Sorry for the delay on this, all ye geeks for pioneering punk rockers. But here in its entirety is my full interview transcription with Bob Mould, in anticipation of his performance with the Bob Mould Band on Friday, October 16th at Doug Fir. I tried to cover just about everything (save for stirring any more vitriol regarding he and Grant Hart’s relationship in Husker Du).

If you haven’t listened to it yet, I recommend checking out Mould’s new disc Life and Times. It’s a pretty perfect symbiosis of Mould’s evolution as a more tepid songwriter, while tethered to the shackles of his once-ferocious breakneck adolescent output. Plus there are more than a few pretty gnarly riffs. Do it.

Interview after the jump!

Life and Times has been out a few months now, but I was definitely intrigued by your approach to the compositions, in that you placed yourself in the songwriting mindset of your first solo record [Workbook]. Were you trying to find out how far you’d come as a songwriter to create something new, or trying to get back to your roots?
Wow, good question. It sort of fell on me by accident. When I started writing material in the summer of ’07, the first three songs on the record – “Life and Times,” “Breach,” and “City Lights” – all sort of fell out in that order. I felt that it had that Workbook vibe. It wasn’t the kind of thing where I sat down and said, “I’m gonna revisit this record,” but it made itself known really quickly. Once that happened, I went back to Workbook and took a quick look at what I had been doing and thinking, and the circumstances that created Workbook were very different from the ones that created Life and Times. I don’t think I was trying to recreate, but I knew the feel was similar. There’s a more confessional style, a little less pop and a little less rhyming, more of a short-story, or narrative approach, more of an improvisational approach with words.  As far as comparing…I hadn’t really held them side by side in my mind, that’s a good question. Workbook’s a pretty great record [laughs]. I hadn’t really put the two side by side; I’ll leave that alone [laughs].

Is writing in that free-verse style something that is therapeutic for you? Is it more difficult?
It’s a real different approach. It’s sort of a words-first, and then I just start improvising music to words. I think invariably what happens is a lot of the heat and a lot of the emphasis goes onto the story, so it becomes more of a lyrical approach. If I hold that up to Sugar – that was very much of a power-pop, guitar, riff-oriented band. A lot of times – not to the detriment of any of my songs – but a song like “Helpless,” where it’s more about the riff than it is about the story, because that was the kind of band Sugar was – guitar, bass, drums and the guitars were carrying a lot of the weight. I don’t think one is more or less difficult, they just come and go. I get in different phases spiritually, and I never really see it coming. Like I said, with Life and Times, after three songs I went, “Oh! I’m making that kind of record.” It makes it easier to continue. It’s really sort of mysterious. I don’t go in with a plan.

Did it surprise you when the record was finished that songs like “Argos,” “Bad Blood Better,” and “Wasted World” would be back-to-back-to-back considering the way you wrote the album? Those are extremely varied tracks.
Yeah, they’re varied, but that’s like the dark patch on the record to me. They’re perfect together. “Argos” was not meant to be on this record [laughs]. Living in D.C. I was trying to create this fictitious gay punk rock band, but then five of us got together and we were going to try to form a gay punk rock band, but nobody else would learn how to play or write songs. So I thought, “Well, I’ll write a song,” and I wrote that one, but nobody did anything. So it was just a really fun song that was begging to be heard. I stuck it on the record and then realized, “Oops! Now people are gonna ask me about it” [laughs]. And “Bad Blood Better” is another of the rare gender-specific, orientation-specific relationship songs. I haven’t really written a lot of those; I mean Modulate had a handful of them. But yeah, “Bad Blood Better” is sort of the abusive boyfriend kind of song. “Wasted World” was totally weird, and we’re not supposed to talk trash about the Internet, but there you go.

Speaking of Modulate, your last two records have had an absence of the electronic element. Is that specifically a result of having Blowoff as an outlet?
I think it’s a byproduct of it. On Body of Song it was paramount; District Line it was filed back except for “Who Needs to Dream?” “Shelter Me” was sort of dance-y, but with Life and Times it was really pared back. Again, I think it was the tone of the songs. Blowoff is definitely an equal outlet for me these days. Blowoff has gotten very successful; we’re all over the country all the time now. I think now that I have an outlet, a vehicle for that side of my musical sensibility, it is showing up a little bit less in my work. Definitely I think that’s what’s been happening the last few years. I don’t know where my compositions are going to go next, so I don’t know what’s coming, but the last three records I’ve dialed back the electronica, at least on the Bob Mould side of things.

Do you necessarily have to get into a particular mindset if you’re going to be producing more electronic music or more rock music, or does it all come pretty naturally?
It all comes pretty naturally. A lot of it is as simple as whatever I’m listening to in the morning before I start writing. If I put on KEXP and they’re playing indie rock, odds are I’m gonna start thinking about indie rock. But if I get up and I start listening to Pete Tong, and whatever he just played on his show, or if I’m on Bport looking for stuff for Blowoff, when it’s time to go write, odds are I’ll probably start with beats. It’s sort of that simple; whatever I had for breakfast really.

You’re in San Francisco this weekend? [Interview conducted September 24, 2009]
Yeah. Saturday night at Slims, which is our home base in San Francisco. It’s really fun for Blowoff. I think it drives home the point that it’s a music event as much as a gay dance night. I think sometimes the music can get lost in a gay bar. I know that may be a terrible thing to say, but sometimes it’s nice to take it to a music venue that really presents it as a music event, that caters to our audience.

