New Day Rising

Bob Mould encapsulates his wide-ranging writing career with "Body of Song"

by Stephen Slaybaugh

If singer and guitarist Bob Mould never made another record after the 1988 dissolution of indie-rock tour de force Hüsker Dü, his place in the annals of rock would still be secure. But in the subsequent years, the always dissident Mould has continued to push himself in new directions, first turning 180 degrees from Hüsker with his acoustic solo debut, Workbook , before gradually moving back to louder sounds.

By 1992, Mould formed a new power trio with Sugar and, even after that band fell by the wayside, continued to record and tour with a full battalion. Switching lanes again, though, he announced before hitting the road in support of The Last Dog and Pony Show in 1998 that it would be his last full-on rock tour.

With 2002's Modulate and subsequent tour, he seemed to be sticking to his word. Modulate was a foray into electronic music that shocked many of his fans. Mould released an equally mechanical but more dissonant record under the name LoudBomb the same year, further flying in the face of expectations.

Now Mould has returned with his sixth proper solo album, Body of Song (Yep Roc). Working primarily with Fugazi drummer Brendan Canty, Mould's made an album that seems to encapsulate much of what's he done over the years. There are quieter moments recalling Workbook , bolder tracks reminiscent of Sugar, and electronic and dance-tinged cuts that suggest Modulate and his recent deejaying with Rich Morel as half of Blowoff.

Having recently completed a full band tour that included songs from the new album as well as the Hüsker Dü and Sugar songbooks, Mould is embarking on a solo tour. I caught up with him on the phone before he departed from his home in Washington, D.C.


We spoke when you were touring for Modulate and at that time you were already talking about Body of Song like it was going to come out in the next year or so.

That was the original idea.


So what happened?

I didn't really like the direction it was going, and got pretty overwhelmed with the amount of work that I was doing to support Modulate . I was pretty ambitious-trying to release three original records, create all those films and do all that touring-and it became a bit much. Unfortunately Body of Song was the furthest from being finished.

My head was in the electronic stuff at the time and the original Body of Song was even quieter in nature than the record I released. "Circles," "High Fidelity," "Gauze of Friendship"-those were songs that were originally to be on the record. I don't know if you got to hear the extended version of the album, but a lot of sparser acoustic pieces showed up on that.

But anyways, back to '02... [I] did a couple sessions to try to round out the material, but wasn't really happy with the direction it was going. Put it away in the fall of '02 and didn't go back to it till the spring of '04. I hit a really nice writing burst at that point, and the majority of the record was written last year.


You're coming to Columbus by yourself, but you were touring with a band before.

Yeah, we were just out on the road for a couple months. We did eight shows in Europe and 17 shows in the U.S. It was really fun. I never envisioned myself doing this again. At the end of '98, I swore off the whole thing for a number of reasons. But as time has gone by, I took a second look and I felt that this was a nice record to go out on and revisit some of the stuff. And I got to say it might have been the single most fun tour I've ever been on.


A lot's been made of the fact that you were playing Hüsker songs for the first time with a full band...

And the Sugar stuff too!


Did you come to appreciate those songs again in some respect?

Yeah, I'll tell you the two things I realized: These guys could play that Hüsker stuff better than Hüsker did. And I didn't realize how fucking rocking a record Copper Blue was until we revived most of that. That was the stuff for me that was the most fun. I enjoyed it so much, and I think the other guys did too. I wouldn't rule out the possibility of doing it again.


Will this basically be like the Bob Mould solo tours of the past?

Yeah, but I've really been enjoying the electric [guitar] this past year and a half. I'm not feeling the 12-string right now, so I don't know if that's going to get loaded in the car or not. I've really been having a lot of fun with the blue guitar. It'll probably be more solo electric than the mixed bag that I usually do.


Do you feel with the release of this record that a certain portion of your career is now behind you and you're going to move on to something different?

I think for the first time I am acknowledging certain components of it, playing the Hüsker stuff, playing the Sugar stuff, that for years and years I avoided mostly, out of reverence for the people that played it originally, but also in an attempt to keep people focused on the current work. Now I realize I have a smaller audience, but they're pretty devoted and they're always interested in the current work. So I've sort of come to terms with that. I have a different approach now and I'm comfortable with it, I guess.


Would you see yourself going off and making dance music in the future?

Yup, I still am, alongside the work I've been doing... There's another LoudBomb record sitting there, waiting for me to mix it. It's all instrumental this time-I haven't been doing any kind of vocals, it's just been sample and loop heavy.

Rich Morel and I have had that Blowoff record written and pretty much finished for almost a year now. I would hope that that record would come out in the spring and Rich and I will be able to have some opportunities to go out there and perform the stuff. We're going to start doing that on a monthly basis now in the big 9:30 Club in D.C. and we've got it up to where we can do 500 to 700 people. We deejay for four hours and do a live set in the middle. That's gotten bigger, and we're getting interest around the country to come and do that. So there might be something there.


Does the traditional Bob Mould fan react well to the Blowoff stuff?

No, I think the homosexual male 30 and up reacts really good. I think Blowoff has a little different crowd than my shows, but the 9:30 Bob show that we just did and taped for the DVD, the Blowoff crowd was out in full force. They had never quite seen me with the muscle bear mosh pit. It all fits together in some weird way.


Bob Mould plays at Little Brother's on Saturday, November 19. For info click to bobmould.com.