview from his D.C. area home. “I know it’ll get better.”
The current pop music climate is a divisive one. Mould, who has been playing professionally since the early ’80s, looks at it this way: Back when record companies could charge whatever they wanted for music (a.k.a. the pre-mp3 days), they did so, and rode that cash cow until kids – regarded as hapless little money trees – began downloading music for free. Or, as Mould so eloquently analogizes, “big record companies went for the shitty cotton candy music and now people’s teeth are rotten. They didn’t develop talent when they should have.”
But while other songwriters seek out those increasingly elusive contracts, he isn’t waiting around. Mould, a versatile guitarist and singer better known for influencing countless indie rock songwriters than for his brief scriptwriting career in pro wrestling (he’s an avid fan of the “sport”), currently moonlights as a DJ in a gay D.C. nightclub while prepping music for his next solo effort. The DJ gig is all uptempo electronic music – no Pixies-esque riffs or wayward snarls – just a good time from a man whose past efforts were often far more somber.
“I like what I like, and I do what I do,” Mould says, bristling at the notion that he should fit some brooding guy-with-a-guitar stereotype. He adds, sarcastically, “Who cares if I’m not playing some obscure German band that’d only sound good if everyone was stoned? I got a room full of people who like dance pop music.”
Mould hasn’t given up the traditional songwriter gig entirely. Writing and recording Body of Song, an album that has become for him what Smile was for Brian Wilson, is essentially his day job and, he says, “my main reason for getting up in the morning.”
While comparisons to the ex-Beach Boy’s celebrated masterpiece may be a bit overblown, it’s not too far off in terms of setbacks and revisions. According to the San Jose Mercury News, it was slated to be released last spring; according to lauded music ‘zine In Music We Trust, September of ’02; according to the Nashville City Paper, spring of ’03.
According to Mould: “Later this year. If I can decide to get it finished.”
It is, he says, a natural progression from what he’s been doing. The material’s been gestating for three years, but is nevertheless a return to the Bob Mould of old – intense, intellectual and rocking. It’s an unexpected career shift, especially when compared to the path he’s followed over the past few years.
Mould released a string of solo albums, some while touring and recording with his band Sugar, and some after that band’s breakup in ’95. They were alternatively acoustic and electric affairs, though they always placed the guitars out front. Make that way out front – the often buzzy, cavernous guitars on these albums are a definitive link between Mould and contemporaries Frank Black (of the Pixies) and Peter Buck (of R.E.M.).
But by the mid-’90s, Mould says, alternative rock had become a parody of itself. The very sound that he (and Hüsker Dü) had helped foster was now a marketable commodity, and – alluding to his earlier comments – he was getting tired of it.
So Mould did what any other artist who feels he’s in a creative rut would do: He tried something different. Modulate, Mould’s foray into electronica, is a strange bird indeed, a sort of answer to the question of how an indie rock idol would sound if he turned his back on the genre entirely. That album, which was accompanied by a tour (complete with on-stage projections and drum ‘n’ bass versions of Hüsker Dü songs), received decidedly mixed reviews. Mould himself described it as “a difficult record,” though he makes no apologies for it. He likes what he likes. And he does what he does.
The current tour is a sort of return to form for Mould. His set is made up of songs from his, Sugar’s and Hüsker Dü’s back catalogs, as well as some from Body of Song. He describes his infrequent solo gigs somewhat dismissively, only saying they’re “an opportunity to work out new material.”
These songs are also an opportunity for Mould to get out of D.C., a town he moved to three years ago from New York. “I moved here as an escape plan,” he says. “It offered a slower yet comparable lifestyle.” When describing his adopted home, Mould doesn’t discuss politics (though regarding the recent inauguration, he quips, “I don’t need to play Rammstein to convey what’s going on here,”) but rather the prolific gay culture that he is actively involved with.
“There’s a huge dance scene here. And D.C. has four of the top 10 gayborhoods in the U.S.,” he says, dispelling the myth that the nation’s capitol is a bastion for conservatives. “People have this misconception of this town. D.C. is fuckin’ gay.”
This article appears in Jan 26 – Feb 1, 2005.
