Mojo - The Music Magazine

The Dinosaur Jr revival rolls on, but for how much longer wonders mainman J Mascis? By Phil Alexander.

THERE IS LACONIC. Then, there's J Mascis's drawl. It's not evasive and it's not tortuous. It's just slow, clipped and punctuated with the odd, wry giggle. The Dinosaur Jr frontman's reputation as an inscrutable interview is not entirely justified. He is not evasive, but you do sense that at times he simply does not view life with the urgency demanded of most rock interviews.

Today, he sits in a Shepherd's Bush hotel nursing a Perrier and a black coffee, and reflects on Dinosaur Jr's history which now, staggeringly enough, runs to 25 years. The band's story is tumultuous, the relationship between Mascis and original bassist Lou Barlow being described by the former as "a psychic battle". An innocent bystander during the duo's early-day mind wars is drummer Murph who watched as Barlow exited the band in 1989 after the band's first three albums - Dinosaur (1985), You're Living All Over Me (1987) and Bug (1988). All three LPs were reissued in 2005 via Merge in the US and Sweet Nothing in the UK, a timely reminder of how brilliantly Dinosaur Jr bridged the gap between pre-grunge alternative rock and '70s guitar-powered classicism.

While the band continued after Barlow's departure and signed to major label Sire for a string of albums, it is the original line-up that is still held in the highest of affections, and their reformation in 2005 was greeted with surprise and delight. A new album, Beyond, emerged on Fat Possum in 2007, followed by their latest offering, Farm (Jagjaguwar) - heralded in the current issue of MOJO magazine as "classic Dino-rock".

The band's return is commemorated next week with a very special UK show at London's HMV Forum on June 9 as part of the MOJO Honours List celebrations.

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The last time MOJO spoke to you in January 2005, you were sceptical about Dinosaur reforming. How did you get the band back together?
J Mascis: Very slowly. I wasn't so psyched about it because Lou [Barlow] had been so angry at me for so many years and it was just starting to mellow out a little bit, but I guess I took that as a good sign. Since the first three albums had finally come out again, I just thought I would maybe do a TV show [The Late Late Show, April 2005] to promote them. That went OK. So it was just really small steps; maybe we'll play a few shows. That went all right, then suddenly we'd been playing a long time, why not make an album? We did, and it just kind of kept on going. Now with this album it's a bit more confident. But we're still not sure how long we want to do it.

I know you went to see Lou play, but who actually said, 'OK, let's actually try and make this happen'?
My manager. Lou and Murph were always on board and it was just kind of me who needed convincing. I'd hear Lou screaming at me in years past and he'd stop for an instant to say "Psyched for the reunion!" and then start screaming at me again, so I knew Lou was into it. And Murph had become a bigger fan of the band over the years. Originally, back then he wasn't sure about it, if we were any good. And now he's like the most into it.

Why was there so much tension between you and Lou? It's hard to understand where all the anger stems from...
I know. I know I don't understand it either. But that's like hardcore, too. We don't particularly have any problems. We're not hungry, our parents are alright, but somehow we're still angry and depressed. I don't know why...

The reissues of those first three records gave you a chance to reassess them. How did you view them?
I guess I still had the same view. The first album was us getting together. We made it kind of immediately. We didn't really have a sound, it was us just kind of grasping around. On the second album it all kind of came together. Our big goal was to be honest, so we achieved it and it was like, OK, we've achieved all our goals, now what do we do? Then we all just kind of fell apart. And then Bug was just kind of the falling apart.

So you're not a big fan of Bug?
No, not really. I interviewed Ozzy once and I'm a big fan of [Black Sabbath's 1975 album] Sabotage, but he has the same kind of feeling about it as I have about Bug. It just brings back all these bad memories of lawyers in the studios, and it just brings him right back there... just this miserable period.

Is that what Bug does to you?
Not as bad as Ozzy, but yeah, I just think about a bad period.

It's ironic because that's the period when Dinosaur Jr broke through in the UK...
Yeah, I suppose so, but that's not what it meant to us.

