Biography
An enduring hero of indie rock, singer/guitarist Bob Mould worked in different solo and band situations but generally stayed true to the format of emotionally powerful (yet catchy) songs in an aggressive guitar-trio setting. He was born in upstate New York but began his career in St. Paul, Minnesota, where he attended Macalester College. He applied for a job at a local record store, as did two other young musicians, singer/drummer Grant Hart and bassist Greg Norton. The latter got the job but the three wound up together in a soon-to-be-important band, Husker Du. Taking their name from a '70s board game, Husker Du were initially part of the hardcore movement but one of the first to grow beyond it; their seminal double album Zen Arcade (1984) touched on psychedelic, acoustic, free jazz and power pop. Mould and Hart split the singing and writing, with Hart getting known for the poppier tunes and Mould the more intense rockers (though there was plenty of overlap, and Mould wound up writing their closest thing to a mainstream hit, "Makes No Sense At All"). The band moved up to theater shows after signing with Warner Brothers, but had an acrimonious breakup in 1979, in part because Mould embraced sobriety before his bandmates did. Mould's solo debut Workbook had a reflective acoustic sound but by 1992 he was ready for another band, forming Sugar with bassist David Barbe and drummer Malcolm Travis, formerly of Boston new wave acts Human Sexual Response and The Zulus. At times even more aggressive than Husker Du, the band was also more commercially successful during the grunge era; its debut Copper Blue (1992) was the best-selling album of Mould's career. Yet he became disenchanted and broke the group up in 1996, concentrating for a time on solo acoustic shows. The 1998 album The Last Dog and Pony Show was intended to be a farewell to the guitar-band electric format. Having gone public as gay, Mould began DJ'ing at clubs and let that electronic/dance influence into the 2002 album Modulate, a direction that proved far more controversial with his fans than any revelations about his sexuality. More surprisingly, he was an avid wrestling fan and worked for a time as a scriptwriter for World Championship Wrestling. With the 2005 album Body of Song Mould re-embraced his more characteristic guitar-driven sound; soon after he began working regularly with the lineup of bassist Jason Narducy and drummer Jon Wurster (both also touring members of Superchunk). Still together as of 2019, this trio outlasted both Husker Du and Sugar combined. In 2019, they released Sunshine Rock, an album reflecting Mould's desire to make more life-affirming music.
