Q&A: Bob Mould
ByMay 29, 2002 10:00 PM
Husker Du toured relentlessly during the ‘80s, sharing the indie crown with their Minneapolis cohorts the Replacements. Taking their name from a child’s board game, Husker Du’s punk-pop-hardcore hybrid influenced countless bands before the trio imploded in 1988.
Husker Du toured relentlessly during the ‘80s, sharing the indie crown with their Minneapolis cohorts the Replacements. Taking their name from a child’s board game, Husker Du’s punk-pop-hardcore hybrid influenced countless bands before the trio imploded in 1988.
Bob Mould quit Husker Du to pursue a solo career as a post-punk troubadour, but by 1992 found himself in another band, Sugar, an outfit that was wedged somewhere between the sonorous din of Husker Du and Mould’s more confessional solo stuff.
Unfortunately for fans, that association didn’t last long. Mould shape-shifted again, proclaiming that he was abandoning loud electric performances and was taking a job as a writer and director for World Championship Wrestling. He toiled backstage for nine months until the muse demanded he get back to the business of making music. He returned with a renewed vigor (and a taut new body), writing three albums for release this year.
SoundSpike: I’ve been reading in other interviews that you’re underfed, slimmed down, buff. What happened? Was it turning 40 or just working with the fit wrestlers?
Bob Mould: Underfed? I’ve never eaten more in my life as I do every day now.
Are you working out more?
Yeah, I go to the gym almost every day.
What spurred your fitness kick?
Being off the road. In the end of 1998, I looked terrible. I felt terrible. I was run down. I was probably 20 pounds heavier than I should have been. And I just looked [at myself and said], “I gotta start taking care of myself or I’m gonna end up being in the doctor’s office, and I don’t like going to the doctor.” So I just, you know, joined the gym and took to it right away. It was a fun social experience. [Now] my whole day is based around that, my routine is built off of going to the gym.
You’re releasing three albums this year. Do you tend to write all the time? Do you have a notebook by your bed?
I try to write every day. I’m always taking mental notes, and I’m finding that as I get older, I really have to take written notes.
Especially if you tend you get your best thoughts while you’re exercising.
I always do whenever I’m doing cardio, something comes into my head, “Oh, my God, I have to remember this now,” and if I don’t write it down, I never do.
When you worked for World Championship Wrestling, did everyone know who you were? Were you readily accepted?
No, only a handful of people knew. Or maybe one or two people actually knew. Then word got out, and I think that led to a quicker acceptance as an outsider. I had 20 years experience on the road in the entertainment business, where people could look at and go, “He understands how difficult this is for all of us.” So that was, I think, the part that allowed me a quicker rapport with the wrestlers than a strict outsider would have.
Did you have any odd experiences working with wrestlers?
I always knew how demanding the business was on the performers, but on a Monday night show when we would have 11 segments, invariably four or five people would get hurt pretty badly. As soon as they come behind the curtain--that’s where I would sit directing the show--they’d be yelling for the coach, for the doctor to come and stitch ‘em up: “I think I broke three fingers.” And even after all the injuries, they would show up for work the next day. And people look at wrestling and say, “Oh, it’s all fake.” It couldn’t be more real. Which part of this is fake? I don’t understand.
Do you feel insulted when people say that it’s fake?
Yeah. It’s a horrible thing. The blood is real. There’s nothing fake about it. People think, “Oh, it’s all choreographed.” Of course it’s choreographed. Of course it’s predetermined. It’s much like modern dance, it’s much like modern theater. Granted, it attracts a more lowbrow audience and some components of the product are geared for that, but essentially when you take away the T-and-A and all of the crap that I don’t care for, you’re left with the guys doing their dance out there. There couldn’t be anything more real.
You’re not touring with a band right now. What do you miss most about being on the road with a band?
Nothing. The more people you add to the equation, the slower the entire process gets. A tour can only move as fast as the slowest person. I sometimes miss the interaction with other musicians, [but] I find myself not afraid of offending a bandmate by writing on a particular topic that they might not be comfortable with.
Do you always sing with your eyes closed?
A lot ... because I’m just trying not to let anything distract me. I’m trying to get the idea out. I mean, some songs are more fun to look out and project, but some songs I’ve just, I gotta look inside. I couldn’t do that with Husker Du. People used to throw so much stuff, you had to be looking all the time.
What’s the oddest thing you’ve ever been hit with?
A sandwich filled with rocks.
Oh, that’s so ugly.
Yeah, well, that’s those European festivals.
Yeah. That and the spitting used to really get me.
Spitting was bad, a lot of spitting. And they still did that in France up through ‘93, spit all the time. I used to say, “Come on--I’ve got, like, four more weeks on the road, I don’t want your cold.”
I read in Mojo that you tried to buy the name back from Husker Du. What are you going to do with it?
I didn’t try to buy the name back from Husker Du. That was a bitter ex-bandmate who distorted the truth. I mean, the writer’s only gonna write what they’re told. I offered to buy the catalogue of Husker Du. I have no interest in using the name, I just wanted to gather up all the pieces of the catalogue, so that I could get everything reissued and everyone could make some money.
When you mentioned the Husker Du stuff: one of the reasons I stay away from all of that is I would never, ever entertain the notion of wanting to re-form that band, for any reason. There’s things that are moments in time, there’s things that are moments in your life and emotions in your life that you can never revisit and do them justice.
I agree. It’s like the Clash reforming.
Exactly. I would have no interest in seeing the Clash again, because I know how much stuff happened there. You can’t undo those kinds of damages.
Like a divorce.
As for the Husker Du thing, no. That was a very calculated business move to try to get everybody to once again cooperate to do business. Not to re-form, not to own, not to anything. Just try to get it so that we could actually get some money back from the labels that have been screwing us. Like SST, you know.
It’s been funny. The other two band members had an attorney that’s been taking care of everything for the last 2 years, so it was my attempt to be like, “Hey, can I try to do this for a little bit? It hasn’t been working so good. Can I try? I got a really good attorney over here.”
So that kind of stuff--when I hear [things like the Mojo story], I’m like, “You know what? Wallow in your own poverty. I mean, I got my own life. See ya.”
You’ve said that you often wrote songs in your sleep, or you sequenced the album in your dreams. You didn’t dream the end of Husker Du did you?
No, I didn’t dream it. Nobody could’ve created that nightmare. It was [ugly], and 1987 was one of the worst years of my life. It was just a long, never-ending stretch of horrible depression, and people dying, and people dying slowly that are still living, and it just, you know, it was one of those years where I knew I couldn’t make anything better, so why should I stay around and make it worse for myself? Life is too short.
Who’d play Bob Mould in “The Bob Mould Story”?
Michael Chiklis [star of the TV series “The Shield"].
Oh, that’s good!
Michael Chiklis is a hottie.
Do you have a motto, or something that inspires you, gets you out of bed in the morning?
My partner that I’ve been with for twelve years.
What’s your secret for success?
Secret for success: just staying true to the muse, just following the instinct.
Greatest misconception about you?
That I’m a straight guy.
Really.
Some people think, “He’s gotta be straight.”
It’s rather heartening that you don’t need to go back into your past.
Yeah. The documents are there. The proof is there. I’ve been there. It’s fun to get over that fear of failure and just like jump in headfirst to new things. It’s been really, really fun.
Click here to read a review of Bob Mould’s new album, “Modulate.”