Photo of Bob Mould courtesy of Granary Music
w/ Che Arthur | 8:00pm, 09.22.24 | Delmar Hall, 6133 Delmar Blvd. | All ages | $35—$45
One of the architects of the alternative music revolution, Bob Mould blazed onto the scene with Hüsker Dü, the pioneering Minnesota trio that the singer/guitarist helmed alongside singer/drummer Grant Hart and bassist Greg Norton, a band whose shift from lightning fast hardcore to pop-punk to emotionally devastating rock laid the groundwork for the alt-rock that would conquer the world in the ‘90s, and which led them to be one of the first bands of the burgeoning underground to sign to a major label. After their breakup in 1988, Mould’s solo debut—1989’s intimate, largely acoustic Workbook—made it okay for punks to unplug. Mould finally saw the spoils of his previous efforts in the early ‘90s when his new power trio Sugar (with bassist David Barbe and drummer Malcolm Travis) finally broke Mould’s work into the mainstream. Since Sugar’s breakup, Mould has maintained a stellar and varied solo career, delivering his patented passionate, guitar-driven alt-rock while also dabbling in electronica, DJing, writing for World Championship Wrestling (no, really!), and more. Since writing his autobiography—2011’s must-read See a Little Light: The Trail of Rage and Melody—Mould has had a songwriting renaissance, delivering some of the absolute best music of his career. Since the release of 2012’s Silver Age, Mould has once again led a power trio, this time featuring bassist Jason Narducy (Verbow, Split Single) and drummer Jon Wurster (Superchunk, the Mountain Goats) and has, arguably, never sounded better. But when he arrives on the Delmar Hall stage this Sunday, it will be just Mould, an electric guitar, and one of the finest catalogs of songs in the history of recorded music.
We caught up with Mould by phone shortly before sound check in Pittsburgh, where we discussed the ins and outs of performing solo electric, the state of the music industry, and the status of what will be his first post-pandemic album.
The Arts STL: You’re a little over halfway through the first leg of the solo electric tour. How’s it going so far?
Bob Mould: The shows have been great, crowds have been good. I’ve been up in the northeast for about a week and a half and now working my way west. I got into Pittsburgh last night and have a show here tonight, then Ann Arbor, Schaumburg, Illinois, then Champaign-Urbana, and then St. Louis to wrap it up and then I go home for a little bit.
I’ve been sort of…chatty on this trip, which is a little different for me. I guess in 2011, when I put my autobiography out and did touring behind that, there was a lot of playing some songs and then talking a lot, or reading from the book. I’ve been, I guess, a little chatty because it’s an election year and there’s stuff to talk about and stories to tell and things to ask people—ask them what’s on their mind and if they’re gonna vote and all that good stuff.
Solo electric: it isn’t a very common touring mode for most artists, but it’s definitely more common for you. What draws you to perform solo on electric guitar instead of acoustic?
Um, well, it’s a little bit easier. [laughs] Just the ergonomics of it is a little bit easier.
You know, I used to do acoustic touring in the ‘90s, then I switched over to a hybrid in the Aughts, and then since about 2015 I’ve been doing really heavy solo electric touring. And after the lockdown and the slow comeback of live music, it made a lot of economical and practical sense for the past couple of years. My thinking being, while the pandemic was still going and we were all putting tours together and then having postponed tours, and then putting them back up, and then going out and someone would get sick and we would have to cancel a number of shows…I’ll tell you, ’21, ’22, and part of ’23 were two of the most difficult years that musicians had in terms of work. And all those logistics of putting a band, a crew, vehicles, backline, lots of merch: that’s a lot of overhead to get something up and running only to have it go down on day 4.
I sort of predicted this ahead of time and just switched over to solo electric for ‘22, and ‘23, and now ’24. And now that it feels like we got the “all clear” and everything’s back in pretty much relatively stable business, it will be easier to go back to band touring. Hopefully next year.
