Bob Mould: Still Crazy After All These Years
The Minnesota punk legend talks Hüsker Dü and his excellent new album
Along with Michael Stipe’s quartet and that of Frank Black, Bob Mould’s trio Hüsker Dü was one of the most important and influential groups of the 1980s.
Interestingly, Mould’s longtime bassist, Jason Narducy, has been and currently is performing R.E.M. albums in their entirety with actor and musician Michael Shannon. Moreover, Black famously sought a “female bassist [who] must like Hüsker Dü and Peter, Paul, and Mary” when assembling the Pixies.
In addition to their influence on their ‘80s contemporaries, the outsized impact of Mould and his bandmates — drummer, singer, songwriter Grant Hart and bassist Greg Norton — was further indicated when massively successful ‘90s groups such as Nirvana and Green Day (both of which were also trios) revealed their reverence for them. Therefore, Hüsker Dü — who were lucky to have ever scraped the lowest reaches of the Billboard 200 — were partly responsible for tens of millions of the albums that sold within less than half a decade of their 1988 demise. (Thus, the not-even thinly veiled irony of Mould’s 1996 solo song “I Hate Alternative Rock.”)
Mould’s new album, Here We Go Crazy, is the sixteenth of the solo career that commenced in 1989 with Workbook. Within that time, he has also recorded two albums as the leader of Sugar, had a composition (“Dog on Fire”) serve as the theme to The Daily Show and authored a memoir, See A Little Light: The Trail of Rage and Melody.
Here We Go Crazy, his first LP in nearly five years, further solidifies the fact that the 64-year-old’s muse has not abandoned him. While never formulaic, Mould continues to mine the punk, pop, singer-songwriter and even folk territories that have kept him afloat for more than 40 years.
Mould kicked off a tour of the US this week with his trusty stalwarts Jon Wurster on drums and the aforementioned Jason Narducy in tow.
The following is drawn from the interview that he kindly did with me on the eve of that trek.
How did the title Here We Go Crazy come to you and does it have any specific meaning?
It was a line of a song that just appeared out of thin air, as they sometimes do. Then once we, the band, got into the studio in the beginning of 2024 recording all the songs for the album, “Here We Go Crazy” really stood out to me, just because it turned out so good. Then when that felt right, I started to look at the song, and I think the characteristics of the song revealed themselves.
What I mean by that is, I think of like “Sgt. Pepper” the song as an introduction for a time and a place, and the orchestra tuning up, and the emcee telling us all the different things that are going to happen in the next half hour. And I look at the tableau of Here We Go Crazy. Here I am in this great expanse in the southern California desert, there’s stars and planets and satellites and rainbow flags, and all the things. I didn’t know I was doing that with the song, but when I recognized that was the song, I thought, “Oh, this is perfect. So let’s do that.”
After your write, record, and tour to promote a new album, how do you spend your time before restarting your creative process?
Yeah, so what you just said it was I always call “a cycle.” It starts with writing, then it goes to recording, then it goes to that awkward couple months were everything’s in limbo. And then there’s release day, and you guys have heard it, you’re already writing record reviews. And then there’s the last part, which is taking new songs and putting them in a live show next to songs people already know. And that act right there is like where I get my final grade. If the audience is responding favorably to new stuff next to their old favorites, then I’ve done good.
VIDEO: Bob Mould “Neanderthal”
In “Neanderthal,” you sing, “Go to bed by 10:30” and “Breathing Room” includes the lyric “5 AM, right before sunrise,” implying that that is when you wake up. Is that a normal schedule for you?
As I get older, yeah! I love the early morning. It’s like nobody’s calling, I don’t have to look at any emails right away. I have my coffee, enjoy the sunrise, and get a little exercise. With “Neanderthal,” the song is sort of two looks at myself. The sort of hyper-vigilant, fight or flight child. Then later on, I’m old. I want to party but I can’t really stay up late. (laughs) I mean, I can, but you know what I’m saying. And then “Breathing Room,” the 5 AM is kind of the time I get to myself to let my imagination go and do the things I talked about before.
It seems that most of the songs address issues such as aging, mortality and mental health. Do you find it therapeutic to deal with issues such as this through music?
I don’t set out intentionally to talk about them, but when they show up I recognize them and say, “Yeah, that’s true.” (laughs) For me the record, when I look at it, there’s the opening track, and sort of soliloquy, and then tracks two through five deal a lot with uncertainty – modern uncertainty, romantic uncertainty, things you’re questioning.
