Punk rock’s past, present and future with Mr. Hüsker Dü, Bob Mould.
Words: Sam Coare
Black and white portrait: Shelly Mosman
The Church of Guitar, Bass & Drums is a religion to which Bob Mould subscribes. It is a configuration that has defined, and bookended, his musical life: first in Hüsker Dü and Sugar, latterly under the banner of his prolific ‘solo’ output. “A rock three-piece is similar to being in a free-form jazz band,” he told us in 2019. “It’s an art form.”
Bob was speaking those words ahead of the release of his superb Sunshine Rock album in 2019. That album – following 2012’s Silver Age, 2014’s Beauty & Ruin and 2016’s Patch the Sky – was his fourth since minting his latest ‘trio’, alongside drummer Jon Wurster and bassist Jason Narducy. It is this period, which found Bob re-embracing the sound that defined him decades before, that forms the spine of the third of three exhaustive boxsets charting his entire musica