From: <argent@iastate.edu> 27-OCT-1993 09:40:14.85

     Bob Mould occasionally smokes and laughs a lot.  Seems 
relaxed and not at all concerned that he is going to be 
performing in less than an hour.
     Wearing a nondescript gray t-shirt, plaid shorts, beat up 
tennis shoes, and a gold coin permanently affixed about his 
neck with a black shoe string, Mould sits drinking Evian water 
and playing with his Mac Powerbook 180.  He looks up.  His 
short brown hair is nappy as though he's just risen from his 
pillow (other than his eyes are bright and take in everything 
around him).  Even though he is 32, Bob looks like someone's 
dumpy little brother.  For some reason this is more reassuring.  
If one is forced to describe Bob in one word it would have to be 
"regular."
     Below is the Crispy interview with Bob Mould that took 
place at the Maintenance Shop in Ames, Iowa on Monday, 
October the 4th, 1993.  It was conducted by Christopher 
Jorgensen with the assistance of Paul Ruden.


Crispy:  (sound of screeching feedback from the Marantz)  
Yeah, well, we got levels on that.

Bob Mould:  You got the speaker on?

Crispy:  Ah, it's...where we at?

(Mould proceeds to show me how to set up the interviewing 
equipment)

Bob Mould:  Yeah, the speaker's on.  Turn the speaker volume 
down.  Still getting levels to the tape?  There we go.  Eliminate

that nasty feedback.

Crispy:  Pretty cool necklace there.

Bob Mould:  Oh this?  Yeah, it's one of those stupid lucky 
charms.  (laughs)  Works.

Crispy:  Have you played a place smaller than the M-Shop?  I 
mean any time recently?

Bob Mould:  Um, yeah, actually in '91 I played a place that was 
a lot smaller than this in Oslow, Norway.  A place called the 
Beach Club.  That held about 50 people.  They do a lot of 
American acoustic stuff.  Like Tom Verlaine had just played 
there the week before.  Strange.  But yeah, this is very intimate

tonight, so....

Crispy:  I was really impressed with the First Ave. show [Sugar] 
up in Minneapolis, then I found out you were playing this....

Bob Mould:  Oh yeah.  Well I think with the acoustic stuff it's 
a different thing.  I think with the Sugar show there's a lot 
more attention placed on that, and there's always records that 
are being promoted.  So yeah, I tend to play bigger rooms.  
With the acoustic stuff for me this is just an opportunity to 
get out and play.  It's supposed to be low-key.  It's not a big 
ordeal for me.  Just show up and play for an hour and a half.

Crispy:  All new material?

Bob Mould:  Some new material, some Sugar stuff, some solo 
album stuff, probably a couple Husker songs.

Crispy:  Workbook?  Black Sheets?

Bob Mould:  Probably mostly Workbook.  I haven't been playing 
a lot of Black Sheets stuff.  I can't remember it.  But yeah,
it's a pretty wide selection of all the different periods.

Crispy:  Were you impressed with how fast your tickets sold 
out?

Bob Mould:  45 minutes?  That's good.  This should be fun.  
This will be a fun gig.  I like playing more int--for the
acoustic thing it's real fun.  It's a lot more immediate if
you're real close.

Crispy:  That's actually where I came in on your music was 
with Workbook.  I never heard of Husker Du really, except 
retroactively I got to enjoy the music, but the first disc I
heard was Workbook.

Bob Mould:  That's a good one to start with.  It's a real 
different record.   Of all the record I've been involved in it's
one of my favorites.  It's got some amazing songs on it.  It's
just so different.  I like it lot, but no, it's a good place to
start.  I'm sure the Husker Du stuff was a bit of a shock after
hearing that.  (laughs)  Especially if you started at the
beginning of Husker Du.

Crispy:  I was reading some different things, basically rumors, 
about what you are working on.  I heard you were working on a 
kid's book.

