Listen to an Unreleased Unwound Track, and Read Our In-Depth Interview

When Unwound comes up, normally very reserved people of a certain age and disposition tend to hyperventilate. Tumwater, Washington’s most famous exports (though in one of life’s more egregious “Jesus/Elvis being a stranger in his own home town” moments, one not mentioned on the town’s website) changed lives. Disheveled dirtbag kids in Cobain sweaters with cough syrup stains on the front spent much of the ‘90s lying on their bellies in punk houses all over the country, making their own album covers with glitter and glue sticks, listening to Unwound records on repeat. They were a major band for thousands of men and woman too disaffected to call themselves fans of any rock band…except Unwound. Unwound inspired devotion mainly because they were musically amazing, violently alive, and, in act and attitude, soul saving as all hell…and partially because they never, by choice and by luck, crossed over into mainstream (even “alt” mainstream) consciousness. If you loved Nirvana or Fugazi, you had to share them with the same people who kicked the shit out of you in high school. But Unwound was a private cult. Obviously, being a fucking snob is no way to live your life in its entirety, but the world is hard and people do deserve an occasional secret. And for a lot of awesome pockmarked weirdoes, that was/is Unwound.

Combining the freaked out noise attack of Gravity Records bands with the propulsion of the northwest rawk bands and slathering the whole shebang in Sonic Youthy art guitar, Unwound’s discography became a template for, well, not enough bands if you ask me. But their influence is apparent in bands like Modest Mouse, Merchandise, Raspberry Bulbs, much of the UK current's punk/post-punk underground, to even, arguably, the last few years of American black metal. Now, the archival label, Numero Group, has taken it upon themselves to give Unwound the historical treatment that the band deserves. Starting with last year’s collection of early recordings, Kid Is Gone, the label is doing a four part Unwound reissue project that will hopefully/maybe sate the needs of Unwound’s fan base. Though, existentially speaking, I don’t know if that’s possible.

On March 18th, Numero Group releases Rat Conspiracy, collecting Fake Train, New Plastic Ideas, two 7”s, some radio rarities, and a sick Minutemen cover. Unwound singer/guitarist, Justin Trosper, and drummer/general indie rock legend, Sara Lund, were kind enough to answer a few questions about the both the band and the reissue series. They also gave us a previously-unreleased jam, "Unsympathetica," to share with all of you wonderful lovely starchildren.

Noisey: What was the impetus for the box sets/rerelease? What took so long? Was there any resistance within the band? Also, as the ‘90s progressed it became clear that a lot of indie labels were operating with the same mentality of major labels, but Kill Rock Starshas maintained a solid reputation for honesty. What was the thinking behind releasing the box sets through Numero Group?
Justin: All this is sort of our fault because we wanted to be remembered or exist somewhere on the internet. After Fugazi put up the live series I got to thinking that we should do something similar on our own level. We started digging through our closets and boxes and decided to make a website and document our last tour, which turned into Live Leaves.

When Numero approached us with an offer to reissue all of our recordings it was just a sort of once in a lifetime opportunity type of deal. We could not pass it up even though KRS and us had a fine relationship. But let’s face it, there is no way they could do what Numero is doing. They are two different kinds of labels. KRS needs to discover and promote new artists and Numero only does stuff from the past and Unwound is a band from the past. I’ve learned that enthusiasm is the key quality to look for when working with somebody in music. Numero is enthusiastic and they really know what they hell they are doing.

Sara: No resistance within the band. We were all very honored by Numero's interest.

You were always one of those bands, like Motorhead, that everyone; metal kids, hardcore kids, punx, and indie types, could all agree on. Broad question I know, but why do you think that was?
Justin: I remember having a conversation about this long ago with a friend. I’m not really sure but maybe we had our feet in an interesting enough mix of styles (metal and punk combined! now that’s a concept!) that a variety of people could cull something from listening to it. Also, even though we were associated with Olympia and KRS and whatever comes with that, I don’t think we came across as an identity-heavy band (no uniforms, etc.) nor was there some sort of ideological aesthetic being forced upon people. It was heavy, noisy, fast, slow and quiet. We also played with all kinds of bands—really weird incongruous bills. Europeans had an especially difficult time trying to decide what kind of band we were and so we played to strange crowds more often than not. We just wanted to contribute to unity in the scene.

Sara: I think that you will find with bands or musicians who really play from a place of true honesty that true fans of music will connect with the music. As a fan of "good music" myself, I've never found it necessary to disregard some kind of music just because it belonged or didn't belong to a specific genre. I think for the most part, we connected with people looking for music that spoke to them in a way that defied genre.

