See a Little Light

by Bob Mould

  We all make our own beds, and when the alarm clock goes off, it’s time to wake up.

  * * *

  Hüsker Dü was scheduled to play an acoustic miniset as part of a benefit show organized by our old friend John Giorno for the AIDS Treatment Project. It was to be at the huge old Beacon Theater in New York, alongside Laurie Anderson, Philip Glass, William Burroughs, and host John Waters. But I called Giorno and explained the situation to him, and said that we couldn’t do the show. I knew John was very disappointed, I could hear it in his voice. The next thing I knew, Grant had started driving to New York City—for what reason, I don’t know. I called up our attorney, George Regis, and said, “Under no circumstances is he to be allowed in that building.” I wasn’t sure if that could actually be done, barring him from the theater, but if I had any control over the outcome, I wasn’t going to let it happen. I wanted to stop him from getting on that stage—Grant wasn’t Hüsker Dü. It turned out to be a moot point: he didn’t even make it to the show on time.

  After Christmas the Hüsker Dü family was at a crossroads. Casey Macpherson, our tour manager, suggested we organize Grant’s family and friends and stage an intervention. Casey had experience with people with drug and alcohol problems, and he mentioned Hazelden, a world-class substance-abuse facility in nearby Center City, Minnesota. The intervention sounded promising. I’m not going to pretend that my sole motivation was to get Grant healthy; it was also a way to address the problems within the band. I sensed things were over, but there was no way to know for sure unless we confronted Grant directly.

  We gathered up a handful of key people in Grant’s life, like Abbie Kane, who worked at Twin/Tone, and other people Grant confided in and was close to. We didn’t include the Run Westy Run crew, since I felt they were part of the problem. I thought Ivan was part of the problem too, so he wasn’t going to be part of the solution either. We didn’t call Grant’s parents, but we talked to a couple of his siblings, which turned out to be the big mistake: his sister stooged it off; the intervention never happened; the opportunity was gone, and so was Grant.

  I was upset, disgusted, and disappointed. I felt let down, both personally and professionally, by a partner who could no longer hold up his responsibilities to the business we’d worked so hard and so long to build. But Hüsker Dü was not only the livelihoods of the three people onstage, but of several people who depended on us for their paychecks. Grant was also letting down Lou, Casey, Bill, Josiah, everyone who worked for and cared about the band. My bottom line: Are we closing up shop? Are we going to take a vacation to heal? What are we going to do?

  * * *

  January 26, 1988. Greg and I decide that we need to sit down with Grant and talk, to figure out our collective future. This is the story that has never been told. This is the story of the last time the three members of Hüsker Dü sat together in a room.

  Greg and I drive separately to South St. Paul to meet with Grant at his parents’ house. Greg and I arrive and Grant’s there, but so are his parents. So we’re having a band meeting with the five of us around a homespun oval wood table, tucked up against the window of the small kitchen. Is this an awkward situation? Yes, most definitely. Grant’s mom is being cordial, his dad a little cranky as usual. Beverages are offered, How was everybody’s Christmas?, small talk, blah blah blah.

  We open it up with “Grant, how are you doing, what are you doing, what do you want to do, what are we doing here?” Grant takes a hard draw on his cigarette, and slowly says, “Well…” That was always Grant’s tell—this sort of pensive cigarette draw and then “Well…” Anytime he did that, I prepared myself for a bunch of words that wouldn’t really add up to anything.

  He says, “You know, I just, you know, I really want to get back to work.”

  I say, “Well, there’s this problem. Have you talked with your parents about what’s happening?”

  Grant’s mother takes the floor. His dad is just sitting there, not adding anything, just grousing a bit. “I think everything’s OK,” she says. “I think it was sort of like—it seemed like a cold almost. I think he’s been good—he was sick for about a week, but, I think, it seemed like a cold or something.”

  At this point, Grant wants to have a sidebar with me, so he and I go from the kitchen into the dining room, leaving Greg to sit with the parents. Grant asks, “What’s the advance for the next record?”

