Outsiders may be tempted to call Superchunk survivors at this point, but true believers know the band too well to have ever doubted its stability or longevity. While the recent
Majesty Shredding is the iconic rock quartet’s first studio album in nine years, this is no comeback or reunion. If anything, the band – formed back in 1989 – was just having an extended nap while its members tended to adult life and musical obligations alike. Singer/guitarist Mac McCaughan and bassist Laura Ballance run the gold standard of indie labels, Merge, while McCaughan also fronts Portastatic and both are parents. Guitarist Jim Wilbur has been leading a life of peaceful solitude, if the cheeky video for ‘Digging For Something’ (below) is to be believed (it’s not), and drummer Jon Wurster has been playing in the Mountain Goats, among other pursuits.
Superchunk never broke up, and the four players have remained so busy that the only way to tackle a new album was to have McCaughan demo the songs and send them to everyone first. Instead of that approach yielding stale results,
Majesty Shredding is a tight, kinetic, rousing album that sets the band’s trademark anthems against a subtle tide of melancholy musings. Guided by producer Scott Solter, the record is a strong entry in a back catalogue that includes such classics as 1991’s
No Pocky For Kitty, 1994’s
Foolish, and 1999’s
Come Pick Me Up. As influential on established names like Jimmy Eat World as on newcomers like Surfer Blood, Superchunk has always been the rare band that’s charismatic and fun without compromising intelligence or urgency. And track record aside,
Majesty Shredding is one of the year’s best albums by anyone, new or old.
Following a U.S. tour behind the album, Laura Ballance
(main pic, far left) discusses the making of it, the aforementioned video, a few topics related to Merge, and the prospect of an Aussie tour.
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Is it right that for the new record, Mac demoed everything first?
He did. Just him singing and guitar. He sent it to us and we would get together and play it together and, y’know, make up our bit. It was the only way we could do it, because everybody is so busy. And Jon is travelling all the time with other bands, so it was easier for him to get something emailed to him. Then we’d figure out a time when we could get together long enough to actually record. We’d book two days in the studio and get together the day before and actually play the songs together for the first time.
How different are the final songs from the demos?
Not very. I mean, sometimes the arrangement would change a little bit, like the number of times we play something or the order of things. Or maybe one of the parts would get scrapped and a new one would go in. But generally it’s pretty close.
Do you think he made those demos with each of you in mind, as opposed to Portastatic?
I don’t really know. I think he just writes songs the way he wants to, throws it out there, and sees what happens to it once we get our hands on it.
Superchunk has had a distinct, recognisable sound for a long time. Are you guys ever nervous about repeating something you’ve already done, like certain guitar lines?
We definitely try to be aware of that, because there are times, pretty often, where somebody will say, ‘This part sounds exactly like the beginning of this song.’ So it does happen. We do have certain tendencies. (Laughs) It can’t be helped.
What was it like working with Scott Solter for the first time?
In the studio, what I noticed the most was...he has a strong personality and he drove us harder than we’ve ever been driven. Mac also has a pretty dominant personality. Very often in the studio, we’ll do one take of something and Mac will say 'OK', unless someone’s really obviously messed up. And normally he gets away with it. But Scott would be like, ‘No, why don’t you guys stay in there and do it one or two more times?’ He kept us going until he got a take that he really felt good about. He inspected them closer than I felt like anyone we worked with ever did. He’d be like, ‘That one felt really good, but the tempo dropped off a little after this one part. Jon, you’ve got to watch that.’ Nobody ever says stuff like that to us.
I think that shows in the record. It’s very precise and immaculate.
Well, thank you. I really like it. I like the way it came out.
What’s the origin of the album title?
Y’know, I have this idea in my head that it was in some of the lyrics somewhere, but I haven’t really noticed it in there. (Laughs)
I know that’s sometimes the case, but I couldn’t find it either.
It’s possible it’s from some song that didn’t make it onto the record. I’d need to ask Mac, because I’m not sure. Mac came up with it while we were still in the studio. Usually this is something we labour over after the record is done. He read off like five things he had thought of. That was the obvious one out of all of them. It’s kind of hilarious without being too self-deprecating.
But it is a guitar record, and that’s much more glaring in the current musical landscape than it was the last time you put out a record.
It’s more glaring?
I just feel like so much emphasis has been taken off guitar and put on synthesisers and electronics in indie music right now. So just to have a guitar record really stands out.
Yeah…
But I understand the title’s also tongue-in-cheek.
Yeah. But it does shred. (Laughs)
Whose idea was the video for ‘Digging For Something’?
That was the director, Scott Jacobson, who used to write for
The Daily Show. He and Jon have written some together before, because Jon writes comedy stuff sometimes for other people and TV shows. I don’t know if it was informed by something Jon said, but it’s informed by the fact that we took all that time off.
