Q&A With Bob Mould
Hüsker Dü was the loudest, fastest band in the world while prefiguring nearly the entirety of '90s indie rock.
Now ex-lead singer Bob Mould speaks in his ‘quiet voice’ after living in a farmhouse with chickens for company.
Camped out on Jello Biafra’s back porch; though they were better than U2. Now he wants everyone to listen to Best Coast.
In order to understand what Hüsker Dü accomplished as a band, it’s important to look at the vacuum in which it existed. The band was created in 1979 — a time when the Ramones, the Damned, the Clash, and Buzzcocks were the hip new things. But when I listen to Hüsker Dü now, it doesn’t really feel like it’s from the same era. The Ramones can feel like classic rock. Hüsker Dü has eternally felt and sounded like a ’90s band to me. Their music has a forever-young Peter Pan quality. That’s because Hüsker somehow vaulted ahead of its own genre while introducing a specific sound that people had never heard before. In a great documentary by PBS, titled Hüsker Dü, the Fastest Band in The World, one of the first things said is this: “I said, like, ‘What’s Hüsker Dü?’ And he’s like, ‘They play fast.’ ‘Like what, like fast… like the Ramones?’ ‘Like, maybe faster.’ ‘Like, really?’ ‘Faster than the Ramones.’ You’re like, wow.” Hüsker Dü’s creative arc also prefigured a now widespread phenomenon: So …