Lou Barlow :: The Aquarium Drunkard Interview

lou barlow

If a band’s going to stage a “comeback,” there are few greater examples of doing it right than the one put down by Dinosaur Jr.

Since reforming in 2005, the original lineup of J Mascis, Lou Barlow, and Murph have gone on to put out more albums since reuniting than the three classics they released in the ‘80s — Dinosaur, You’re Living All Over Me, and Bug — helping to cement the framework of “alternative rock” in the process. Their latest, the quizzically titled Give a Glimpse of What Yer Not, is one of their strongest yet, 11 jammers alternating between whopping riffs and folky sway. Mascis’ signature drawl sounds as craggy as ever, his  toasty guitar solos effortless; Murph’s drums are locked in and boomy; Barlow offers his thick, melodic bass and sings two of the record’s best songs.

The fruitful return of Dinosaur Jr. was anything but assured. After Mascis fired Barlow from the band post-Bug, the bassist launched off on his own prolific and influential career, forming Sebadoh and Folk Implosion, and often remarking publicly about his dissatisfaction with Mascis.   Eventually, he began releasing records under his own name, maintaining a bare, sometimes shockingly honest emotional tone. But time has a way of smoothing out the creases, and Barlow seems perfectly at ease with his role in Dinosaur Jr. these days.

“When we came around to making these reunion records, [they didn’t turn out] a whole lot different from what J had been doing,” Barlow says. “He’s been remarkably consistent throughout his career. So having Murph and I come back in, we kind of came into his ongoing story.”

His solo output hasn’t slowed since rejoining — Sebadoh released Defend Yourself in 2013, and a solo album, Brace the Wave, followed in 2015, and he’s readying an EP for release by the end of the year.   He’s feeling creative since moving back to Massachusetts from Los Angeles,   putting him closer to his Dinosaur Jr. bandmates, which has brought “this kid of ease and flow to stuff I haven’t had of a while, for a very long while,” the bassist says.

Below, edited excerpts from an early morning phone talk with Barlow, about the familial connections between Dinosaur Jr. and his work outside the band, about not being classically “cool” and about the uncomfortable realizations that accompany personal growth.

Dinosaur Jr. :: Tiny

Aquarium Drunkard: Give a Glimpse of What Yer Not is an excellent album — each of these new records has been better than the last, I think. When you initially reunited more than a  decade ago, what kind of discussions did you have about the state of things? Was there any talk about continuing on after making Beyond?  

Lou Barlow:  We don’t have strategy talks. We never did. [Laughs] Every record could be the last as far as I know, has been since the beginning, which isn’t a bad thing necessarily.

AD:  When people talk about bands getting back together, Dinosaur Jr. has become sort of the gold standard. I feel generally like I don’t want bands to reunite, you know? But, like, I don’t want the Smiths to get back together.

Lou Barlow:  I hear you. I feel the same.

AD:  But Dinosaur Jr. did it right. You didn’t just come back and play the hits, like some of your contemporaries, you came back and it was a living, vital thing. You didn’t just aim to  recapture the past; it felt like you grabbed a hold of new things too.

Lou Barlow:  I love the first three records of any band, including my own. [Laughs] That’s the way it is. I think the first three records of any relatively decent band are kind of amazing. The band’s finding their way, making discoveries.

I love those records, but…I don’t think we could have just come back and played the hits. We’re not the Pixies, we’re not even Guided By Voices. We don’t have that level of hysteria. I’ve seen the Pixies play reunion shows and people are crazy for it. Dino, we gotta work a little bit.   For us, if we were gonna continue to do it, we’ve got to have new material.

AD:  You guys played some 30th anniversary shows last year. How did playing those shows feel?

Lou Barlow:  It was really fun. To me, it was totally indulgent. [Laughs] The first record [1985’s Dinosaur] is a really fun record. Performance wise, Murph and I weren’t quite gelled yet when we did that record, but J’s songwriting was already really advanced. In a lot of ways, those songs are the most ambitious we’ve ever done. Revisiting those songs, we didn’t really have to relearn them. We knew them; we’d been playing them just fucking around at sound checks.   To play that record was a pleasure, and to have people show up and act like it as a big deal was like, “Okay, great.” [Laughs]

AD:  Your songs can end up on  Sebadoh or solo albums. Do you have a method for deciding which become Dinosaur Jr. songs?

Lou Barlow:  Leading up to this record, I’d always written songs with a Dinosaur Jr. album in motion. I wanted them to be a real snapshot of where I was with the band at that moment, even lyrically. I always considered how I wanted my songs to fit with J’s. On a couple of records, I thought there needed to be more aggressive tunes, so I’d do that. I’d do darker.