  “One hundred seventy-five thousand, Grant.”

  “We just need to get going. We need to put all of this behind us,” he says in a shaky but hopeful tone, “and we need to get back in the studio. That’s going to be the best thing for us.”

  I flatly reply, “I think we should go back into the other room.” We go back in, and the next statement from his mom is the one that does it for me.

  She says, “You know, what I think might be really good is if—I just think that there’s too much work. I think if you just played on the weekends and weren’t working so hard…”

  I flash back to that summer after my first year of college, when I didn’t have anything going, didn’t have a steady job, didn’t have a dorm room, and I stayed with Grant’s family. I ate at that same table with these people many times, and the poetry of it is not lost on me. The same exact table. And now it’s come to this.

  By this time Greg is turning three shades of grey. I’m just sitting there like, Oh my fucking God, this might be the most dysfunctional situation I’ve ever been in, and I grew up in one hell of a dysfunctional home. I push away from the kitchen table, begin to rise, and say, “I think I’m done here. Good seeing everybody. I’m going home to Pine City now.”

  Greg follows me out and asks what we’re we going to do. I say, “I’m going to come down to Red Wing and get my stuff in a day or two. I’ll talk to you then. I’m just going home now.”

  That was it. It was over.

  * * *

  On the long drive back to the farm, I kept thinking, I can’t believe that just happened. This was the most absurd ending possible. It’s definitely not very punk rock, and not even very rock and roll. It’s just pathetic. As soon as I got home, I called up George Regis and firmly said, “George, I’m done.”

  After the Beacon phone call, George had to know something was coming. He understood the gravity of the situation. This was not just an impulsive “I’m pissed, I quit” that happens so often with bands and then blows over. No, the weight, he could feel it coming down the phone line. He didn’t try to talk me out of it.

  My first question was “What do we do?”

  “Well,” he said matter-of-factly, “the vehicle is that you are the leaving member, and under the terms of the agreement, I will draft the letter that states you are no longer a member of Hüsker Dü. Warner can act in one of three ways: they can keep you as a solo artist, they can keep the remaining two members and replace you, or they can terminate the agreement.”

  I understood and asked him to send the “leaving member” letter to Warner, Grant, and Greg.

  The next day, I drove down to get my equipment from Greg’s place in Red Wing. Greg asked me, “What do you think?”

  I said, “I’m done with the whole thing.”

  “What about replacing Grant, what about the two of us continuing on?”

  “I don’t think so. I’m taking my stuff and I’m going back to the farm. See you.”

  The last order of business was dialing Grant’s phone number at his parents’ house. This was a day, maybe two, after our band meeting. Grant’s dad picked up the phone. I said, “Hello, Mr. Hart, it’s Bob. Is Grant available?”

  “No, he’s not available; is there anything you want me to tell him?”

  “Yes, you can tell him that I’m leaving the band, and I hope he gets better soon, and to watch the mailbox for a letter that should show up in a couple of days.”

  And that’s how it ended.

  By 1988 Hüsker Dü was a no-win situation and I had to walk away. I was ready to move on to the next part of my life, e
ven if I didn’t have one clue as to what that might be. And, selfishly, I wanted to keep my professional reputation intact.

  Because the breakup of the band was so public, some people paint Grant’s heroin problem as the reason for the end of Hüsker Dü. Sure, it was part of it, but the writing had been on the wall for eighteen months. The Columbia incident was just the moment that made me realize it was time to walk away.

  I had zero interest in dealing with the other guys ever again. The Hüsker Dü estate needed to be liquidated. Most of the physical assets—mainly T-shirts—went to Linda Clark’s office in California and were sold to other vendors. Memorabilia, press materials, and office documents ended up in Greg’s garage in Red Wing. It’s funny—after all those years of work, when it was all over, I couldn’t be bothered to keep track of all that stuff. I just let it go.

  Massive Leasing had piled up some significant assets. I kept my vintage Pultec equalizers while Steve Fjelstad sold off the larger pieces and disbursed the proceeds among the three partners in the company.

