Typical Bob Mould: When the former DIY Twin Cities rocker set out to write his autobiography, he got bogged down for many weeks transcribing old interviews he'd done.
"I'm not a fast typist to begin with, and little did I know you could hire somebody," Mould gasped, crediting Minneapolis writer turned New York Times columnist David Carr for correcting him. "David said, 'You're supposed to be writing a fucking book, not transcribing.' Only then was I finally able to dive into the real work."
Titled "See a Little Light: The Trail of Rage and Melody," the book was a lot harder to complete than any of the 20-plus albums to his name, he said. "I had no idea what I was getting into," said Mould, who was "coached" by veteran rock scribe Michael Azerrad. "Azerrad helped me figure out what my real story is: The significant events of my childhood and the established patterns of my behavior that keep showing up in my life, and that had a profound effect on my work."
The book starts out detailing his childhood in upstate New York, including an alcoholic father and parents dealing with the loss of his older sibling. Not to mention that Mould already knew as a teen that he was a gay person living in a small, conservative town. As Mould puts it when discussing those chapters, "It's like, why do I need to explain 'Zen Arcade' anymore?"
Fans looking for "Behind the Music"-style riffs on Hüsker Dü will get a modest amount of satisfaction. Mould said his main objective in writing about his first band -- besides setting the record straight that he and co-leader Grant Hart never had any kind of sexual relationship -- was to "tell the clear story about the final days." The band-ending tumult included the suicide of the band's road manager, David Savoy, and Hart's drug problems.
"All those things weren't necessarily the cause for the end of it, but they were good indicators that I should probably get out," Mould summarized by phone from his home in San Francisco. "I didn't relish telling those stories. It was nice to just say my piece once, and now we can all move on -- hopefully."
Mould recounts the triumph of his first solo album, "Workbook," and the hard lessons he learned in signing away too much control to managers and lawyers. That convinced him to stick to a simpler formula for his second band, Sugar, with which he enjoyed his biggest commercial success. Mould writes, "Hüsker Dü was an eight-year ground war. ... Sugar, in 12 months, went from a punk-rock show in Morgantown, W.Va., to playing gigantic European festivals with Metallica. Which part of my life do you think I enjoyed more?" Then there's the wholly unexpected career move Mould made in 1999 when he went to work as a writer for World Championship Wrestling, detailed in one fascinating chapter.
Perhaps the brightest light shed in "See a Little Light" is on Mould's sexuality. The book opens with a fair-warning story at a clothing-optional gay resort in Palm Springs, Calif. What it goes on to reveal, however, is that Mould has led a fairly stable, even wholesome romantic life anchored by three long-term relationships. "I have a pretty large gay audience that I have neglected professionally for a lot of my career, that I haven't spoke to directly," he admitted. "So there's a lot of pent-up energy in that direction."
