Effortless – that word has been used to describe Superchunk’s steady delivery of punchy hooks and anthemic choruses for over three decades. But even going by instinct requires not just the wherewithal but the inspiration to follow through with the original idea. ‘Care Less’, a highlight from the indie veterans’ new album Songs in the Key of Yikes, is all about trying to. “Whatever you do don’t waste your life/ Searching for a song,” Mac McCaughan quips, a line that, like many things about the record at first glance, can seem fatalistic. But McCaughan and his bandmates’ workmanlike dedication remains indisputable. Instead, he suggests, let the songs come to you. Try to make magic out of words and sounds, but if you find yourself digging or thinking too hard, let a single question – the one that gives the record’s opener its title – be your axis: ‘Is It Making You Feel Something?’
We caught up with Superchunk’s Mac McCaughan and Jim Wilbur to talk about The Lemonheads’ It’s a Shame About Ray, Heather Christle’s The Crying Book, Southern rock, and other inspirations behind Songs in the Key of Yikes, which is out today.
The Lemonheads’ It’s a Shame About Ray
Mac McCaughan: Jim, is that the record that we toured with them in Europe?
Jim Wilbur: It might have been.
Wasn’t it after Come On Feel the Lemonheads?
MM: Yeah, the one after it, maybe. I always thought of three previous Lemonheads records, Lovey, Creator, and Hate Your Friends, as really being in my wheelhouse. And then by the time It’s a Shame About Ray came out, I mean, I liked it, but it wasn’t my favorite Lemonheads at the time. Maybe a year ago, when they did an anniversary reissue, I was riding around New York with Patrick Stickles from Titus Andronicus, and he had the anniversary CD in his stereo. And I was like, “What? You’re into this record?” He’s like, “Yeah. It’s a classic.” We just listened to it a couple of times, and of course, I knew all these songs already because they’re so catchy they were in the back of my mind. But it really brought me back to that record, and I’ve listened to it a bunch since then. ‘Rudderless’ is one of my favorite Lemonheads songs.
One thing that I think is inspirational about Evan’s songwriting is that there will be these big hooks, but then he’ll have these very strange parts either in the middle, like a heavy metal bridge or something, or an outro or an intro that’s just real atonal and kind of punky-sounding. All mashed together, but it all makes sense. That record and Evan’s songwriting in general has always been inspirational in its willingness to just do something odd that makes you think about the song differently. But he also keeps the songs really short, which I think is key. Our songs aren’t super short, but I do appreciate a kind of “get in, get out” approach to songwriting. I’m excited, there’s a new Lemonheads record. I hope to see Evan on this tour.
JW: I lost them after the first three records, like you said, and now maybe I should go back and listen to that stuff closer.
MM: It’s a Shame About Ray also has ‘Alison’s Starting to Happen’ on it. We played shows in Australia back in December, and we played with Smudge, which is a band we toured with back then. I’m pretty sure that’s about Alison from Smudge.
JW: And Tom [Morgan] wrote a lot of those songs with Evan, right?
MM: Yeah.
I saw that Classic Rock Magazine just described Songs in the Key of Yikes as “the Byrds if Evan Dando had sat in for the session.”
MM: That’s about our record? That’s a pretty good quote.
JW: I’ll take it. Any reference to the Byrds, I’ll take.
Richard Brautigan
JW: When we were writing this record – Mac wrote the songs, but when we were arranging them and practicing and learning the parts and coming up with what the band would play on these songs, we worked really fast. It seemed like we would practice once or twice, and it was whatever came out initially, it didn’t get worked over too much. Richard Brautigan gets lumped in with Beat writers, and he was more like a hippie loner guy. He didn’t really fit with the Beats, but his writing often, when I read it, seems like it’s unedited and stream of consciousness. It’s just whatever he wrote first, he kept. He never went back and rewrote anything, it doesn’t seem like. And a lot of it’s very surreal and playful. Insofar as coming up with parts, I would be like, “Shit, what am I gonna play on this song?” I might have a couple ideas, but then I’d start playing something and Mac would be like, “Oh, that’s good.” And then all of a sudden, it’s like, “Okay. That took about five minutes.” [laughs] And then in your brain, you’re like, “Now it’s set. And for the rest of time, I’m going to have to play this song this way.”