I would love to see that for sure. Now, in September 2020, in the midst of that horrible situation for musicians that you were just talking about, you dropped the album Blue Hearts. What are your thoughts looking back on that album now, four years later? Can you even view it without it being colored by the circumstances in which it was released?
No, it is what it is. It was rather predictive. [laughs] You know, it was funny that it was made before any of us really understood what was about to happen. That record was wrapped up by, oh god, mid-February of 2020 so it was pretty much in mastering when we all got the heads up that shit was going down.
No, when I think about it, I think about the writing of the record in 2018 and 2019 when I was spending most of my time in Berlin, Germany. I think about the tone of politics in America in 2018 and 2019. And I think about the absolute outrage that I was feeling, having gone through the marginalization and the demonization in the ‘80s of my lifestyle, and AIDS and HIV. Those are the things I think about.
The pandemic? That just happened. It just happened that the same person that was trying to solve it was in charge of trying to solve HIV/AIDS in the ‘80s. All of these coincidences are the things I think about. I don’t specifically dwell on “Oh, we got shut down for a year and a half.” I think about all the things that happened earlier in my life that led me to the writing of those songs, and the timeliness of that record. People don’t believe in karma or serendipity, but I think this was a good case study.
As you’ve put these solo electric tours together over the years, are there ever any songs that you’ve wanted to play that you couldn’t get to work, or that you tried and didn’t work in that context? And conversely, are there any songs that surprised you by how well they worked without bass and drums?
Sometimes there’s songs that are a bit daunting without a rhythm section, things that have guitar solos that you really need another instrument for a sort of harmonic foundation. And, you know, I try them, and sometimes they come off a little thin. Sometimes, I can figure out a way to play a couple parts at once and I surprise myself, and then those become instant favorites, because I get to show off on guitar. [both laugh]
As far as emotional content, no, they’re pretty much all at the same level. I think most everything translates pretty well into the solo electric show. There’s a few that I just get hung up on if I’m just doing them by myself on stage. “Could You Be the One?” solo sort of sounds really thin compared to what people are used to on the record, so a song like that I might avoid in the solo setting because I can’t really pull off bass and guitar at the same time.
You were talking about the songs where you get to be a guitar hero, but you didn’t take credit for any! What are some of the ones that you feel like you really have nailed in the solo electric format?
Stuff like “Daddy’s Favorite,” “Black Confetti,” “Voices in My Head”…those are all ones that, if/when I play them solo electric, they’re just hilarious because I’m just playing it and I’m like, “This is so funny, I just feel like I’m showboating.” [both laugh] Not my normal M.O., but it is fun. You know, if it’s a night where I have a good Marshall amp and everything’s swinging the right way, then yeah, I pull out all the showboat songs and then it’s just a big guitar party.
Y’know, some nights I’m singing great, some nights the storytelling is heavy and emotional and sort of leads me towards certain songs. I have a pretty basic framework for the sets every night, but I think, like anybody that goes onstage, that point at the beginning of the show where you say, “How’s it going out there?” That is actually taking the temperature for the rest of the show and sort of figuring out, “Oh, do you want to hear me talk more? People want more guitar solos? People want more punk rock?” I’m pretty flexible up there that I do go off of the framework and sort of see where people are at in that moment and try to give ‘em what they want.
That’s fascinating, to be able to be that fast and loose with the setlist.
You know, Jason, that’s one of the beauties of solo performance versus band performance, because with a band, if I get a wild hair and think, “Oh, I want to switch over into that key, that vibe, that tempo,” I’ve gotta drag two other people, on the spot, with me. We’re all working off the same setlist until I change my mind. That’s a little…I wouldn’t say “awkward,” but that’s a little more of a challenge. We tend to stay a little bit more on the setlist as a band than I do as a solo performer.
I do love that you always post a “Song of the Night” on your social media after each show. What are your criteria that makes a song the Song for that particular Night?
