"Intolerance also includes a version of Grant's previously released, and much
acclaimed "2541" (refering to the address of Husker Du's first studio/home),
a song of huge spirit and humanity and utterly irresistable too. But the whole
album really is a glistening treasure trove of ideas and captivating music, and
by golly, it's got hooks a plenty too. Ten marvellous tracks in all.
By Bucketfull standards, my interview with Grant was pretty short, but then so
was his time - he was on a interview conveyor-belt today and off to the
Netherlands tomorrow, nevertheless he was gracious enough to request extra
time to talk further when his manager started to get fidgety as other
interviewers began to queue up outside (my apologies to them). In any event,
I think we managed to cover the new album and his post-Husker career pretty
extensively.
B.O.B.:
"All Of My Senses" is very reminiscent (vocally) of Eric Burdon.
G.H.:
Really, I thought "Roller Rink" on side two sounded more like the Animals. It
could be all the keyboards.
B.O.B.:
So you've got some time for Eric Burdon and the Animals?
G.H.:
Oh yeah. NB: Grant has also been known to cover a Love song live).
B.O.B.:
Since Husker Du, have you been a fairly prolific songwriter and if so, why did
you choose to put "2541" on the album, as it came out as a single about a
year ago?
G.H.:
The EP actually happened while we were working on the album but then SST were
having real difficulties and we couldn't finish the album. The basic tracks
were recorded in June, 1988, it was half finished for a year.
B.O.B.:
Did you work on the tracks in the interim?
G.H.:
I was doing production work that I didn't have to go into a studio to do -
making tapes of different orders of songs. It's a better album for it......
but I didn't quite need all that time.
B.O.B.:
I really liked "The Main", at the end of side one, it has a real sea-shanty
feel to it.
G.H.:
That was another one augmented by background vocals. The instrumentation on
that is just a little bar room piano and drone organ - afterwards the organ
seems to suggest pipes, and the singalong chorus is very atmospheric.
B.O.B.:
So "The Main" - is it to do with the sea, as in 'the Spanish Main'?
G.H.:
It's more or less a drug song.
B.O.B.:
I thought it was one or the other, or a double entendre perhaps?
G.H.:
Yes! It's a triple entendre actually. It's a sea shanty and during the
Spanish-American war there was the battle-cry "Remember the Maine" - the Maine
was blown up in Havana harbour, which precipitated the war, and then it's
having to do with the circulatory system too.
B.O.B.:
So does the ship The Maine have any significance for you?
G.H.:
No it was just lyrically suggestive.
B.O.B.:
How close do you think your album comes, when compared to the sounds you had
in your head?
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G.H.:
As close as the budget allowed. There was really no budget to make this,
compared to the last two Husker Du albums.
B.O.B.:
If you had the budget, where would the differences have been?
G.H.:
I might have tried more alternate versions or more time mixing. When I hear
the album, there are just a couple of spaces where I know I bollocks-ed it
up doing a couple of punches on the board.
B.O.B.:
Would you have attempted to do any of the songs on this album with Husker Du?
G.H.:
"Now That You Know Me" is the only song on the album that was ever played live
by Husker Du. It wasn't a bad version, but I like mine better - so many times
with Husker Du the subtlety was lost; it was like cracking an egg with a
sledgehammer sometimes.
B.O.B.:
And if you'd tried to record those songs with Husker Du, would they have been
changed too much by the other members for your liking?
G.H.:
Considering what the result is, yes. It's really easy for me to say yes,
because playing all the instruments myself I had the advantage of doing it
as close as possible without translating it to another person. A lot of
times with that band, if the structure was beig played right, it was
passable enough - but that's a compromise you always go through - I do that
with my new band, Nova Mob......
B.O.B.:
But first, what happened to your other band, The Swallows?