MM: [laughs] Be careful what you play first.
JW: Yeah. But I’m not unhappy with that, actually. Everybody’s performance on the record. I’m really pleased with it. So I think it’s maybe a good idea to not overthink things.
Mac, are you inspired at all by his poetry?
MM: A mutual friend of mine and Jim’s, Matt Steigerwald, was really into Richard Brautigan. That’s who I first heard about Richard Brautigan from. I mean, I like reading poetry in general largely because I don’t understand it, so it’s just kind of refreshing. You’re just like, “I don’t know how someone writes this.” But I feel like the best poetry for me is poetry that has a way of surprising you, but doesn’t feel like it’s trying to, and it doesn’t feel like it’s been worked on too hard. It feels a little bit casual but taking surprising turns.
Heather Christle’s The Crying Book
I have another Heather Crystal book that was here in the studio, actually, The Trees The Trees, because I just find that reading poetry gets you out of your standard way of thinking and writing and gets you out of a linear kind of headspace. I really like Heather Christle’s poetry. The Crying Book is a little bit different in that it’s paragraphs and it’s writing, but the paragraphs are kind of disconnected from each other. It’s examining different kinds of crying as well as her own reasons for crying, like grief; she’s going to have a kid, so that’s another emotional thing that’s happening. Both Heather’s books and other poetry books I have by my bedside because I often have trouble reading at night. I just start falling asleep if I’m trying to read a novel or something like that, but I can usually get through a poem or a paragraph or something like that.
I really like this quote that I saw from it: “Maybe we do not cry about, but rather near or around. Maybe all our explanations are stories constructed after the fact.” Does that resonate with you?
MM: That thing about not understanding something until after – I think about that a lot with records because we’ll finish a record and then someone will be like, “Wow, our record’s about this.” And I’m like, “Yeah. We didn’t really know that until we had done the whole thing.” I know some people write concept albums and mean for them to be a whole thing all the way through, but that’s generally not what we’re doing.
This also made me think of a line from ‘Everybody Dies’ that I’d love for you to offer some context around: “I was just trying to get that song out of my head/ It never made me cry.”
MM: Oh, yeah. I’m trying to think about whether that was about a specific song that I was thinking of. I think that that’s just more about the meaning of things changing over time. A song that you loved and maybe would have made you really happy or excited or maybe just neutral at one time in your life – later all of a sudden it’s like, “Why does this song have some emotional resonance for me now that it didn’t when it came out and I was 25?” Well, because it’s invoking these other things. And a lot of times it’s not even your favorite song or an important song. It’s just a random song that just brings up associations that you wouldn’t predict. And since that song is about people dying and remembering different moments, maybe where you were around them, songs obviously play a big role in that type of memory association.
Do you mind sharing one thing that recently made you cry?
MM: You know, it’s interesting. I don’t really cry watching movies or anything. It could be the saddest movie of all time, it’s not going to make me cry, even though I might feel like it’s a good, powerful movie. I tend to cry – and this is only as an old person – if something happens that’s really happy. It could be in a movie. It tends to be more like, if I’m watching the Olympics and someone wins a gold medal or has some amazing performance and they’re just enjoying that moment. To me that is what will bring a tear to my eye more than something sad.
A triumph?
MM: Yeah, a triumphant moment of celebration, basically. Just seeing people so excited about something.
JW: You’re such a dude.
MM: [laughs] I know.
How about you, Jim? Anything that comes to mind?
JW: Oh, I’ll cry at the drop of a hat. But I keep it very quiet and very secret. I mean, I get choked up at movies sometimes. But, generally, only if I’m with other people. If I’m watching a movie by myself, I don’t get choked up. We have a family Sunday afternoon where my mother and father-in-law will come over, and sometimes when I’m sitting with them, I’ll watch something, and I’ll be starting to tear up. And then they all look at me and tease me about it. But it doesn’t happen very often. I mean, the world makes me cry on a daily basis. I just do it internally.