But this time around, I’d just done a solo record [2015’s Brace the Wave]. There was a song I’d tried out for that and it didn’t really come together. I knew it needed more beef to it, something else. So when we started this record I figured I’ll try this one, “Love Is…,” a song that  failed for my solo record. And it worked. With “Left/Right,” I wanted a Dinosaur Jr. song that J didn’t play guitar on. I knew he’d be okay with that. I wanted to learn more about how he plays bass, so if we do another record I can have more of a knowledge of what he gravitated to bass-wise.

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AD:  You’ve been pretty clear and remarkably open about your personal life, artistically and in interviews. Listening to “Love Is…” sounds like maybe it’s about accepting some stuff, or letting go of some anger. Can you tell me about that line, “love is the law?”

Lou Barlow:  When I came up with the basic [idea of the song], I wrote that  line, “love is the law,” and thought, “That’s so cheesy. Maybe this song won’t ever get finished.” [Laughs] I kept changing it to something else, trying to do it a solo song. But I decided to bring it to Dinosaur Jr., which added some  weight to it, making that line “love is the law” sound perfectly legitimate, rather than super heavy and maudlin. My songs can definitely bend that way — I gave up trying to be cool and disconnected in my songs a long, long time ago. I’ve sorta realized my stuff is emotionally claustrophobic. That’s some I could continually battle with, but it’s not going to work. I might as well embrace it and somehow work with it.

But love being the law…it  comes down to what you love. If you aren’t really in love, or someone’s not really in love with you, and you’re continually trying to work with something or make excuses or work around it, stuff like resentment creeps in. Especially as an aging guy, you know? A man, a dude basically. [Laughs]  Over the years I could imagine myself as pretty sensitive, but it’s like, no, no, you’re not. You’re just a fucking guy with a huge chip on your shoulder, and if you don’t deal with your resentment  in some constructive way, leave it, then it’s going to be an issue. That song is partially about me coming to that. The good part of being in bands with people I’ve had disagreements with, me coming back to Dinosaur Jr.,   [is recognizing that] it’s definitely part of   my personality to just get on with it, work shit out, swallow my pride. Be humble. I do have that talent, but I’ve come to the realization that I’m 50 years old and there’s still a part of me that’s just a fucking dick.   I have to address that.

AD:  What I’ve always appreciated about Dinosaur Jr. and your solo albums is that there’s no  “trying to be cool” posturing. There’s no detachment, and there’s room for everything: for anger but also really earnest sentimentality. Room for loud rock with shredding guitars and nods to prog, hardcore, and stoner rock, but also sweet melodies and folksy stuff; the band creates a space for all that to exist, a space to be deeply weird and sincere.  I find that kind of unique about your records. I mean, I love Pavement, that smart guy detached thing, but as much as I love that, my heart never quite connects with that the way it does with Dinosaur Jr. records.

Lou Barlow:  Returning to Dinosaur Jr. after years of being like, “That’s not me,” I [realized] it was kind of funny how it was all in the same family of shit: Sebadoh, Dinosaur. It’s what you’re talking about — it’s left open. We can be the noisiest assholes ever, but then we’re going to follow it up being incredibly earnest. At the time, bands didn’t generally do that.  Dinosaur played its first shows with Pussy Galore and White Zombie, these heavy bands that had their vibe down. Even a band like Sonic Youth; they had their thing and it was cool. We felt like outsiders, for sure, though we definitely made friends and connections with really great people. Sonic Youth took us under their wing and really helped us out. But I had a really keen sense of not belonging to anything, being really aware of that, but it in no way changed how I did anything. [Laughs]

AD:  You guys were obviously “cool” too, but also  honest and strange. The sound reflected that.

Lou Barlow: Although we do have a very specific sound and we don’t deviate from it, that basic sound is the result of something — I don’t know if I’d use the term “radical” — but at the time, J marrying that classic rock mentality to punk rock was pretty unusual. [We were also combining] what college rock was in the ’80s: R.E.M.,  Hüsker Dü,  all these jangly bands from the Paisley Underground, and all this amazing post-punk stuff like the Birthday Party, the Cure, Gang of Four. We took all that stuff and cross-polinated that. J did that, and that attitude is something I took and followed through with later on. words / j woodbury

3 thoughts on “Lou Barlow :: The Aquarium Drunkard Interview

  1. Great interview.

    “Love is…” is a Sebadoh-sounding song.

    Makes me sad to think of neglected Sebadoh,

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