  The band was done. All of a sudden, it was mighty quiet. I hunkered down at the farm with Mike. I didn’t answer the phone. I just let the people from the newspapers leave messages. I bought a satellite dish and watched a lot of pro wrestling. I went to the grocery store every few days. I cooked a lot of fish-cake casserole. I even applied for a day job at a nearby state park working at the gift shop and giving guided tours. I started losing my mind a little bit, wondering what the fuck I was going to do with the rest of my life.

  Eventually I had a breakthrough.

  CHAPTER 12

  I was doing a lot of creative writing, journaling, playing music, just trying to come up with ideas to keep myself going, to stay occupied. Mike was commuting daily from the farm to his job in St. Paul. As time went on, he came to dislike the two hours of driving each day and began spending two or three nights a week with friends in the city.

  By March 1988 I had recorded a fair amount of music and put together a demo tape I titled, strangely enough, “Demonstration Tape.” I used a Roland R-8 drum machine and a Roland D-50 synth, and was experimenting with new sounds and arrangements. Some of the songs that I composed during the summer of 1987, “Compositions for the Young and Old” and “Trade,” eventually saw the light of day, but other songs were misguided. The best thing on the demo tape was an electronic cover of “A Sign of the Times,” a 1966 hit for Petula Clark that I rediscovered while digging through a box of my childhood jukebox singles. The majority of the stuff wasn’t focused; it was work ideas. It was me trying to find a sound that had nothing to do with my past.

  Boston band the Zulus signed to Slash, Linda Clark got me the production gig, and in March I went out to Massachusetts to work with them. The Zulus were drummer Malcolm Travis, guitarist Rich Gilbert, singer Larry Bangor—the three of whom had all been in the Boston post-punk band Human Sexual Response—and bassist Rich Cortese. That turned out to be an important connection. Malcolm was a great drummer and easy to work with, but Rich Gilbert and I were at loggerheads much of the time. He was a good guy but was always challenging the direction in which I was steering the project. I think Rich saw the band as contemporaries of the Pixies and Throwing Muses; I thought they were a heavy band, closer to Led Zeppelin than anything else. And in the end, that was how the record came off. I thought it sounded great—and it got me out of debt.

  I’d been in a successful band, but nowhere near the Springsteen level, so my income had been middle-class at best. Not only was I was having trouble selling the Minneapolis house because the neighborhood was going downhill, but my adjustable rate mortgage had ballooned and I was in danger of defaulting and losing the house. I just didn’t have the money. Linda Clark loaned me $10,000 and the Zulus project repaid the loan within three months.

  Professionally, things started to get back on track. I’d wrapped the Zulus project in May and gone back to the farm, and there was a slight bit of sunshine. I made it through the cold winter, I had this production gig under my new belt, and my debt was paid off.

  It was spring and the fruit trees around the house were starting to blossom. Mike had gotten two dozen chickens—some show birds, some work birds—and I’d go out at noon and feed and water them. My favorite thing to do would be to go out in the yard with a paring knife, pick up the fallen fruit, cut it into little chunks, drop it to the ground, and keep walking. Soon I’d have this trail of chickens following me. I would sit in the middle of the field, and the birds would gather around me in a circle, waiting for more fruit. Another favorite pastime was riding my small yard tractor, mowing the two acres of level ground. I would sit in the middle of the field, hearing the train go by once or twice a day and seeing the Amish buggies moving by on the main road.

  One day I went down into the city to run an errand. Driving back I saw a sign for a music store in Forest Lake, a town on 1-35 halfway between Minneapolis and Pine City. I have no idea why, but I pulled off the highway, went to this music store, and saw this blue Fender Stratocaster up on the wall. I asked the guy, “Can I play that guitar?”

  “Sure. What amp do you want?” he said.

  “I don’t need an amplifier, I just want to play it for a minute.”

  This guitar had the most amazing feel. The body was so dead-tight solid, the sound was resonating; it was a maple neck, not rosewood, a completely foreign instrument to me. It sounded amazing even without being plugged in. I turned to the guy and said, “I’ll take it.”

