BITTER SWEET SYMPHONY
The second-unlikeliest Creation hand to re-form in 2025, SUGAR gave the perma-troubled BOB MOULD the success his songs had always deserved. But grunge-fatigue, post-Kurt syndrome and natural angst poured sand in their gears, and their dissolution drove a wedge between them. "None of that is on anybody else but me," Mould tells KEITH CAMERON
THEY CALLED IT ‘THE YEAR PUNK broke’. Sonic Youth’s late-summer 1991 European tour supported by Nirvana was a tipping point: the moment underground rock became a mainstream commodity.
At festivals in Germany and Holland, the slot between the imperial gods of avant-noise and the Seattle insurgents was filled by one man and his 12-string acoustic guitar. Tough gig, but Bob Mould knew the road. As one-third of ’80s Minneapolis band Hüsker Dü alongside Grant Hart and Greg Norton, he’d helped build it. His DNA was all over Nevermind’s mix of power trio angst and distorted pop euphoria.
“I guess there were a number of bands who fabricated this asphalt, that led to Nirvana,” Mould chuckles today. “At least I helped with the raw materials.”
At that point, Bob Mould had no band, no management and no record label. He was almost four years removed from Hüsker Dü’s unhappy January 1988 split, during which time he’d made two solo albums for Virgin with heavy rhythm dudes Anton Fier (The Feelies) and Tony Maimone (Pere Ubu). Neither Workbook nor Black Sheets Of Rain impacted sufficiently beyond his core fanbase to recoup Virgin’s massive outlay.
“So I took my guitar and moved on,” says Mould. “I was fighting to stay in business, and the best way was to tour. 1991 was a constant stream of solo shows, interacting with audiences. Being in the middle of it each night provokes a lot of ideas.”
Meeting this writer in late ’91 before playing the Camden Underworld, Mould confided he’d gone to Atlantic, A&M and Geffen with demos of his new songs. The response was “lukewarm”. But A&M’s Julie Panebianco had suggested he contact Alan McGee at Creation Records. The outspoken label boss and the reserved Mould were an incongruous pairing, yet McGee considered Hüsker Dü’s pulverising cover of The Byrds’ Eight Miles High “beyond genius”, and felt affronted at Mould’s diminished status. “Bob Mould had literally disappeared off the map,” he later recalled. “We knew that was wrong. I loved his new demos. It was a no-brainer.”
Twelve months later, Alan McGee phoned Bob Mould to tell him Copper Blue, his debut album for Creation, was a UK Top 10 hit. “I