8. Husker DuFlip Your Wig
It was actually the previous album Zen Arcade which was the first that we really got into. I remember we would all drive around late at night in a car playing ‘Reoccurring Dreams’ which is the song on Zen Arcade which goes on for twenty minutes. The thing that got me was, "Hey, this is like the Pink Fairies’ ‘Uncle Harry’s Last Freakout’." I really got into what they were doing. Then Flip Your Wig came out and it made me really want to visit the USA. You just pictured them driving around in pickup trucks and going into bars and drinking PBR, although we wouldn’t have known what PBR was back then. It’s just beautiful. There’s that line: "Times, places, and situations lead us to an early grave." I always thought it was "lead us to another day!" The fuzzy guitar melodies were there with the Buzzcocks and stuff, but with Hüsker Dü there’s a chainsaw going through it. There’s also a lot of heart. Hüsker Dü weren’t afraid to push it in a melodic direction.
The first time that Swervedriver played in the US was with Ned’s Atomic Dustbin [in 1991]. The very first show was in New York. We got on stage, and we were playing way too loud. There was a crowd there, but they all moved back. One person remained in the middle and it was Bob Mould, and we were like "Holy fuck!" We’d sent him a demo a few months before and he’d liked it. He was trying to start a label called Soul Records, which didn’t happen in the end, but he came backstage and spoke to us. Such a thrill; the first ever show in the United States and Bob Mould’s there. Two days later, we played Minneapolis and Grant Hart came down with some friends that worked at A&M, and we all ended up hanging out at a lake late at night. I remember the second time we played in Minneapolis, we’d soundchecked and I’d gone off to get something to eat and when I came back he was outside. Then we played with him at a festival in Europe. It was him and Thin White Rope, another big band who inspired us. That was wonderful.
