Superchunk join The Current to play a few songs from their 2022 record ‘Wild Loneliness,’ plus a familiar favorite. Frontman Mac McCaughan also talks to Mary Lucia about the band's early experiences playing in Minnesota, touring in pre-internet times, and his decision to lean into a more acoustic sound on this release. Watch the full set of performances and interview above, and check out a transcript of the conversation below.

Interview Transcript

Edited for clarity and length

MARY LUCIA: I always feel like there are so many Minneapolis connections [to Superchunk] because you got Wurster who's Bob Mould--good friends with Bob Mehr who's a good friend of mine, you got Brian Paulson.

MAC MCCAUGHAN: Brian Paulson, who I was just texting with yesterday, yeah.

Legendary. You wrote a song called "Front Of The House"? Did you know Monty Lee Wilkes?

Name is very familiar.

He was a sound dude for a lot, a lot of bands. But his whole model was, "I'm not happy, unless you're not happy." That was his slogan. People made t-shirts after he passed. And it was FOH and I always think of him when that song--

Oh, wow. Was he at First Ave?

Yeah, he was First Ave, and he was also on tour with just every derelict known in the 80s.

I feel a strong connection to Minneapolis in terms of playing there because we played there on our very first tour that wasn't just going to New York or whatever. Before we even had an album out, we did a tour that we just booked ourselves along with the band Geek and the band Seaweed, the three of us. That was the furthest we got from home, it was Minneapolis. I think at the Uptown? Yeah, and there was people there. So that was just like a mind blowing thing. You know, from the first time we went to Minneapolis that people came to see us even though we barely had any records out at all was pretty wild.

I have to ask because any band that's had the longevity that you guys have had too, when you were touring, I mean pre-internet, who was just writing down numbers of bars and record stores and places to stay for the night?

That really is what it was. And it's almost hard to understand how anything ever came together. But, like I said, that first tour--Jenny Toomey from the band Geek, she and Kristin from DC had a label called Simple Machines. And they, I believe started the process of booking that tour and getting numbers and I'm pretty sure that Peter Davis, who was also a booking agent for some bands that we knew, and had a fanzine called Your Flesh--he, I think, is the one who we got in touch with about booking that first show in Minneapolis.

The kids need to understand what it was like when you had to actually look at a phonebook if you could find one, or a payphone.

The other thing that's always crazy to me now, when we're pulling into a town or just trying to find a venue or a restaurant or anything is the idea that we had to have a road atlas. And you'd be on the phone with someone at the club. They're like talking you into town, like telling you which way to go and where to turn and stuff like that.

So with 'Wild Loneliness,' the 12th album from you guys--I don't want to dwell too much because yes, it was written, recorded under the oddest of circumstances. So we've literally been living like this for two years. And, you know, people who are creative, generally speaking, I think found a way around it like a lot of people who are in the midst of recording, it's like, "Well, hey, you send me some stuff and Dropbox or whatever, and we'll make it happen." It's maybe not the most ideal for you. But are you still pretty happy with the way everything turned out?

I am. And like you said such a strange time and such a strange confluence of events that no one could have predicted. I had started writing the songs for this record before the lockdown, and I was writing them on acoustic guitar, because I thought that it would be cool for this record to take a turn in that direction, to do a record of new songs, but in the mold of the acoustic 'Foolish' album that we did in 2019. Because our last album, 'What A Time to Be Alive' was so electric and so punky, and loud and aggressive. I didn't feel like it would be super constructive, or enjoyable to try to sustain that energy for the next album as well. That felt like a moment in time. While we still feel that anger every day, maybe making a whole nother album of songs drawn from that wouldn't be the best idea.

So I started writing songs on acoustic guitar, and then when the lockdown happened I couldn't write a song to save my life for about six months. I mean, I just couldn't get my brain to go in that way. As you said, you find a way to do things and I was working on a film score at the time and I could write instrumental music. And so I worked on this film score for a movie called Moxie that's on Netflix.

Amy Poehler.

Amy Poehler directed it and is in it and when I finished with that film score, I could move on and think about writing songs again. So when I continued writing, I was staying in this, with these kinds of rules that I had given myself where I'm going to play acoustic guitar on this record. When we realized that studios and everything else wasn't opening up anytime soon, we decided to just start making this record at home. And what that meant was I would send a demo around and then John, our drummer, would come over and sit over there with his mask on and I'd be sitting over here with my mask on and he'd be recording his drum parts. Then Jim Wilbur, our guitar player, would come do the same thing, and we kind of built the record like that. Laura has a recording setup at her house, so she could do her bass there. And yeah, it's not ideal. It's the first record we've ever made where we weren't all in the studio together playing the songs live. But I'm happy with the way it came out because I feel like it doesn't come off like that. We didn't want it to sound like a home recording project. We didn't want to sound low-fi, and I give a lot of credit to Wally Gagle who mixed the record. Yeah, I'm really happy with the way it sounded. We got to collaborate with amazing people.

You know, having guests on a Superchunk album isn't anything new, but did you have certain songs in mind and go, "Oh, God, let's get Sharon Van Etten for this," or was it more organic than that?

I think those things kind of revealed themselves as we got closer to finishing each song. In other words, when I could hear the whole band playing, then it's easier to hear what's missing, or like what a song could really use to elevate it in some way or make it more interesting. I wrote for instance, "On the Floor" on acoustic guitar. And once the drums and everything was added it had a real--REM, for me, was a reference in my brain when I started writing that song. Once the song was coming together, it still had that feeling to me, and Franklin Bruno who plays piano on it, I said, "Franklin, I'm thinking about songs like "South Central Rain," these REM songs with piano." So Franklin played amazing piano part, and Mike Mills from REM was kind enough to sing backing vocals on it. He's one of the most iconic backup singers in music, and it's amazing to have his voice on there. So it was just really like song by song. Each one, by the time we kind of got close to completion, just gave us ideas about who would be great to be on there.

So when is the Minneapolis/St. Paul date that you guys have?

Well, we don't have one scheduled yet. We're working on it because we always have great shows there. The last time we played there was an awesome street fest outside Grumpies. My son came with me, we went to a twins game. We always have a great time there. So looking forward to coming back hopefully this year.

Well, the record is amazing. We've been loving it because again, there's messages in there, but there's bang and pop songs and what better way to get sort of interesting messages through than, you know, you don't have to be like The Cure 1980--I mean, it's like you can still sound like a pop rock band and get certain messages across which I think is great. 'Wild Loneliness,' it's the new record from Superchunk. Mac, thank you for talking.

Thank you.

Songs Played

00:01 This Night
04:39 Wild Loneliness
07:51 Endless Summer
11:57 Me & You & Jackie Mittoo

Credits

Host - Mary Lucia
Interview guest - Mac McCaughan
Superchunk - Jon Wurster, Jim Wilbur, Jason Narducy, Mac McCaughan
Producers - Jesse Wiza, Derrick Stevens
Technical Director - Eric Romani

External Link

Superchunk - official site