Is it primarily split between NYC, D.C.?
DC is every month, NYC is every two months, SF is every two months, and Chicago is every two or three months. We went down to Atlanta a couple of times, we had a lot of fun, but we might not go back until next summer. We’re looking at other places. LA’s been showing interest. We had one in Portland back in ’06. We did one at Doug Fir. It went pretty well, actually. We were up in Olympia, Washington, for Homo-A-Go-Go, and since we were out on the West Coast, I called up the folks at Doug Fir and they had us come down and do it. It was like a Sunday night so they had like 100 people, so it was actually real fun. But you guys have Blow Pony up there and Bear-A-Cuda.

You were infamously outed by Spin in the early ‘90s. It seemed not to jar existing fans, but did you ever fear a backlash from hardcore Hüsker Dü, Sugar, or your solo fans at the time?
No. The only fallout that I thought would happen, and that really happened, was a little bit with the commercial radio world. Because back in ’93, ’94… commercial radio is reeally dictated by the advertisers. I sort of felt it in the South in a couple places, where the record just dropped off. There was one station that had made some kind of comment – I think the radio people at Ryko at the time, I don’t have the specifics on it – but it was sort of a “we really don’t wanna play that kind of music…”
But I shrug it off because that’s business. I thought that might happen and it did. If I had been thinking, I would have done it myself sooner. I cooperated, I just felt the article didn’t really represent the thoughts I was trying to get across. There’s no good way [to do it].

You probably would have rather done it on your own terms?
Yeah, there could have been a better way to do it. What’s done is done; I look back and laugh on it now. It’s sort of hilarious. What can you do?

Being a gay artist living in DC, one of your continuing legacy, would seem that to put you under a political umbrella with so many civil rights and marriage equality issues being introduced into Congress right now. Do you actively participate in politics, or do you tend to stay away?
Well, when I first moved to DC I did some stuff with HRC, and that went okay. I did some stuff with Servicemember’s Legal Defense Network, which I think that’s a real important cause. Through Blowoff, we’ve done a couple things with raising money for them., We’ve done local stuff with Brother, Help Thyself, and I did do a lot of stuff in ’04 with Freedom to Marry out of New York, with some of the Wed Rock benefits, and I hosted one of those in DC, and performed at one in New York. I’ve done select causes, and tried to help out when it seems to make sense. Privately, I do what I can on my own dime. But I try; I’m sure I should probably do more, but it’s a big community. I think for every two people that thinks we should have gay marriage, there’s at least one that’s not so sure. That’s the beauty of the community is that we can have different views. So yeah, if the cause is right and it makes sense, I don’t mind helping out when I can.

Do you try to keep your music and your politics as separate entities?
Yeah. Being an old punk rock kid and watching how hardcore degenerated into a lot of rural-oriented politics that I didn’t agree with…it’s tough. I’m just not sure that being a good songwriter makes me a good spokesperson for political causes.

Your autobiography is coming out next year, but I read you have to turn it in by October 1st…
We’re going a little later than that now [laughs].

What stage are you in right now?
Almost all of it is written. I have a few years I have to fill in a little more clearly, and then it’s done. Michael Azzerad and I just finished a week of sitting down and doing line edit. I’ve handed off about 150,000 words to him, so that’s what we’ve been going through. We’ve gotta get it in shape and lean it out. It’s a little flabby right now. Man, it’s been a lot of work. I haven’t been able to do anything but think about getting that book done.

Is that something that you think you might attempt more? I know you did scriptwriting for WCW as well, so you have sort of a writer’s bug anyway, aside from songwriting.
Yeah, I would actually. It’s been a real eye opener; it’s really, really hard work. Because when writing music, or with painting or any expressive arts, there’s so much latitude. Things can be blurry and you can call it art. But really in the printed word, the distinctions have to be so clear. It’s really a tight discipline; I didn’t get it. I can’t just make it blurry and call it jazz; I really have to show it. It’s been good; I’ve learned a lot. Maybe it would be nice to try a second book someday.

How long has the whole process taken?
A year.

So recording of the last album was totally separate?
The record I started in summer ’07, and finished writing and recording in August ’08. Did the book deal in September ‘08 and started writing in October. So yeah, pretty much, that’s when the music stopped.

Were you apprehensive at all to write an autobiography at age 49 when all signs seem to point to a lot more music and projects coming from you in the coming years?
Yeah, good question. They approached me in 2001 about this – Little Brown and Michael Azzerad¬ – so it’s been in discussion for seven or eight years. Quite honestly, I feel my memory starting to go, especially early stuff. I’m getting older and I’m gonna forget this stuff. I think that’s part of the desire to get it done now, while I can still remember most of it. I mean, I know what you’re saying; it does seem like it might be a little premature because I trust that I will have plenty of good years of work left ahead of me. I’m counting on it, so I’m trying not to let that get into it too much. God, Today was Mackenzie Phillips day. Have you seen the news at all? She’s got a memoir out and…

Oh right, yeah. That is pretty insane.
It’s really insane.

I haven’t read more than the headline about her father.
Yeah, that seems to be the story right now. I saw that this morning and was like, “Oh my god!” She’s got me beat! I can’t touch that.

When is the book scheduled to published?
It was supposed to be out fall ’10, it looks like it might be first quarter ’11.

Will you do a book tour?
I’d love to, that would be fun.

Who’s in the live band?
Jon Wurster is on board for the tour, and Jason Narducy. Just a three-piece this time. Portland is always…God, we had such a great show last year there. We were at Doug Fir; what a great, great show. I love that room.