When Salon tells Superchunk vocalist and guitarist Mac McCaughan that the band's forthcoming record, "What A Time To Be Alive," was a "comfort" to listen to, he immediately bursts out laughing.
"I don't think of it as a super-comforting record, but I'm glad that it in some way does that," he says.
McCaughan's surprised reaction is somewhat understandable. After all, "What A Time To Be Alive" is a raucous record nodding to '80s punk ("Reagan Youth," the breakneck hardcore thrash "Clouds Of Hate") and distorted rock 'n' roll (the bashing "Lost My Brain").
However, the album also articulates the palpable anger, anxiety and frustration saturating American society in the months since the 2016 presidential election.
The album kicks off with the lyrics, "You brushed your teeth and found your calling/At the bottom of a swamp," while two lines from the song "I Got Cut" are rendered in all-caps on a record label lyric sheet: "ALL THESE OLD MEN WON’T DIE TOO SOON."
On a more nuanced note, the fuzzy power-pop tune "Erasure" is a strident declaration of solidarity with the marginalized: "Hate so graceless and so cavalier/We don’t just disappear/Shifting shapes you’re just an auctioneer/But we’re still here." At any rate, these cathartic invective bursts provide solace and underline the idea that anyone infuriated by what's going on isn't alone.
Salon talked to McCaughan and bassist/vocalist Laura Ballance about "What A Time To Be Alive" (which is due Feb. 16 via Merge Records, the label the the pair co-founded in 1989) in late November, right as the Congressional tax bill debates were heating up. Ballance especially had politics on the mind during the call. "It's funny how there's normal life, and then there's your political anxiety life," she says with a laugh. "It keeps you feeling busy."
As a musician, what was it like creating the music on "What A Time To Be Alive"?
Mac McCaughan: In some ways, it was easy, because the tone of the music and the vibe of the whole thing dictated itself, based on where the songs were coming from. There were fewer choices that needed to be made. [For example] there's no keyboards on this record. "Foolish" was the first record that had keyboards on it, and this is the first time since then that there hasn't been keyboards on a Superchunk record.
Part of that was just that the songs call for being super straightforward and guitar-heavy, and in some ways relating to the hardcore and punk rock that we all grew up listening to. But also the tone of the songs, and what they're about, means less flourishes are required. I could take any record and sit there and add keyboards to it all day, 'cause it's fun and it sounds neat. In general, those things make stuff prettier. This is more about being pretty straightforward and . . . "aggressive" is the wrong word, but aggro, I guess.
Laura Ballance: When we record, we all make up our parts; we play together. We [had] heard demos with Mac singing. He writes all the lyrics. [But] when we record, we're playing the music. We know the spirit of what the songs are about, but while we're actually doing it, it's not really . . . I don't know. I'm not thinking about what the lyrics are going to say so much. [Laughs.] It's hard to play bass politically, but I do as much as I can. [Laughs.]
The record is very on the surface. It's strident and concise. You're getting to the point of what you want to say.
McCaughan: It's hopefully to the point. And you definitely run the risk of something being obvious or trite, or "Yeah, duh, we all already think that." You want to avoid that kind of feeling as a listener. At the same time, people say, "Well, what do you get out of music or art at a time like this?" For me as a listener, and me as a musician, one of the things is feeling connected to other people who feel the same way. As a musician, being able to express something, in a way, is also helpful. Hopefully, that's what the record is about. Like, what do you do with yourself when everything feels like it's so fucked up, you know?
Did these songs come together in any particular discrete time period?
McCaughan: I probably started writing a couple in 2015, before the election, and then the rest in the period after the election. We didn't have a plan, like, "Oh, next year we're going to make a Superchunk record," but I think sometime late in the year, I emailed everyone and said, "I have all these songs, and can write a couple more, and then we'll have enough for an album. If we can find time to record them, let's do it."
Everyone was amenable to that, and it worked with [drummer] Jon [Wurster]'s busy touring schedule; he's often out with Mountain Goats and Bob Mould. We did a few songs back in February or March [2017] and did the rest in July, in a couple short sessions. It worked out really well that way. The record's pretty concise, so we weren't looking to stretch out and make a double album, sprawling statement. It's more just like, "Here's some immediate takes on what we're feeling like." [Laughs.]