When I finish the set, whatever’s in my head that I walk away thinking, “Wow, that one rose above the normal bar.” Y’know, something that might be a challenging song that I nail, it might be something that emotionally put the crowd in a place deeper than I thought it would, that kind of stuff. There’s no set criteria, but I think any musician will tell you, especially with a band, when you come off stage and you’re sort of wet and sweaty and looking for a bottle of water, you do the quick review of the show and just go, “Man, can you believe ‘The Descent’ tonight?” It’s sort of like I’m having that dialogue with myself and that bottle of water, like, “Oh my god, ‘Too Far Down’ tonight, that sure shut ‘em up!” That kind of thing.
I appreciate you sharing your inner monologue with us! [laughs]
Yes, of course! [laughs] You get to my age, you want to make sure people hear it before something happens.
Well, after making an age joke, I hate to start my next question with “going back 20 years,” but…
Oh, feel free! That seems like yesterday. [laughs]
As far as solo electric shows go, you go back 20 years and you toured Modulate with backing tracks [Mould quietly “woo”s] and you workshopped a lot of the Body of Song material live with backing tracks. Would you ever see yourself exploring that format again?
Maybe not backing tracks, but…let me put it this way, and maybe people will be surprised to hear me say something like this.
If you look at a dude like Ed Sheeran, who clearly all he does is think about music and write music and play music. And I’ve never seen him live, but I hear people say “Oh, he does this stuff with loops, he does this thing where he’s just up there by himself and there’s 20,000 people and they’re eating it up,” I just think to myself, “How fucking cool is that?” That the guy’s a one-man band and everybody loves all of it? That’s pretty cool. I don’t know much about his music, or his politics, or what his status is in life, but I dig that sort of thing.
There’s a part of me that thinks maybe something like that could be fun. Technology’s come so far in the past decade and I haven’t kept up with any of it because I’ve sort of been in a rock band. [chuckles] I don’t know what easy tools are available. But specifically backing tracks like Modulate? That was a whole A/V presentation. I think for me, a lane that might be cool to drive would be doing something with different guitars with different pedals and loopers, where I can simulate more rhythms and harmony parts and stuff like that. But specifically using tracks again? I think I might be done with that. Never say never, but I don’t see myself playing along with tracks again.
I don’t know if you’ve ever seen Andrew Bird live, but he does a lot of things with loops that I think are like what you’re describing. He’s also got a band, but he’ll play a pizzicato thing on his violin and loop that, then he does a more traditional violin part and loops that, and then sings and whistles over them both and all the other things he does. And it works amazingly.
Exactly. I’m not that familiar, but I know who he is, I know sort of what he does, you just shared more than I knew. You described what potentially could be possible for any single musician to do. That could be fun.
I would love to see that. I don’t think you’ll have it mastered by the time you get to St. Louis, but—! [laughs]
Nope, no…I know there’s no Guitar Centers between here and there. [laughs]
I see that you’ve been playing some new songs on this tour. How have they been received and how far along do you feel you are on the next record?
Pretty far along on the upcoming record. I’m just playing some new stuff out live. I think people like the songs, but I’m cognizant of, without bass and drums, I think new songs might be a little difficult for people to sort out. I think that imagination that the audience has to bring to these shows, imagining a bassist and drummer behind me, typically it takes people a couple songs to get their bearings with that idea, but then once they get it in their heads, I can see that they follow the rhythm of everything more clearly.
Having said all that, I think with new songs, if they don’t have a reference point, it’s a little bit more challenging for the audience to figure out what’s happening. Because if I play “Hoover Dam” by myself, they know what the drums and bass sound like, so they can imagine it. If I play “Hard to Get” or “When Your Heart Is Broken” or “Breathing Room” or any of the other new stuff, they’re a little bit…at sea with it, I guess, as opposed to in the pocket with it? So I try to be mindful of that.
Back in September of 2022, you had written a blog post about how your “cycle of cycles” for writing albums was broken, and you talked about how at the time it felt really similar to 1991 and 2011 when you made these big creative steps forward. How is your cycle working? Have you found your songwriting groove?