“Fur Mink Augurs,” “Lost or Stolen,” “Sharp Little Pieces” is sort of the act two, sort of the darker part of the record. “Fur Mink Augurs” is a lot of grabbing of the images that one might encounter when you go off your normal path and end up somewhere and asking yourself, “How did I end up here?” “Lost or Stolen” is sort of a study in modern addiction, mostly revolving around the internet and digital phones. “Sharp Little Pieces,” that’s really dark. Then the last three songs are sort of the act three that try to shine a light. That’s how the record lays out for me.
How does it feel to know that such an ace rhythm section has got your back?
It’s great. You know the three of us grew up listening to similar kinds of music, we have a common language, and I think that over the last decade-and-a-half, we’ve refined that language. I think we’ve grown as a group, especially as a recording group. I can come to them with new songs with a lot less specificity than I used to. I think that’s earned trust, we all sort of trust the songs and the process more now. I’m always grateful for what little bit of time we get together. All of us are busy with different projects, and as we got older and life has different demands, that sort of dictates scheduling differently than it did 10 years ago. We’re always grateful when we get a chance to play together, knowing that it’s not as easy to get us together as it used to be.
You have always worked in trios. What are the advantages of disadvantages of that format?
Definitely the advantage is reaction time on stage. Typically, the more people that there are on stage the more choreographed everything needs to be. We’re able to improvise, we’re able to try to throw each other off course, we are quick to respond to what’s happening. There’s not a lot of extra translation that needs to happen. It feels like jazz in that sense, where somebody just takes a turn and you’ve got to go with it. I think that’s that biggest thing that I like about a three-piece.
The challenge for me as a guitar player is trying to cover a lot rhythmic and melodic and foundational ground all at once. When I do solo electric shows, it’s a lot of work. I have to imply what the drums are doing. I have to sort of carry the basslines while I’m playing the guitar lines. It’s easier than solo electric when I’ve got bass and drums, but it’s still a lot of work to convey the amount of melodic content that I want.
VIDEO: Hüsker Dü PBS documentary
How significant to you is it that this year marks the 40th anniversaries of New Day Rising and Flip Your Wig?
Well, those are two really acclaimed records in my body of work. In October 1983, when we recorded Zen Arcade, it was supposed to come out in 1984 earlier than it did. SST, the label at the time, sort of dropped the ball on the release of that.
The band had recorded New Day Rising as or right before Zen Arcade actually came out, so we didn’t understand the amount of attention Zen Arcade would get, so New Day Rising was this sort of the babe in the woods thing that was there. That came out at the end of January 1985 and Flip Your Wig, which I personally think is the best Hüsker Dü album, came out in the fall of ’85. Zen Arcade was Southern California, recorded on a budget, with — rest in peace — Spot, a great engineer. He was sort of SST’s guy. With New Day Rising, we asked Spot to come to Minnesota and we had our own engineer and that was the last time we worked with Spot.
So in the spring of ’85 when Grant Hart and I had the whole thing to ourselves with our Minnesota engineer, that to me was the best period of the band because we were, with no supervision, free to be completely left to our own devices. At the time, Grant and I decided that we wanted to make a pop record, and the name Flip Your Wig was The Beatles board game, that’s where the name comes from. So it was very clear what we were trying to do, and I thought that was the highest point of the band. That was before personal animus started to set it and the pressure of a major label. The things that wind a band down, none of that was happening in 1985. Flip Your Wig really showcased the band at its peak power. I think that’s cause for celebration.
Who are some younger artists whom you enjoy and give you hope for the future of music?
Well, there’s a group from Detroit called The Armed, I think the world of. Sort of a collective of musicians and visual artists. There’s a young band called Militarie Gun, who I think is doing some pretty cool stuff. A band Liquid Mike from Marquette, Michigan has created a pretty neat album. A band called Wishy from Illinois. There’s a lotta cool music, like Hannah Jadagu, who’s on Sub Pop. She’s a bedroom recordist who writes really cool stuff. There’s a lot of fun stuff out there. You gotta put the effort in to find it. I put aside Friday morning for that.
- Jason Narducy: ‘Pageant’ Material - March 2, 2026
- Bob Mould: Still Crazy After All These Years - April 17, 2025
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