The record does feel like a cathartic burst — like, here's what I'm feeling, here's what's going on.
McCaughan: I tried not to overthink things too much and go back over lyrics too much. I tried to keep things pretty immediate. Because of how we work these days, the recordings tend to have that feeling, because it's maybe the fourth or fifth time that we're ever playing the song together. I like that energy, and I think it works especially well for this record.
Ballance: That's mostly the way that we've always recorded. We get it done quickly. We may do three takes of a song. We might do five. We might do six. We don't labor too much over it, and I think that makes it feel more cathartic. The newness of us playing it, having not played it very many times, and being on the edge of falling apart, stays in there. We don't continue working on it until it's perfect. And we do it all together. We don't record the drums separately, and then the bass, and then the guitars.
That energy especially is palpable on "What A Time To Be Alive," although it's intangible. There's a driving engine and a motor in the background pushing things forward. I feel like that's missing from a lot of records many times.
McCaughan: Part of that comes from playing with the same people for 25 years — 26 years since Jon [Wurster] joined, I guess. Everyone knows how to play with each other. When I'm writing the songs, I can tell what's going to work once we're all playing it together. I feel like that really helps with what you're talking about. I made a solo record a couple years ago [2015's "Non-Believers"], but when I started writing these songs, my immediate thought was, "These are Superchunk songs."
You'll talk to some musicians, and they'll write songs and say, "Well, I'll figure out where they go later." I've found that fascinating — not all songs can be retrofitted to a specific project.
McCaughan: I think that's true. Some can be more vague, but especially with this kind of energy and knowing the kind of drummer Jon is, it seemed like the perfect fit.
Mac, I like what you told The A.V. Club in an interview, that you hesitate to call it a political record, "because it implies that you are offering some solutions." There really aren't any on the record. But it definitely feels like a warning shot.
McCaughan: I feel like it's more emotional and more about the two parallel things, of, like . . . Part of your life is spent resisting, and calling your senators and trying to fight back against what feels like creeping authoritarianism. And then [there's] the other part of your life, that you still have to be living. You still have to get up in the morning, make breakfast and make sure the kids get to school. My wife and I both work, and everyone has to keep doing what they're doing. So how do you get to the place where you can even go to sleep in order to get up and do what you have to do? [Laughs.] You know?
And you need to have that balance. You can't let yourself get so bogged down and upset that you can't function. And you have kids, too. You have them to take care of as well.
McCaughan: When you go around wishing harm upon people who you feel like are destroying the country, that's a bad place to be in your head. [Laughs.] And you also don't want to convey that to your kids or the people around you, you know? [Laughs.] That's not a great thing to teach kids. And so it's a lot of trying to harness all this shit into something positive.
Laura, when you did read Mac's lyrics and see what he was saying, what was your reaction?
Ballance: I had heard the lyrics in the demos he sent around before we recorded. All the lyrics weren't totally done, but I knew the gist of what the record was. It's an angry record and a sad record. It's a punk rock record. That's my favorite kind of record to play, and to be a part of. It's exciting to me. It feels really important compared to our records that have been about our personal relationships [or about] more mild things compared to what is going on right now. It feels like a record that's about the world, and not about us.
As a music listener, have you found yourself going back to any artists or songs this entire year?
McCaughan: I'm always listening to stuff from all eras of my life. I'll always put on a New Order record. But I like listening to things that'll take me out of the moment that we're all living in. Records from Africa that I didn't know about or dance music that's unfamiliar to me. Electronic music things that are a little bit outside of my wheelhouse will get me thinking more about the music and less about other things that my brain normally goes to.
In terms of protest music, I think reggae is a great source of the kind of art that people made under dire circumstances. Or, obviously, someone like Fela [Kuti]. I do love listening to that stuff, but I don't feel like I've listened to something in particular in reaction to what's happening politically.
Ballance: I have found myself turning to a lot of old hip-hop. I can't stop listening to Missy Elliott. [Laughs.] Digging through old records from — I guess a lot of them are from the '90s — that are comforting to me. That is something I've been doing. But also I want to listen to music that's fun. I want to listen to music that makes me want to dance. When I get frustrated, I feel this sense of physical pent-up-ness. I need something to make me release that frustration.
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