Bob Mould:  Yeah, I've been picking away at it.  It isn't going 
as fast as I thought it was--I thought it would be easier than it

is.  I'm working on a children's book and record.

Crispy:  Packaged together?

Bob Mould:  Yeah, the record will be combination spoken word 
and songs that would accompany the text.

Crispy:  Not a "beep" turn the page kind of thing.

Bob Mould:  No, no, not that strict.  Just a general younger 
kids stuff.  Doing that.  Umm, just writing stuff for the new 
Sugar record.  I've been writing a lot.  I've been coming up with

a lot of ideas of stuff that would make a nice acoustic record.  
So those are three things that need to be dealt with, and I 
don't know what order.  I think the first thing will be another 
Sugar record.  Umm, I'm just going to keep picking away at this 
children's thing, and the acoustic stuff.  Those--you know--I 
just take them as they come--as I write them.  Sometimes they 
are only for me, and sometime they're good for a band set-up, 
so....  I would guess after this tour is done, the next thing up 
on the block would be Sugar going back in the studio in 
February.  February or March, try to get an album out in the 
Fall and do some touring.

Crispy:  I also heard some of the Sugar members are on 
vacation, and one of the members wanted to see his wife.

Bob Mould:  Yeah, well, David Barbe the bass player, his wife 
just had their third child in late July.  So it was pretty 
important for him to be home right now, and to help her out.  I 
mean we all needed a break.  There was no--it was like--"Oh, 
David's wife is having a baby, let's shut it down."  We'd been 
on the road almost twelve months solid.  It was like, "we've 
had enough of this."  We just needed to get away from each 
other for a while, so that it's fresh when we get together at the
beginning of the year.

Crispy:  So you guys will be doing another tour soon?

Bob Mould:  Well, album in September, then probably tour in 
of Fall '94, Spring '95.  And then just see what happens after 
that.  I don't want to plan too much beyond that.  The 
acoustic record's somewhere in there, I don't know.  Maybe in 
'95.  Maybe the children's record sometime whenever that 
happens.

Crispy:  That will be a different marketing strategy.

Bob Mould:  Yeah it will be.  You got to take it up to those toy 
fairs up in New York in February and shop it, but we'll see 
what happens.  I would imagine that it will come out on 
Ryko/Creation just like the Sugar records do.  But we'll see.

Crispy:  The Sugar album Copper Blue was the number one 
selling independent disc?

Bob Mould:  Of last year, probably, yeah.  It sold really well. 
It did real well.  I mean as far as we're concerned.  For
essentially a new band.  It did real good.  We're real happy with
it.  It did real well in England.  That where we really had our
biggest success.  Sugar is quite a big deal over there right now.

Crispy:  You play over there?

Bob Mould:  Been over there five times the last year.  Big big 
deal for us, I guess.

Crispy:  Are English crowds different that here in America?

Bob Mould:  (yawns)  Oh it's--I mean at the end of the day it's 
not really that different.  For Sugar shows over there the 
crowds--it's pretty similar to a New York crowd or a Chicago 
crowd or whatever.  It's really not that different.  So crowds
are pretty much--you know Japan's the only place where I've 
noticed people are a really a little different about how they 
perceive music.  Very polite applause.  They'll jump around and 
stage dive and stuff, but if you stop to tune up they become 
very quiet.  Like they understand that you need to listen to 
what you're doing.  As opposed to American crowds that just 
yell "Freebird!" at you.  That's different.

Crispy:  You have any questions Paul?

Paul:  Yeah.  I know especially in "Too Far Down", and a lot of 
the lyrics on Workbook have a lot to do with depression, and I 
was just wondering if you'd gone through a serious period of 
depression?

Bob Mould:  (laughs loudly)  At least one that I ah--yeah.  
Yeah.

Paul:  I mean like....

Bob Mould:  Oh, like serious chucks of time?

Paul:  I mean like if you had to get medical treatment or 
something.

Bob Mould:  I wouldn't.  I know some people feel the need to.