Lou left the band after you'd toured Bug and signed to Sire, a major label. That period must have been a learning curve for you...
Yeah, it was pretty weird. I kind of learned that major labels used to be run by people who really liked music, but in the early '90s those people were kind of getting phased out and everybody seemed kind of miserable.

So when you were on Sire, did people still care?
A little bit. You know some people, for them the dream of the '60s was still there, they're still holding on, still fans. They're the music guys. Back then each label had their music guy rather than just the business guy.

Obviously, then grunge came along and exploded. Did it end up killing the alternative scene?
Yeah, but I guess it had to go anyway. It was really great to see Nirvana take off - this band should be really huge and then they get really huge. So for a moment in time things made sense, something that should have happened really happened, so things were good. Then, to just see it all fall apart and things go horribly wrong... that was disappointing. But at least for that moment things made sense somehow.

At one point every major label had their alternative rock band. And then, as you say, everything seemed to fall apart...
All the record companies are so jaded. I mean, bands are jaded to begin with, but record label people are even more jaded. It's just really hard to hear some things. You know, like, "I don't hear a single." I never thought I'd hear that. But then on the last Dinosaur album on a major label [1997's Hand It Over] I finally heard that. I was like, "You've got to be kidding me!"

So they really expected you write hit singles?
I don't think so, but this guy just felt the need to say that [laughs].

You might not think of it that way, but you do write pop songs...
Oh yeah, that's what I always thought. They're all hits, just pick one!

So, in late 2005, you reformed, then released Beyond, and people still cared. You're at the point now where you feel more confident. So how did you approach making Farm?
Well, we gave ourselves a time limit to try to get it out this year, so we had to work faster, so it was more stressful and intense trying to get it done. That was the main difference. But the sound as it came out was more together.

How did the songwriting process work? I know in the past you had to coax material out of Lou...
Same thing...

But he seemed to deliver this time around with Your Weather and Imagination Blind...
Yeah. At the very last second. He only had one song and we were just gonna call it an album, but we decided to postpone, keep going another couple of weeks and try to get another song out of him. In that time I had another song, so we built the record a little bit more.

In terms of the dynamic of the group now, is it as good as it can be now?
You know, we still have a weird dynamic.

So how would you describe it?
Oddly, the communication is always weird. You know, a lot of silence when we're together. Not Murph, but when just me and Lou are together it's just kind of silence.

Why don't you talk?
Sometimes, I don't know. It's still something to work towards, I guess.

Look on the bright side: at least he's not screaming at you.
Sometimes...

You said you weren't sure how long you would do Dinosaur for. What are your thoughts on that realistically?
Well, yeah, we got stuff planned till November, then maybe we might go to Australia sometime early next year. Other than that I'm not really sure. Lou's got a solo album coming up. I don't know...

I presume you have solo projects coming up too?
I can come up with something if I've got time. I haven't had time lately.

If you don't keep this going it would be a shame. People love your group and you're in a good position...
...And we do feel we got something special and we can stick out in the sea of a million bands, because there's so much mediocrity out there.

Even back in the day there was a sense that you stood out. I just don't think you quite realized how much...
Yeah, maybe.

Maybe you felt trapped by the situation last time around. Does moving to Jagjaguwar feel like a return to your independent roots?
It's been cool, yeah. I like those guys. A lot of our reissues are on Merge and Fat Possum, which are also kind of indie. I never cared about major labels. I never even considered being on a major. Not that I didn't *want to be. I just never thought we'd sell enough records for it to be an issue. We're just like puppets in a band; we want to tour and not work at McDonalds. What do you do when all our goals are realised? You're just floating around...

So the last twenty years have just been you floating around?
Looking for another goal to come up with...

You could get a 'proper' goal.
I don't like that idea. [Pauses] I was thinking of the Ramones hating each other, all sitting in a van dying of cancer because of all that anger. At least we're not like that.

All that tension. It can't be good for you.
Maybe it's good for the music.

Interview: Phil Alexander

Dinosaur Jr play the HMV Forum, London, on June 9 as part of the MOJO Honours List celebrations. Buy tickets here...