Al: Where did the name Husker Du come from?
Bob: It's a board game that was real popular in the '60s,
and it's Swedish for "do you remember?"
Andy: Any particular reason why you chose it?
Bob: Pretty ambiguous. It's not like a punk name or it's
not like a new wave name. It's just a name so people know
what band it is.
Andy: 'that's Husker Du!...'
Bob: Instead of, like, 'oh they're Big Death Blood Excret-
ion, so they must be punk so let's go see them.'
Al: Where do you feel you fit in with the punk movement?
Bob: Oh, I guess we used to fit in real good with the
hardcore thing a couple of years ago or even last year, but
now I don't know, it's changing. Everybody's doing the
fast stuff and everybody's starting to sound the same at
it, so we're not trying to move away from it; we're just
moving in our own direction.
Al: I want to ask you about "Deadly Skies." It shows,
to me anyway, sort of a feeling of helplessness about
nuclear war.
Bob: Yeah, it also deals a lot with people who see pro-
testers walking around carrying signs that someone else
painted for them to try to get attention for a cause
they know nothing about. As far as the whole thing with
nuclear war is concerned, I don't think that anybody's
even come up with a half-baked idea of how to cut down on
the chances for nuclear war. It's like, 'Oh, let's cut
back the weapons.' Well, what's the difference between the
40,000, which there is now, and 500? It's like the was was
over and everybody lost the second they made the first one.
We all lost right then. There's nothing we can do about it-
it's fucked.
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Andy: When you said earlier about how a lot of the hardcore
bands are starting to sound real thrashed-out and all the
same, do you feel that your earlier work may have inspired
them? Your live EP was really wild.
Bob: Well, that'd be nice to think that we did. There's
nothing wrong with that; we're sort of flattered by it.
We're not saying that stuff sucks, it's just that we're
doing something else now. We're still doing high-energy
stuff.
Al: Which of your records do you feel most proud of?
Bob: The one that hasn't come out yet. We have a double
album coming out in April.*
Al: You did quite a few songs I haven't heard before. Are
those going to be on the album?
Bob: Yeah. Most of those are the big ones off the album.
There's about 25 on the new one. "Masochism World" is the
new one with the weird stops in it.
Al: What's "Real World" about? Do you think that anar-
chists are living intheir own world and don't really fit
in?
Bob: No, I just think people who pretend they're anarchists
are living in someone else's world. Anarchists are fine
if they really believe in what they're doing. A lot of
people don't understand the different thoughts that go into
anarchy. The kids just put the T-shirts on.
Andy: Speaking of anarchists, Crucifix was here today.
Bob: We know those guys. They're into the thing.
Al: They started a commune. Andy: They want to be British.
Bob: Whatever they want to do, man, just as long as they
believe in it. I don;t have to. Just let me be.
Andy: Do you ever get put down by people? Like I know
Tesco Vee has, you claim, put you down, but has anyone else,
like the people at Maximum Rocknroll put you down?
Bob: I have an awfully big ego. It wouldn't bother me.
I know what I'm doing. Fuck the rest of them. If they
like it, fine. If they don't, fine too.
Al: How did you get hooked up with SST?
Bob: That was something that was pretty much inevitable.
We worked with New Alliance and we've done records by our-
selves. When "Metal Circus" came out, we recorded it out
there (in California), with Spot and stayed at SST and those
gyuys said 'We'll put this one out if you want' and they
said they could get it out when they promised to get it out
and they did- well, it was 2 months late. We had been plan-
ning to work with them for a long time; it was just a mat-
ter of which record.
Al: Have you toured out of the country at all?
Bob: No, we're supposed to go to England next year.
We've got a big thing in the NME next week.
Andy: I wonder how you're going to do in England be-
cause they're really trendsetters over there.
Bob: Yeah, well maybe we'll set a new trend!
Andy: Are you going to go with The Minutemen?
Bob: No, I don't know who we'd be going with. Maybe The
Minutemen or the Meat Puppets. You ought to hear their new
album. It's fuckin' great! It's commercial sounding, but
it's so cool, like their folkies stuff, like the Neil
Young-type stuff. It's like that type of stuff crossed
with Elvis Presley. It's like the Meat Puppets did a bunch
or acid and went and jammed with Elvis and Neil Young.
That's what it sounds like.
Andy: What were your influences?
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