Music trumps politics in Superchunk’s latest In concert
Indie band’s most political album to date is ‘no downer’
Since 1989, Superchunk has been at the forefront of DIY indie rock. Filling its albums with punchy, spiky guitar-heavy rockers, the North Carolina quartet has kept its edge even through lengthy hiatuses and while raising families. Written in a threemonth burst following the 2016 U.S. election and recorded in two sessions last year, the band’s latest record What a Time to Be Alive is being called its most political: It’s certainly one of the group’s most fiery and enraged releases. We talked to frontman/chief songwriter Mac McCaughan about the record.
Q: Indie rock has always seemed to be a bastion of liberalism. Have you encountered any responses from fans to the new record that have surprised you?
A: You still get the occasional “keep your politics out of music.” For the most part, during our career, the songs haven’t been political, at least not on the surface. But I think times are different. It would be strange to make a record and not be talking about the times we’re living in.
Do you find that willingness to talk about current politics in the music of your peers or younger bands as well?
I don’t think so. In some ways, I feel it’s more addressed in hip hop and other kinds of music. Certainly there are bands like the Downtown Boys (from Providence, R.I.), political punk bands who are making
great music. I don’t think it’s across the board for sure. But I also feel like — let’s say you live in Vancouver, and you don’t have to think about Donald Trump every day; you can put this record on and just rock out. In some ways, I think that the music balances out the subject matter of the lyrics. I don’t think it’s a downer of a record.
Have you approached the set list for the upcoming tour any differently than in the past, owing to the nature of the new songs?
No. We play a different set every
night and we try to pull out as many old songs as we can. Musically, the new songs blend really well with the old songs from a musical and even a lyrical standpoint. The record is more about how living in this age of anxiety affects a person. I’m not going through policy objectives. The songs have always been personal. I don’t think there’s a big disconnect between this record and our other records.
Is it harder to go on tour now that you’re a family man?
A: Well, the tours are shorter. My
kids are old enough to let me know about it when they don’t like the fact I’m going away for a week. And I miss being away from home. But it would be weird to put out a record and not play shows.
How do you stay interested in new music?
Most of what I listen to is old music that’s been reissued or new music that we’re putting out on Merge (the record label McCaughan runs with Superchunk bassist Laura Ballance). A lot of times, bands on Merge will tell me about new bands who are
either friends of theirs or bands they toured with or stuff they’re listening to. I’m pretty much listening to music all day here at work.
At home, I’m generally putting on an old reggae record or something. I go back and forth between old and new.
I was going back through a lot of old Fall records the other day after Mark E. Smith (the singer/songwriter of the U.K. band The Fall died Jan. 24). There were definitely some that I hadn’t listened to in a long time. So I still do pull out stuff I loved when I was 16 and I still love.