Bob Mould on his new album and how he's pushing back against Trump

Since 1979, Bob Mould has established himself as one of the most versatile voices in American punk rock. Now on the cusp of 65, the onetime frontman of such crucial bands as Hüsker Dü and Sugar returns from a five-year recording break with Here We Go Crazy, the Minnesota-reared great’s 15th solo album and first for the BMG-distributed Rise Records imprint. 

For longtime fans of Mould, these 11 songs will no doubt mirror all of the attributes that made him a scion of the Twin Cities punk scene as well as one of the catchiest and most consistent songwriters. At a lean 31 minutes, songs like “Neanderthal,” “When Your Heart Is Broken,” and “Sharp Little Pieces” roar with the same infectious intensity as the brightest moments of Zen Arcade and Copper Blue. Credit the chemistry between Bob and his longtime rhythm section of bassist Jason Narducy and former Superchunk drummer Jon Wurster, who’ve been rock solid for over 15 years. This road-tested trio has never sounded better together than they do on Crazy, no doubt rendering this one of Mould’s most anticipated tours in years.

The A.V. Club had the opportunity to talk with the legend himself about the new album, touring in this dark political climate, the 35th anniversary of his classic second solo LP Black Sheets Of Rain, and, of course, pro wrestling, including his thoughts on the infamous John Cena heel turn. 

The A.V. Club: You’re about to hit the road on your first U.S. tour in three years. How are you feeling about trekking across the country in this dark political climate?

BM: I think it’s okay. This is my job. It’s my job to go tell people my story and my story gets, you know, political. And then, well they just have to listen to it, because it’s always good for people to hear a story from somebody that they enjoy hearing stories from. And they see it and go, ‘Oh, I love Bob Mould. Maybe we don’t need to get rid of gay marriage.’ But at the end of the day, it’s gonna be great. It’ll be a month and a half. And we, the band, are chomping at the bit. So we got a day or two of rehearsal and then we start up in San Diego on Tuesday the 1st of April. 

AVC: You’ve been with bassist Jason Narducy and drummer Jon Wurster for a long time now. Has this been your longest band?

BM: Yep. And you know, I’ve had Jason on and off for 20 years. If I go back even further, when Jason was super young, he came out and did the opening solo stuff with me back in ’96. But the me-Jon-Jason thing, I think that was ’08 when we started playing together. It’s been a while. The thing is that all of us are busy with so many things, especially those guys, who have a lot of other projects that take precedence over working with me. But I’m always grateful when we can make time to either make records and/or tour those records. Always grateful for that. 

AVC: What do you attribute to the longevity of your chemistry?

BM: Yeah, the current band is great. If I look back and look at Hüsker, that was a crazy punk rock experience with us. Onstage, it always felt like three fighter jets and everybody was trying to take the lead. With [drummer] Anton [Fier] and [bassist] Tony [Maimone], it was a completely different three-piece. Anton, who sadly we lost a few years ago, when we worked together, I always tried to drag the tempos up. It was like trying to drag a Sherman tank that was in park. You just couldn’t budge the guy. He was just amazing. And I learned so much from playing with him and Tony. And then, you know, Sugar was a three-piece, and it was a little more power pop rock kinda vibe, little shoegaze, but you know, very measured. But the shows could get chaotic. And now with Jason and Jon, we all grew up listening to similar music. The three of us have a pretty common musical language. We get along really well. We’re older, and we’re respectful of space and quiet and stuff that makes for a good tour.

AVC: How’s the new album doing on the radio? How important is radio for an artist such as yourself in the modern age?

BM: Yeah, yeah. We got community radio, we got college, we got non-comm, we got Triple A. Those are all the sorts of places where my music gets heard. “Here We Go Crazy” the track was at the top for about a month. “Neanderthal” got a few weeks on radio and now we’re moving everything over to “When Your Heart Is Broken.” And yeah, people are responding really well to that song, and I’m sure we’re gonna get more radio off that. I think that those kinds of stations are so important to the local communities, the KEXPs, the WFMUs, The Current in St. Paul. All of those stations are still tight with the communities. And no knock on streaming services, but those are global and they’re sort of impersonal. So I’m a big, big thumbs up for local radio. I still believe in it. 

AVC: What prompted the move from Merge Records to Rise Records?

