How about having three songwriters in the group, does that make it harder to put an album together? "Not really," says Greg. "It's because we're Hüsker Dü, not Grant Hart and two unlisted sidemen or Bob Mould and two unlisted sidemen. There are a lot of songs the three of us have written that aren't suited to the group." "When you get ready to make a record, you have to look at what everybody has," Bob amplifies. "One thing that was nice about this record was just the amount of jamming we were doing to find out what the common vocabulary of the instruments was. And from that you can whittle down what songs are going to work and which are better just left in the notebooks. Now there were real separate styles on Candy Apple Grey; it was real rfagmented. It was so damned depressing, bleak. Candy Apple Grey was the result of four-and-a-half years of not stoping to take a look. We were due for a real bleak album and that was it." "Yeah," adds Grant, "we get all these dark-circled faces coming up saying, 'I really liked that album.'"
But the fame is growing. What about the possibility that you may find yourselves with a hit on your hands? "I think every song we wrote is a hit," Bob says, dead serious. "Maybe not compared to Bon Jovi, but I think we write a lot better songs than ninety-nine percent of the bands that are going right now. To be honest, there are a couple of songs on each album that we pay extra attention to, some songs that are just begging to sound a certain way. Like on Flip Your Wig, 'Makes No Sense At All' and 'Green Eyes' were the two songs we spent a lot of time on, to make sure they were impeccable by our standards." And they have finally reached the point where their songs are getting covered: To my utter surprise, the band says that Robert Palmer encores with a version of ZZ Top's "Legs" that segues into that masterpiece of controlled chaos "New Day Rising." I'd like to hear that, although I guess I'm not prepared to sit through an entire Robert Palmer show to do so.
"I don't know," Bob muses as soundcheck draws near. "Money hasn't changed the way we do it. We stuck through the lean years and went through the things that kill other bands." Does it get easier as you go along? "No. Your time changes. You're a little more pressed. You spend more time answering mail or administering the business end of it. We had our own label for a while, Reflex, and
"And while doing that," Grant sums up, "we've maintained a great relationship with our art."
Which is just what they manage to do that night at the Uptown Theatre, a giddily rococo joint that has seen the cream of Kansas City jazz, from Andy Kirk to Jay McShann to Charlie Parker, under its roof. The older, drinking-age crowd is downstairs, while the youngsters fill the balcony, and this leads to a very weird incident at the show's end. Everybody's pooped so the post-gig socializing is held to a minimum, although fans are accommodated. Grant and I are walking around as the room empties, and I see that the T-shirts are only twelve dollars. "I'm going to get one of those," I say, but Grant dissuades me, saying he'll get me one. "You sure? I can buy one," I say. As we stand there. I fail to notice the mob that's held back by the security. For some reason the kiddies have to be kept upstairs for a while (until the liquor is put away?), and as Grant and I turn to go back inside the hall, somebody yells, "Okay!" and the mob swarms down the stairs, catching us up in the flood of bodies. They're lining up to buy T-shirts, while almost trampling one of the guys in the band that has,
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