Yeah, the songwriting is back pretty good, but it is still a chore to get everything back in the cycle. I feel like next year, everything will be right and good and back on the calendar as it should be. It’s really, really challenging when your whole life is write, record, wait, release, tour and when that’s done you just start it over and do it in that order every year to two to three years of your life. And then to have that taken away is a little disorienting, for everybody I talk to in the music business.
There’s things that the audience doesn’t really consider. All that 2020, 2021, first half of 2022, stop-start stuff that I described to you, then, whether they knew it or not, they were so starved, they went crazy, and it was sort of like revenge spending, and they bought tickets to every single show, and every single artist was out playing every day of their lives. And now we’re looking at the beginning of 2025 and we’re starting to see the results of two and a half years of people spending-spending-spending, and the business, certain promoters, getting greedier with the ticket prices, and now the crowds are, like, “Wait a minute.” Prices are so friggin’ high now, I don’t know how people do it.
And now we’re starting to see bigger tours that are getting pulled down before they even get into preproduction because they bit off more than they could possibly chew. ’25 is going to be an interesting year in the business. There’s a lot of consolidation happening in the distribution of entertainment. Things like TikTok definitely syphoned off a lot of the Spotify/Apple music discovery platforming. TikTok will be king until the new king comes along and nobody knows what that looks like. How much does the artist have to give away? Are there even cycles anymore, or are there just moments? Are there micromoments?
All of it looks so different than I grew up with and learned as a child. With 1960s pop music, there was a formula to how it was all done, and that formula held pretty true until the mid-2000s when everybody had filesharing and realized there was only one song and then 73 minutes of crap. There’s those moments where the business really changes, and these last couple years, everything has really sped up. Discovery is different, engagement is different, the things you have to give away to keep people engaged are different. All of that kind of stuff has such a huge effect on artists and on people who rely on selling tickets to make a living. It’s a lot to keep up with and I don’t know how much the fans—I think they feel it but don’t know it, if that makes any sense? They just get to the point where they say “I can’t keep going to shows like this, I don’t have any money.” Because tickets are $130 bucks for somebody you paid $40 for last time around. That’s a big ask over and over.
My cycle? The next cycle will look like a traditional cycle, but being mindful of oversaturation and greed and stuff like that. We’ve got to be careful with what we have here.
Your opener for the St. Louis date is Che Arthur—I’m familiar with his early 2000s band Atombombpocketknife, but I’m having trouble imagining how that would translate to a solo setting. What can you tell us about what we have to look forward to?
Che is a longtime colleague and friend. We worked together a lot on the road, we hang out when we’re not on the road, so I’m happy to have him on for these three shows on the back end. Che played a set a couple months ago supporting me in Chicago at Empty Bottle, which is a club that he works at when he’s not out on the road with other bands, and he was on acoustic and it was frantic, and it sounded a lot like his new record without bass and drums, on pretty toasty acoustic guitar. If people listen to his new album, they’ll get a sense of where he comes from—the tone, the songwriting, the stories. It should be good. I think people who like my stuff will definitely be interested in what Che’s offering.
It’s been a few years since the release of the Hüsker Dü rarities collections that the Numero Group put out [2017’s Savage Young Dü and Extra Circus], which were phenomenal. Is there a potential for any more archival releases coming down the pike?
I mean, there’s a few things left of real value. There’s a bunch of things of, not “great value” but maybe “moderate interest”? There might be stuff in the future, but there’s no contracts or hard plans on anything right at the moment. But I’ll tell you, a lot of the archives got exhausted with the Numero box, which was a great box set, so I was happy that we were able—we, Hüsker Dü—were able to get that put together, under Grant’s supervision in that final year of his life, which was good for the fans and I think good for the three of us to have that as a bit of a testament, I guess. We’ll see, maybe something down the road, but that was a big undertaking. That cleaned out a lot of the closet. | Jason Green
For more information or to purchase tickets, visit thepageant.com. Check out Bob Mould’s full solo electric tour itinerary below.
