“J’s mind is like a continuous solo.”
Dinosaur Jr’s Lou Barlow speaks to Stevie Chick.
How does life in Dinosaur differ now from back in the ’80s? “Back then there was a lot of ambivalence, about what we were doing, how we were doing it, how long we wanted to do it… We were just typically disaffected youths. Now we’re much more settled into our lives. The way we make that music, however, is remarkably similar (laughs). The method is almost identical. Because we’re basically perfecting something here, and every time we approach a record, it is going to be similar to what [J Mascis]’s done before – and that doesn’t matter. That’s different from the way I felt about it early on – I was very restless. I had this really aggressive sense of myself as an ‘experimental artist’. I’ve really let that go. And it’s been awesome.” (Laughs)
You’ve continued to make solo and Sebadoh records. How do you decide which song is for Dinosaur and which is for you? “I made a solo record last year and I had the skeleton of Love Is… done, but it wasn’t working. Later, I became obsessed with this band Smokie – I guess they were popular in England and Germany back in the ’70s. I thought, I’m gonna do Love Is… like Smokie! With those big acoustic guitars! But Dinosaur-style. And I could hear a guitar lead in it, too, an emotional thing. A lot of times, if I write a song that needs a guitar lead part, I’m not going to do it with Sebadoh or solo. I want a real, proper lead. And J is a real, proper lead guitarist.”
What does J mean to you as a guitarist? What is that lead-playing quality that he possesses? “It’s the thing lead guitar is supposed to do, the real classic purpose of a lead guitar – it’s meant to take the song to an emotional place where mere singing can’t. And especially singing when it’s done by us, men with limited voice ranges (laughs). We’re rockers, not ‘vocalists’. Your heart just soars with the lead guitar part. And J, he taps in to the role of a great lead guitar player, like the first real great rock’n’roll guitarists from the mid-’60s, like Pete Townshend, or Jimmy Page when he was the studio guitarist people would bring in to do an incredible lead for their band’s single. J’s very good at it, and he plays all the time. His mind is like one continuous solo, you just have to plug into it – he’s like a well, you just tap that well. He’ll sit there and play leads until you want him to stop.”