Mould: Don't Hold Breath For Huskers Reunion By Jonathan Cohen, N.Y.
With such iconic alternative rock acts as Gang Of Four, the Pixies and Slint having re-formed over the past year, speculation has run rampant about which old favorite could be next. Paul Westerberg told Billboard.com he tried unsuccessfully to reunite the surviving Replacements for a charity show in Minneapolis last October, but fellow Twin Cities-based trio Husker Du seems unlikely to even entertain such a move.
Asked if the prospect of a reunion by the Huskers, who broke up in late 1987, holds interest to him, guitarist/vocalist Bob Mould tells Billboard.com, "None whatsoever. To me, that's just best left where it is. It was a period of my life that was great at the time. A lot of crazy things have been said and a lot of stupid things have been done. It's probably just best left where it is."
Mould is under no illusion about the financial windfall a Huskers reunion could produce for himself, bassist Grant Hart and drummer Greg Norton. But says he is more than satisfied working on such projects as his upcoming Yep Roc album, "Body of Song," and his ongoing Washington, D.C.-based DJ series, Blowoff. On the fall tour in support of "Body of Song," he will play Huskers material in a live band context for the first time as a solo artist.
"I can't imagine giving up what I have right now, which is being able to go out on tour with guys I like and am looking forward to playing with," he says. "I can't imagine giving up my DJ gig or the life I've spent years working toward for that kind of thing, which would clearly be a lucrative situation."
At the same aforementioned Minneapolis show, which raised proceeds for cancer-stricken Soul Asylum member Karl Mueller, Mould reunited with Hart for the first time in nearly 17 years to perform the group's "Never Talking To You Again" and "Hardly Getting Over It."
"Grant got my cell number somehow that afternoon and called me," Mould says. "I said, 'Sure. This cause is bigger than anything.' We played together and talked for a few minutes and that was pretty much it. There's no animosity, but I just don't want to go there."
Like the Replacements, the Husker Du back catalog has yet to receive the lavish reissue treatment enjoyed by many of its contemporaries. The situation is complicated by band members' differing ideas about how to handle such an undertaking and strained relations with its former label, SST.
"Getting the three people in that band to agree on anything was hard then and is harder now," Mould admits. "SST has not provided a [royalties] accounting in at least seven years. But I keep seeing CDs in the stores, and people keep telling me they're buying them. In my estimation, they're in breach of contract. I could probably put those records out tomorrow on [Mould's label] Granary and there's nothing they could do about it [laughs]."
"Three years ago I tried to create an arrangement where I would get the other two guys to sign off and get out of the way, so I could proceed with trying to get the catalog back and do something that would be beneficial for all of us," Mould continues. "I sort of wanted to move forward unencumbered. I had an idea about how to do that, but they weren't amenable to it, so that was the last time that got looked at."
SST founder Greg Ginn did not respond to a request for comment on the subject.
http://www.billboard.com/bb/daily/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000964015