Superchunk - 'Digging For Something' (Majesty Shredding - 2010)
And so many older bands are getting back together that it becomes a play on that.
I guess. But we're not making fun of them. (Laughs)
Yeah, those are your peers, right?
They are. They totally are. Like, the ’90s revival going on right now is insane.
And Superchunk played the recent Matador anniversary party in Vegas, right?
We did. Pavement played, and Guided By Voices. Bands that are broken up. It was really fun. It was nice to go to somebody else’s anniversary party, where we didn’t have to be in charge. It was like a family reunion. I saw so many people I hadn’t seen in a long time. There was more going on than I could possibly keep up with.
With all that ’90s stuff and you guys making a new record, are you conscious of the nostalgia and trying not to play that card?
Well, we’re not trying to play the nostalgia card. I mean, we made a new record and we made a record we felt like making, without too much thought about what people are going to like. But when we play live, we play old songs in addition to the new ones. It can’t be helped. And it does really seem to generate a lot of nostalgia among our fans, of which a lot of them are our age or older. But there’s also an amazing number of younger people that, for them, this is the first new record we’ve made since they’ve been listening to us. They discovered us after we took a break, and this is their first chance to have fun with us.
What’s it been like touring a new record again?
It’s been really fun. I didn’t know how people were going to receive this record, if they were going to be like, ‘Eh, another old band from the ’90s is putting out a record. I don’t care.’ But people are really excited and coming out to the shows. It’s fun to play the new songs, ‘cause they rock, and the audiences have been really receptive. And technological changes have occurred since we were in our heyday. (Laughs) You get more instant feedback and support from your fans than you could nine years ago. You can see how people are reacting to what you’re doing immediately, and you can interact with them in a new way.
Do you have plans to tour Australia soon?
We hope to. We’re workin’ on it.
For the final part of the interview, I wanted to talk about some Merge stuff, if that’s cool.
Okay.
First, I was wondering if there are any reissues planned for older, out-of-print stuff, like any Rock*A*Teens records.
Some of them, where there seems to be a demand, we are. We’re reissuing old Superchunk records because Superchunk is active right now. But things like the Rock*A*Teens, once they’ve gone out of print, it’s pretty hard to justify manufacturing them again. Just because there’s not much of a demand. It’s really unfortunate, because obviously we love those bands and think they’re really great, but for some reason or other they didn’t catch on. And we haven’t figured out how to do a super-short run of a record and make it break even. I guess you’d just have to charge a lot more money. Like, Ryko used to do these special-packaging releases that were really expensive, but certain people would be willing to pay that. I would love to do something with the Rock*A*Teens records, but maybe 200 people would buy it if we did like a box set.
Superchunk - 'Driveway to Driveway' (Foolish - 1994)
Are there bands you almost signed or wished you’d signed, in retrospect?
There’s always bands that we kind of miss out on, but I usually don’t feel any regret about it later, just because we put out so many records and we’re so busy. If that band’s record comes out somewhere else and it does well, that’s really good for them. And if we put out more records than we can handle in a year, we’re not gonna do as well with them as we should. We need to spread it out among different labels. (Laughs) We can’t have all the bands, or we’d be in trouble.
I’m sure you get asked this all the time, but why do you think Merge has seen this steady but increasing success over the years?
It’s hard to say, with any certainty. The records that have come out on Merge are a reflection of music that Mac and I like and like to listen to. So it’s not just one genre. We haven’t pigeonholed ourselves, because we don’t listen to just one kind of music. I think when a label gets associated with just one sort of music, it’s unfortunate and dooms them. But also, I feel like our growing success has a lot to do with us being very artist-friendly. So bands want to be on Merge and once they’re on Merge, they usually stay, because we do our best to treat them well and be as fair as we possibly can be. But also, the Internet has liberated people. They can find music they’re interested in much more easily than when I was growing up. You can discover things you wouldn’t have discovered otherwise. So we’re not as limited as record labels were in the ’90s or the ’80s by our ability to be distributed all over the place. Now we can easily reach some kid in his bedroom in Des Moines or Wichita or wherever, that we would have had no access to before, except if he happened to read Maximum Rocknroll.
Finally, I don’t know if this is oversimplifying it, but do you think there’s an emphasis on songwriting with the bands Merge tends to sign?
I guess so. I guess I’d agree. I feel like it’s hard to have good songs without good songwriting. (Laughs)
I mean, a lot of things can sound new or cool, but I think Merge bands have that core of actual sturdy songwriting. But again, that might just be yours and Mac’s tastes.
I guess it is. You can go record stuff that sounds really good, but if the songs aren’t well written, it’s not going to appeal to you for as long.
That’s the whole thing: other stuff sounds good at the time, but there are Merge releases that came out 10 or 15 years ago that I still really love, and it’s the songs.
Yeah. They have substance.
Doug Wallen
Majesty Shredding is out now on Popfrenzy.