BM: Well, Granary Music is my imprint, my label. I had that over at Merge for five records. And, you know, Merge was great. We had a great run. We were five for five. Everybody did good business. I just think now, at this point in my career, I’d wanted to just shake it up and see if there was a setting where I could get some new thoughts and new ideas out of people. And the Rise folks, BMG is sort of the parent company of all of this. So I’ve got a lot of longtime allies at the top of the company. And we had been talking for a while about doing something and then, all of a sudden, the time was right. And here we are. Working with the Rise folks, the BMG folks, has been great. Very responsive, very quick to get things moving. And they’ve brought some new ideas and some creative new people into the mix. So far, so good.

AVC: Next month is the 35th anniversary of your second solo album Black Sheets Of Rain. What was it like working on that one?

BM: That was a funny record to make. With the writing of that, I had started getting ideas together when I was working up on a farm in Northern Minnesota. And then the relationship I was in ended, I moved to New York City, specifically Hoboken, New Jersey. And most of the album got written there. It’s a heavy record, much heavier in sound than Workbook. And I think a lot of that was a result of all the touring that me and Anton and Tony did. We just kept getting louder and heavier, and that informed the writing. It was a lot of fun. We spent almost three months at Power Station [recording studio] making that record. It was a great experience to have. It was funny; it was the second record I gave to Virgin and then we sort of ended the contract. And I remember later in 1991, there was a radio guy at Virgin who came to a show. I was doing a solo show, I think at the Knitting Factory. And he says to me, “Oh man, I love those records. Maybe Black Sheets was just a little too soon. If it had been six months later, maybe you would’ve been Pearl Jam.” And I just looked at him and I was like, “Right on.” (laughs). 

AVC: Are you still following pro wrestling?

BM: Yeah. I’m a big New Japan Pro Wrestling fan. 

AVC: What do you like about them?

BM: The way they present it. They present it as a sport, winners and losers count. Not too gimmicky. Real physical. They lay their stuff in, so it’s believable. WWE is on fire right now like they never have before. They’re just printing money.

AVC: What do you think of the John Cena heel turn?

BM: I thought it was masterful. Their production is so great. But the funny thing is I was watching the aftershow they had, that press conference. And you know, Triple H, Paul Levesque, is in charge of all the creative. And he told this story about that angle. Nobody in production knew. I sat in Gorilla [when I worked at WCW], which is where he sits now. It’s where Vince used to sit. You know, running the whole show on wireless and headsets with the production truck. So I guess the thing was he, essentially, what he was saying is nobody knew but the people that were in the ring. And when we got to that moment, he went production wide over the headset and said, “Everybody lay out, I am ground control from here on out. Just follow what I tell you.” That’s fucking awesome. 

AVC: We recently lost wrestling legend Kevin Sullivan, whom you were close with during your time writing for WCW. 

BM: I have millions of fond memories of Sullivan. He and I were inseparable for the whole run there. And when I say inseparable, it’s like my job working for Sullivan started at 5 A.M. when I had to kick his hotel door every day like, “Come on, Devil, we gotta go.” He and I were so close. We were family. We worked together, we trained together. We laughed and cried together. We did everything together. I miss him terribly. He had a profound impact on me and taught me so much, not only about the business but about life. All my time with Dusty [Rhodes] and Sullivan, I would always ask them about Florida Championship Wrestling. JJ Dillon, too. 

AVC: Did you find any Hüsker Dü or Sugar fans in the wrestling world, or even the Minneapolis punk scene in general?

BM: Tons of them. Do you remember on the USA Network, the Butcher Vachon wedding on Tuesday Night Titans?

AVC: Absolutely. So classic.

BM: So Jesse Ventura was a buddy, and he was wearing a Metal Circus t-shirt in that.

AVC: I gotta go back and check that out! I’ve had the opportunity to talk to folks like Thurston Moore and Mike Watt about pro wrestling. It seems like there’s a big fan base within the punk rock community.

BM: I think so, yeah. Especially in the ’80s. Because they were outsiders, too. Just sort of that life on the road, doing crazy things and getting in trouble. 

AVC: Lastly, how are you fighting back against the Trump administration’s relentless attacks on the LGBTQ+ community?

BM: I’m gonna go onstage and tell my story. And anybody in the crowd who thinks that guy is the direction to go, well, here’s an old gay married guy you’ve been listening to your whole life standing in front of you telling his life story. You wanna take that away from me?