Southern rock
JW: I’m not the greatest guitar player of all time, and I couldn’t even pretend to play a Lynyrd Skynyrd riff. Anything noodly like that is usually just beyond me. I’m thinking specifically about the song ‘Cue’, which is the first song on the second side. And Mac, help me remember – wasn’t the demo of it drastically different from the way we ended up? Because I remember when you and I were hashing it out, I started playing it very muted and kinda tight. And in my brain, I was channeling this stupid ‘80s power ballad by 38 Special.
MM: Oh yeah, ‘Hold on Loosely’?
JW: No, ‘Second Chance’. It was, like, late period 38 Special. [Mac laughs] I listened to it yesterday for the first time because I was like, I should maybe see what I was actually thinking about before doing this piece with you. It wasn’t that I was trying to play the song itself, but I was trying to play, like, my memory of the song. It was a huge departure for 38 Special. They had a different singer, and it’s really slick and almost adult contemporary. It sounds like Dan Hartman’s ‘I Can Dream About You’ or something. Maybe it was reminding me of that memory of that song from back in high school – because it was high school – and I hadn’t heard it since then. And then I just listened to it again yesterday, and I was kind of amazed.
MM: Did you nail it?
JW: If you play them next to each other, there is sort of a vibe there. And I was afraid to tell you this because from now on, every time you hear it, you’re going to have 38 Special on your mind.
MM: I mean, we’d be lucky to write a song as good as ‘Hold on Loosely’.
JW: Of course, that goes without saying.
Flying Nun Records
I’m curious if this is related to Matthew Goody’s book about the label, Needles and Plastic, that came out in 2022.
MM: Yeah, that’s a great book. Not to speak for Jim, but I think we’ve both been big fans of Flying Nun bands since we first heard them, which was in the mid-eighties.
JW: That’s true.
MM: I think that there are so many things about that label and that scene that are inspiring. There’s the fact that they’ve created all this music from this very small place, so far from everyone else, and they made their own thing, and they made a lot of great records. A lot of different artists came out of there making amazing records. I always appreciate a scene like that where they’ve just got their own language and style.
One thing that’s amazing about Flying Nun is the fact that the label had such an aesthetic identity – whether it was Hamish Kilgour or Chris Knox or Alec Bathgate doing the art for the different sleeves – both the front cover art and the back covers often had a lot of handwritten information and drawings. It was all super handmade-feeling, which is so important. It was a little strange when some bands, like The Chills, would get signed to a bigger international label, and then they would make a record with still really cool art, like Submarine Bells, but it just looked very slick compared to what had been the style. I feel like with Superchunk, we try to keep a semblance of that handmade feel both in the music and the art. The cover painting on the new record is by this artist Scott Reeder. He’s a great artist and we’re really thankful that he let us use that painting, which just seemed to go perfectly with the times and the record.
Thirdly, of course the songs themselves and the approach that these bands took to guitar playing – whether it’s the Clean or the Bats or the Chills or the Verlaines – they all had their own style, but a lot of it was just so individualistic, the way they played guitar and the way they wrote songs. You knew what you’re hearing, so that’s always been super inspirational. And the song ‘Care Less’ has a bit of a Clean lyric in there, which was the B-side to the ‘Getting Older’ single, ‘Whatever I Do Is Right / Wrong’. Those Clean records and David Kilgoour solo records are always things I think about when I’m playing guitar and writing guitar parts.
Friends
Jim. I saw the Digging for Something episode that you did recently, and you talked about Bricks songs being about friends. It’s always endearing when you get that sense from a record.
JW: I hope I wasn’t misspeaking when I said that, but my memory of all the Bricks songs – it seemed like most of the Bricks stuff was generated by true life amongst the extended group of friends that we all had back then.
MM: Yeah, totally, just characters that we know.
