Super chunk - Dan Masek, musician - Interview

EVERY VERY TIME A SUPERCHUNK SHOW hits town, can never understand why all of my friends are not there. It may just be me but there is something amazing about this band... Their new album Here's to Shutting Up is an example of how they can progress, continue to make great music, and stay true to the original Superchunk style. There is no annoying image or scene they are trying to project or be a part of. Keeping that in mind, anyone can go see Superchunk or listen to one of their records and expect to have a hell of a good time. Jim Wilbur told me a little more about what The Chunk is up to nowadays.

Dan Masek

How's the tour been going?

It's been good. The timing isn't quite ideal because of the state the world is in. Our original opening bands cancelled on us 'cause they were coming from Wales and they were afraid to travel in America--which I can kind of understand, but I also think it's sort of wimpy. Overall a lot of the shows have been kinda lightly attended, not horrible but just a little bit worse than anticipated. The clubs have said that we're doing better than others, but in America it's not a good time to go out and play rock music.

What's the reaction to the new album?

Good. There's always somebody who doesn't like what you do, but screw 'em.

How about the true Superchunk fans, are they into the new stuff?

I think so, When we say "This song is called" whatever, they scream. It's good.

The new album (released eight days after September 11th) sort of has an airplane theme floating around. What do you think about that and the September 11th attack?

We didn't play Phone Sex (includes the line "Plane crash footage on TV, I know that could be me") in Japan and Europe and we said we were not going to play it for a couple of months. Then right when we started playing it, a plane crashed in Queens. It's kind of creepy but the songs were written almost a year ago.

Do you think that Mac (McCaughan, singer/guitar) had a premonition?

No, a lot of his lyrics have to do with planes and traveling just because he tends to write a lot of lyrics when he's traveling. When we're on the road he'll keep a notebook. But generally he doesn't even look at his lyrics until after we've written all the music. We have a friend who, after he heard the record was like, "Are you going to call this record Airplane Airplane Airplane?"

A lot of great skateboarders have come out of North Carolina--specifically the area where Superchunk is from, Chapel Hill. Anyone in the band skate?

Laura was a hobby skater but never a shredder. She would go out into parking lots and stuff on Sunday morning brunches. She was as close as we get. Jon Wurster the drummer, there's a picture of him on the back of one of our records riding a skateboard with a Kiss shirt on.

Do you ever feel like you're in one of the biggest indie rock bands out there?

I work at a club in Chapel Hill called Cat's Cradle where a lot of bands come through, and they're in these huge tour busses and there are huge crowds coming to see them. Once a week one of these guys will come up to me and say, "Are you who I think you are?" And I say yeah, and they say, "You're the reason I do this." And I'm always like, "You are so much more popular than us, you sell so many more records, your fans don't even know who we are." So I don't know, I don't even try to think about it. We have been doing it for a long time. We're such a bizarre kind of band because we're not sitting around in the same house talking about music. That's probably why we're still around; we never tried to work it too hard.

Are any of you married with kids?

Mac's married and Jon has been living with the same woman for about seven years, so they're kind of like married. I was kind of like married for about seven years myself.

Do major labels call and offer to sign you?

All of them did. And we always said, "We're making a lot of money not dealing with you. What can you possibly do for us?" We were happy, we were in complete control of everything, we were making shit loads of money, and it was good. There was no impetus to try to do anything differently. The only difference now is that we don't tour as much and put out records more infrequently. So I don't think there's any major label that wants to be with us at this point, and even if they did, they would be really disappointed with our work ethic.

Do you feel like music is your job or is it something that you do for fun and just happen to make a living off of?

It was never a goal. It just kind of happened and when it happened we had to pay ourselves because we were making too much money and the taxes were going to get out of hand. So we set up a corporation and started paying salaries and health insurance and then it became a job. To maintain the level of fun became a challenge.

Final words?

Keep skatin.