Paul:  The song "Too Far Down"--I mean if you've been there 
you can tell that you've been there before and I was just 
curious.

Bob Mould:  Yeah, I don't go in to do anything.  I have my own 
set of problems with that.  But I just try to deal with it.  I've
had a lot of friends that have gone on and off of different 
treatments.  This is how I deal with it.  You just take the good 
days and the bad days and sort of try to make something even 
out of it at the end of the--whatever.  (laughs)

Paul:  "Too Far Down," that song is so emotional it gives me 
goose bumps when I listen to it.  It's pretty intense.

Bob Mould:  Yeah, I don't do it much anymore.  I was out 
doing acoustic stuff in '91, and I was doing it every night and
it just didn't seem right.  People were always wanting to hear
it.  And it was just like, "You really don't understand."  I mean
a.) do you really want to hear it?  And b.) do I really want to
do it.  But yeah, that's what this is for.  This is my way of
dealing with the swings.  You hope that when you're out on the
road the cycle doesn't speed up.  If you know what I mean. 
There's these long periods of good and bad and then it starts to 
compress to where like every fifteen minutes it changes.

Paul:  That's not good.

Bob Mould:  No, and that--you know the road, there's enough 
going on, there's enough stimulus that it doesn't get bad like if
I have long periods off.  I get....

Paul:  You get to dwell on things.

Bob Mould:  Yeah, if you think too much, then things start to 
speed up.  That's when it starts to get weird.  No, I don't go in
for any kind of help.  If I did, I would probably lose whatever 
form of expression I have with getting rid of it.  So that's my  
fear of doing that.  (pauses, looks around)  Anything else after 
that?

Crispy:  That kind of brought the conversation down a little 
bit.

Bob Mould:  No, no, no, that's a fine question.  It's not one 
that I'm usually asked from a reasonable perspective.  Usually 
people ask it in the context of some attention getting--you 
know a, "Oh, this will be cute to write,"  and there's noting 
cute about it.  So no, I appreciate the question.

Crispy:  Like I said I came in on Workbook.  As soon as Black 
Sheets came out I was waiting.  They're totally different from 
each other.  One is more introspective, and the other is more, 
uh....

Bob Mould:  Black Sheets is real out-going.  It's projecting 
things more as opposed to observing.  Workbook is like a real 
series of--a collection of observations like short stories, 
whereas Black Sheets is a pretty hostile record.  It's not one of
my favorites.  I think here's some pretty good songs on it, but 
it's pretty hostile.  And now with Sugar I think there's a better
balance.  I think I've figured out what the balance of dark and 
light is or what makes a good record.  Copper Blue has some 
heavy moments, but there's enough light to set it off.  Beaster 
is a little darker than usual.  It's a hard record.  It's a hard 
record.  (laughs)  It's a hard one to figure out.  There's a lot
of stuff going on.  The next one's going to be interesting. 
David going to be writing a lot more.  You saw the live show.  We
were doing a fair amount of his stuff live, but he's going to be 
writing more for the new record.  So it will be good to see what 
kind of balance that creates or what it does to the band.

Crispy:  You wrote most of the material for Copper Blue?

Bob Mould:  I wrote all the stuff for Copper Blue, and Beaster.  
About half that existed before we talked about getting together 
and the rest of the stuff came together as we were getting ready 
to record.

Crispy:  Well, that's all I have.  Unless there's something you 
always wished you got asked but didn't.

Bob Mould:  No, I wouldn't know what to ask myself.  (laughs)  
I don't know that one.

     From here the conversation descends in a discussion of 
Macintoshes, road food, Evian water, and how Mould doesn't 
drink, because he "can't."  "Can't?" I ask  "You mean don't?"
     "No, just can't.  I'm not one to do anything in 
moderation," Mould says.  And with that, we shake hands, I 
leave Bob to patiently await the show, and I leave to anxiously 
await one of my idols

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