MM: But what I really meant when I said friends as an inspiration for this record – whenever I’m trying to come up with what to play in the band, I’m thinking about not wanting to shame my friends or look like an idiot or sound weird to the people I care about. You don’t want to make a fool of yourself in front of those people, so in that way, those friends are a huge inspiration to try not to suck and not shame them.
Mac, do you feel a similar way about lyrics?
MM: Always. Kind of along the lines of what Jim’s saying, I think about it two ways. One, I don’t want to write lyrics that are going to embarrass my family or anyone in the band. Secondly, I do want to write lyrics that when people we know hear them, it makes them laugh. At least a couple lines here and there are kind of a joke – not unserious, but just meant to be funny. Beyond that, I try not to think about it too much, because I think you can get a little hung up if you’re worried too much about how something will be received.
Anniversary tours
You played a run of tour dates celebrating the 30th anniversary of Foolish last year. How do you look back on that experience?
MM: Remember when All Tomorrow’s Parties started and they were getting people to play a whole album? You know, getting Belle and Sebastian to play If You’re Feeling Sinister or whatever start to finish. And at the time, I remember thinking that it was not for me. Like, I don’t like seeing a band if I know what song is coming next, if they’re just doing something in order. And, also, I don’t really anticipate liking being in a band that’s playing the same songs in order every night. We’ve never done that. But then over the years, I got to see Gary Numan play Replicas at this club in Durham during Moogfest one year. It was incredible. I’ve gotten to see the Psychedelic Furs or X, these bands that I love and that maybe I didn’t think I would get to see again, doing anniversary tours, either the anniversary of the band or a certain album, and I always find it super fulfilling and exciting to see. I’m sure not every concert is in that mode, but for the most part, I found myself going like, “I gotta go see this band again.” So that took a little bit of the stigma for me out of doing an anniversary tour.
We were already playing a lot of these songs live in our set because we play songs from all different records and different eras. But to be able to let fans know, “If On the Mouth is your favorite record, we’re doing a lot of songs from that on this tour.” I’m not saying we’re playing the whole thing start to finish – on the On the Mouth anniversary tour, we played it start to finish once In New York. But that’s weird because then your set’s over, and it’s 45 minutes. So then we came back out and played a 10-song encore or something like that. We’re doing these anniversary tours, and we are playing a lot of songs from those records, but we’re also mixing it in with other things for the most part. I’ve enjoyed it because, obviously, fans love it, and it makes us relearn some songs from those records that we don’t normally play because if we’re only playing if there’s only room for two songs from Foolish in a set where we’re trying to play songs from 15 different records, one of those songs is probably not going to be ‘Keeping Track’. But if you’re trying to play a lot of different songs from Foolish, then you have to learn these kinds of deeper cuts.
Is relearning deep cuts also inspiring when you’re in a phase of writing or working on demos?
MM: I don’t know how much those things have overlapped, but I do think it’s interesting to revisit old songs and just go like, “What were we thinking when we used this tuning or had this song structure?”
JW: It’s surprisingly difficult to remember how to play some of this stuff. Like, “Who was I?”
MM: And it’s weird because a lot of times, there’s muscle memory. I can’t remember how to play it, but if I’m trying to figure it out, I’ll know what I wasn’t doing. My hand was not in this part of the neck; I must have been playing it differently. So then you mess around until you’re like, “This feels familiar.”
How did touring in general inspire Songs in the Key of Yikes?
MM: I think that touring has always been a source of material in terms of the lyrics. But in particular, touring for the last couple of years has been inspirational because it’s the first since we started playing with Laura King on drums. Playing with someone new, it’s kind of like, if someone hands you a guitar that you’ve never played before and they’re like, “Write some songs.” Just playing a different instrument is inspirational in itself; it just sounds different, feels different. And so playing with Laura King has been super exciting and fun. Once we had a bunch of shows under our belt, we’re like, “Now this is going to be awesome to get to make a record with her, because we know what it feels like to play with her, and it’s great.” Just having her in the band has been inspiring.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity and length.
Superchunk’s Songs in the Key of Yikes is out now via Merge.
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