This Is Your Life: Superchunk
While this feature might be called This Is Your Life, for a generation of indie rock fans the music of Superchunk is their life, or at least a major part of the soundtrack to it.
From 1989 to 2000, Superchunk released albums, singles and EPs with steady frequency, articulating their own hopes, heartbreak, disillusionment and creeping idealism, and in the process doing the same for their legion of fans. Whether employing their signature, breakneck, pile-driving, deliriously ecstatic power-punk-pop, or more delicate arrangements, their music has grown with their audience, with songs that have covered post-teenage ennui, post-college breakups and the messiness and responsibilities of adulthood.
With their new album, Majesty Shredding – their first in nine years – Superchunk have made a record about the all-of-a-sudden-I-miss-everyone nostalgia that comes with, deep breath, middle age. Not that this sounds like any kind of dad rock you’ve ever heard; trust that this band can still wipe the floor with most younger rock groups.
On the day of their triumphant and exhilarating Bowery Ballroom show in New York City, eMusic’s Chris Ryan sat down with the members of Superchunk and played them some songs from their back pages.
“Seed Toss,” Tossing Seeds (Singles 89-91), 1992
This is a fan favorite that you also recorded as an acoustic B-side for the Driveway to Driveway EP. Do songs often start out as acoustic demos, Mac?
Mac McCaughan: Not really. I mean, the reason we record acoustic versions of the songs, usually, is because they’re written full on electric. At that point we were writing a lot in the kitchen of the house where we practiced.
When you listen back to early stuff from Tossing Seeds or No Pocky, does any of it sound dated? Or is any of it a chore to play live?
McCaughan: There are certainly some songs from the first record that are a little bit, like, angsty, in a way that I don’t feel angsty anymore. But it’s still fun to play them.
Laura Ballance: Sometimes we’ll play some older songs, like “My Noise” for instance, and they’ll feel really basic. And that’s because they were! It was like, “Okay, Laura’s just learning to play bass. You’re gonna do these three notes and then in the second part, you’re going to reverse it.” [laughs]
“On The Mouth,” Incidental Music 1991-95, 1995
Was this recorded before the On The Mouth album?
Jon Wurster: This is the first session I ever played on and we recorded it at Duck Kee Studios.
McCaughan: Yeah, it was recorded with “For Tension” and “Mower.”
Ballance: We recorded the song “On The Mouth” at Duck Kee?
JoW: Just the song.
McCaughan: With a couple of other songs and there was a 7-inch of that. It was never really supposed to be on the On The Mouth album. And when we were trying to come up with an album title we were stumped.
Jim Wilbur: You wanted to call the album Punch or something like that. And I remember Laura punched you on the mouth [Note: Ballance and McCaughan were dating at the time], and I remember saying, “on the mouth!” because of the song.
Ballance: I probably really meant it!
Wurster: We came up with that title at a pizza place in St. Louis.
Ballance: It wasn’t a Hooters?
Wurster: No, but we did eat in a Hooters at some point.
The album On The Mouth, was produced by John Reis of Rocket From The Crypt and Drive Like Jehu, and I thought there was a bit of a Jehu influence on some of the guitars; they’re pretty abrasive at times.
McCaughan: We had toured with Rocket in North Carolina. And we had also played with Pitchfork [Drive Like Jehu singer/guitarist Rick Froberg's first band]. We toured out to California to record On The Mouth and we played some house show in San Diego. We recorded where Rocket had made Circa Now at a studio that was owned by Brett Guerwitz from Bad Religion.
Wurster: The thing about it was, he knew the studio and we liked the way his records sounded. I do, however, remember going with John Reis to Tower Records to get the Helmet CD.
McCaughan: Really?!
Wurster: He wanted it for…reference or something.
Ballance: He wanted our album to sound like Helmet?!
This was the first album I heard by you.
Ballance: Breakthrough record.
Was it?
Ballance: It felt like it at the time, like people were really paying attention.
McCaughan: Or different people were paying attention.
It took me a really long time to get into it.
Wilbur: It’s dense.
Kind of a depressing album, though it’s one of my favorites. Was it fun to make?
[Ballance and McCaughan broke up around the time of recording]
Wurster: No!
Ballance: Not making it or anything!
Wilbur: Terrible.
Ballance: Miserable.
McCaughan: It was a cool studio, though. [Laughs] Cold as shit out in Minnesota.
Ballance: That’s when we went to the Hooters.
McCaughan: As Jon reminded me recently, we had one day less than we had booked because some other band –
Wurster: Smashing Orange!
McCaughan: Smashing Orange.
Wurster: Delaware’s biggest band.
McCaughan: Smashing Orange needed their studio time. We recorded 19 songs and mixed it at Steve Albini’s space, which at the time was just his attic. So that was a cramped situation.
“Detroit Has A Skyline,” Here’s Where The Strings Come In, 1995
Is this like your “Surrender”? Do you have to play this?
McCaughan [confused]: “Detroit Has A Skyline”!?
Ballance: It’s one of the one’s that when you start it, people freak out. But “Slack Motherfucker” is the one people really expect to hear.
Wurster: “Hyper Enough” is like that, too. People really explode.
McCaughan: I don’t think “Detroit…” became so well liked until later. Maybe it was because of the acoustic version [featured on the band's third singles comp, A Cup Of Sand] that people liked so much.
With the line, “Drank my sleep from a can/ Playing track six and track seven, again and again”…was there a specific album you’re referring to?
McCaughan: There was at the time but I can’t remember what it was. It was when were getting back from a tour with Belly. I’ve been asked that before but I honestly can’t remember what it was.
“The Popular Music,” Indoor Living, 1997
Wurster: Smashing Pumpkins!
Pardon?
Ballance: When we were writing that album, we would assign songs different names based on little similarities. One song was called, “Britney Spears.” And there was another called, “Wilco.”
“Everything At Once,” Majesty Shredding, 2010
Is this song about Superchunk?
McCaughan: No, I think it’s just about music and the role it plays in people’s lives. A lot of the songs on Majesty are about nostalgia and looking back and thinking about what the way music fits into your life.
Majesty Shredding is the band’s first album in almost 10 years. Was the break a matter of doing other life stuff, running Merge, having families, etc.? Or did you think the band was done?
Wilbur: A little bit of both.
McCaughan: Yeah, I don’t think there was anything explicitly said, but there wasn’t a plan to get back together. But one of the main things, aside from wanting to play music together again, was that I didn’t want our previous album to be our last one. I still like Here’s To Shutting Up, but I felt like I didn’t want that to be the last thing people heard from us.
It’s obviously a lot more rocking than …Shutting Up
Ballance: Mac wasn’t even writing on guitar for that album. He was playing keyboards and Jon [Wurster] was playing guitar.
McCaughan: I still like …Shutting Up, but with Majesty Shredding, it just felt like the right set of songs at the right time. We didn’t have a lot of time to deliberate over it; we recorded it quickly. And, after having not consistently played with one another for a while, we wanted to have something that would be enjoyable to tour behind. And that’s certainly been the case so far.