  He said, “You don’t want to p—”

  “No, I don’t need to plug it in. I’ll take it.”

  It was 750 bucks. At the time, that was a lot of money for me to be spending on a guitar. But between the new Yamaha APX acoustic twelve-string I’d just bought in Boston and this blue Strat, it was the beginning of a whole new sound.

  Everything started to open up. I’d written about two hundred pages of poetry and short stories that year. I experienced this outpouring of work. It was an amazing period; I could do no wrong. I still don’t know what the hell was going on. One day, “Wishing Well,” the next day, “Sinners and Their Repentances,” three days later, “Brasilia Crossed with Trenton.” It just didn’t stop—it was an eye-opening experience.

  For so long I had dealt in a wall of guitar distortion. Now I was writing cello parts on the synth, laying out string arrangements on top of acoustic guitars playing these huge open droning chords. The Yamaha twelve-string had an enormous sheen, filled with twinkling overtones that floated above the fundamental tone of the guitar. I called that sound the “bag of dimes” because it sounded like someone shaking a Crown Royal bag full of dimes—ththththththth.

  The acoustic guitar instrumental “Sunspots” was an accidental piece of music. I was trying to learn how to fingerpick, and the passages fell out of my hands and into my lap. It was so different from anything I had ever done before, and that’s why it was the perfect opening track. It was a clear signal of the changes I’d made in my writing and playing style.

  There would be days when I would write words and days when I would write music. The music days, I would start to strum and a motif or pattern would begin to unfold. As soon as that happened, I had an eight-track reel-to-reel ready to go. I’d find the right tempo, lay down a simple click or a standard beat, and hit record.

  As far as lyrics, I’d have a sheet of free verse in front of me, which might contain several thoughts on a general theme: weeds, grass, water, dreams. When I improvised on the guitar, I would begin to sing, rarely sticking to the words in the order they appeared on the sheet, just grabbing lines as they went by: “Strum and sing, wishing well, runs wet and dry, I wish for things I never had. Surrounds and wells up in my eyes, the screaming voice, it lies.” Before, it was four lines to a verse, and they may or may not rhyme clumsily, usually in an A-B-B-A or A-B-A-B scheme. This was more of a spiritual compositional style, with little concern for structure or rhyme.

  I was becoming more aware of the use of vocal sib
ilance and consonance. Sibilance functioned as percussion, and consonance worked when esses landed on cymbals, and tees and plosives and percussives landed in spots that fell in with the guitar. Now I was more in tune with the smaller details, the spaces between words and sounds. This new approach was like nothing I’d ever done before, and it appeared out of nowhere. It wasn’t like I sat down and said, OK, I’m going to work with drones, alternate tunings, free poetry, and plosives as rhythm.

  Environment has always had a great effect on my writing style, and my new rural setting was the spiritual and lyrical basis for this new group of songs, with their open fields and jackrabbits and hens.

  The song “Lonely Afternoon” speaks volumes about my existence up there:

  Well, the silence in this house

  It echoes in this house

  I pull myself together, say, ‘Today I will get out.’

  Mike was spending most of his time working in St. Paul. I was often alone and sometimes depressed, but I was kind of reveling in it. I was making great art, but I had no friends and no social life. My life was living in that house and working on music. I knew no one in town. My only regular human contact came when picking up groceries or going to the post office to pick up mail. Once it snowed two feet in twenty-four hours and the neighbors came by and plowed my driveway; all I said was thank you. I knew the chickens better than I knew my neighbors.

  So I’m sitting up on the farm, watching wrestling and listening to Amish buggies and trains. I’m making shit up, trying to find something that makes me feel good about myself. I’m winding myself down to zero and then spinning back up, gathering energy and momentum. Some nights, I would sit upstairs in that workroom with the sound up so loud I felt like those speakers were as big as the earth and the moon. Closing my eyes and feeling myself shrink as the sound got bigger, I felt as if I were a speck of dust floating in space. The sound was taking me away from everything.