G.H.:
The Swallows had been playing for about a month and a half before Husker Du
broke up. But the problem with going from being the drummer with Husker Du
to being the drummer with anything else is that you have to be twice as
good a drummer - that's the way things are. [So Grant took a break from the
Swallows] Five months later, I came back in again and played some rhythm
guitar, instead of drums - which was perfect for me. By then those fellows
had already writtten an entire set which they were performing by themselves,
and they really had an identity of their own without me and they seemed more
interested in their own things instead of doing my songs - gotta love 'em
for that, you can't take that away from them. So in order to look myself
in the face I had to bow out of that band......
B.O.B.:
Did you feel that you might end up putting those people in the same position
into the same position you were put in, when you were in Husker Du?
G.H.:
Exactly, exactly! Had I not been there I would have been oblivious to however
big a bastard I would have been to them; but if I had not been there they
wouldn't have had these other pressures of being "Grant's band".
B.O.B.:
Ok, tell me about the new band, Nova Mob.
G.H.:
It's Kevin, Tom, Mike and Grant; I'm singing and playing rhythm guitar.
B.O.B.:
And keyboards? (Grant had been playing piano just before we started talking).
G.H.:
That we'll work in. We don't want it to appear that I'm some kinda jack-of-
all-trades straightaway, especially after abandoning the drums so recently. I
wrote all the songs for Husker Du on guitar and piano...
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I didn't write any on drums!! Right now it's fun to be in a, quote, Garage,
unquote, band again. It actually reminds me in some ways of the first couple
of years of Husker Du.
B.O.B.:
Where did the other guys come from? Did you know them from any of the bands
you've worked with (as a producer) like the Magnolias or Otto's Chemical
Lounge?
G.H.:
No, although the bass player of The Swallows was in the Magnolias. He was the
biggest reason I wanted to work with the Magnolias in the first place, and
now that he's out of the Magnolias, I really have no fondness for that band
at all.**
B.O.B.:
If the new album was mostly recorded over a year ago, does that mean you've got
lots of new material ready to roll?
G.H.:
About two albums' worth. In August, Nova Mob presented an opera that I wrote,
called "The Last Days Of Pompeii", we were a bit under-rehearsed but it went
over really well. I think that would make a really nice, pretentious first
album by Nova Mob.
B.O.B.:
Is the band Nova Mob something separate to what you're doing solo or are you
now part of Nova Mob and that's it?
G.H.:
I have every intent to exercise the same freedoms as they are granted within
the non-existent confines of Nova Mob. Nova Mob goes out from the centre,
not inwards. Kevin, the guitar player, has written mostly musical things
because I consider myself primarily a lyricist, in that I consider I do it
better.....
B.O.B.:
Better than........?
G.H.:
Than everybody else (laughs).
B.O.B.:
So what about your music then?
G.H.:
I guess in putting together a song I take interesting words and make the music
more interesting by them. I don't pull out fancy chords or anything like that
- and the good thing about that is that a lot of people can sing along and play
along, not that I'm into Mitch Miller records or anything like that. Like
Chuck Berry says: "I have no kick against modern jazz, unless they try to
play it too darned fast, and change the beauty of the melody, and make it
sound just like a symphony". It's like..... rock'n'roll, man... how many
rock'n'roll songs in the world are the same three chords - practically all of
them.
B.O.B.:
How much musical training did you have?
G.H.:
A little bit more than I display. I started out playing piano - everybody in
my family took some piano lessons; after a couple of months the piano teacher
said I should wait because I was playing everything by ear and I wasn't
reading anything - I just memorised what she was playing. Then I was in the
high school band, and youth symphony and that sort of thing. Then by the
time I was 17 I was in Husker Du which was a very great musical education -
good and bad.Things to avoid as well as things to seek.
But Grant Hart's "Intolerance" is definitely something you should go out and
seek, without delay. I'd put it in my top five albums released in the last
year, without having to think about it, and if I were to really caste my mind
backwards....... well, shit, we could be here all night!
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SIDESTEPPING THE SLEDGEHAMMER