They lyrics have a lot of the anti-poetic conversational jive of the time. Short words and phrases, cryptic as all hell. Whether it was you guys, Lync, or even Nirvana…conversational despair seemed to be the way everyone (rather, everyone I liked) communicated at the time. Even if the music got progressively out there, you kept it pretty tight lyrically. Was there any unified thinking behind the lyrics? Were you aware at the time that there was a shared, sorry, aesthetic?
Justin: Well, I wrote all the lyrics except for a couple that Vern sang and we didn’t really have conversations about lyrical content or album themes, so I can take most of the blame! The music really wrote the lyrics for Unwound, most of the time. They had to fit a meter and I almost always worked backwards from a song title. I also have difficulty remembering long passages and don’t really think it is a good idea to cram tons of words and ideas into this kind of music. The listener should be able to walk away with something even it doesn’t make total sense. So you can see the limitations and constraints in working that way would be more conducive to that sort of phrasing. I think by anti-poetic, you might mean anti-rhyme? But to me, it is all some form of poetry, just because lyrics are a form of writing that most resembles poetry. The lyrics I labored over were the worst and the ones I barfed out (and revised a little) were often more interesting.

How influential do you think you’ve been? Please be arrogant here because if you aren’t you’ll be lying. What does that feel like considering how humble your initial ambitions seem to have been.
Justin: It’s hard to prove because not very many people would admit it or actually remember. Statistically, judging by how many shows we played and the labels we were associated with and the bands we toured with and what people have directly said to me, we had some significant influence. How do you quantify that? In perceived reality, it seems to be dictated by what writers put in year-end lists and anthologies. By that mark we are a footnote. I have heard a lot of things about people that are a lot more famous than we would ever be. So somehow we infiltrated their minds, does that make us more influential? You never know, people go to the grave with these kinds of secrets.

Sara: It has only been in the past year or two that I've heard from a growing number of people (from their mouths into my ear, not read in any history books) how our band changed their lives. I've heard it a bit in some new bands, too. But yes, it is hard to quantify, and who knows if it comes from us or through some other band that took a piece of what we did and rolled with it. I guess it feels nice to validated, though it doesn't really have much of a direct effect on my daily life. It is pretty abstract.

There is a resurgence of the “what constitutes ‘real’ DIY” debate happing now. What does DIY mean to you now, then? Does it still have any place in your life? You can interchange “DIY” with punk if that makes the question more interesting. Do you think if you began today you’d be able to/be willing to exist in the same uncompromising (DIY, all ages, overtly feminist politics in show choices if not in lyrics, etc.) way you did during your existence?
Justin: Existing as a musician today, I would say that no, I’m not willing or able to be that uncompromising. DIY/Punk has been an important part of my life and influences my ethics and behavior but I also have a foot firmly planted in the rest of the world. What I mean is that that kind of community sometimes tends to be so insular that it becomes suffocating for artists. Collectivism sometimes fosters an environment where the collective has “ownership” over individual’s art or even their values. Decisions you need to make may be too skewed by how others will perceive your actions and your self-interest can be smothered. And even though I still enjoy going to or playing DIY shows, I like being around different kinds of people even if I don’t share their worldview. I know people that are cops, religious zealots, backwoods new agers and rednecks that could give a shit about punk rock or it’s indefinable, obscure set of rules and that’s ok by me. I don’t pledge allegiance to punk but I live there sometimes-- I guess I’m a part-time punk. As far as DIY goes, my Grandma was more DIY than anybody I’ve ever met and I’m totally serious! Anybody that had a country family growing up is allowed to scoff a little at the granny jam and pickles that people pass off as artisan nonsense.

Sara: I love Justin's answer so much I kind of want to leave it to speak for itself! Living in Portland, OR, the capitol of wanna-be DIY, I definitely find myself rolling my eyes pretty regularly at the everyone's-an-entrepreneur, mainstream and frankly corporatization of so-called DIY. It's all so quaint, with very little basis in reality. That said, I continue to admire and, to a certain extent strive to be, people that really do their own thing from a place of honesty (I hate to use the word "authenticity" because it has become the marketing word of the day). So for the people that really do things themselves, subverting the dominant paradigm by default, not necessarily with deliberate contrivance, I salute you.

And yes, I agree that there were definitely ways in which that community, or "scene" was stifling while at the same time being supportive and has to be given credit for whatever success we did achieve. But there are surely ways in which we were kept from enjoying even more success imposed by the nature of the scene, either self-imposed or otherwise.

I'm an adult in my forties now and know myself and trust my instincts more than I did in my 20's. I still bristle at structure and conformity, and I still choose to live in a city that has reinvented itself as a utopia for creative lefties. And making music now, I do feel stifled by the pervasive vibe of what constitutes "indie" now. But I continue to make the music I want to make and hope it connects with someone and trust that if comes from a place of honesty, it will connect with someone.

Through the liner notes there’s a general reoccurrence of feelings of living under Nirvana’s shadow, even when it started as a joke? Is that a feeling that remains or do you think Unwound exists entirely on its own merits now. Does Unwound still feel very Olympia to you? Do the recordings feel dated in any way?
Justin: Everyone was sort of living in Nirvana’s shadow because of how big and crazy they got. Part of that whole joke was speculating about how things seemed to be changing socially around us. So it was the Nirvana ripple effect everywhere. Just last week, Aberdeen just had their first Kurt Cobain Day on February 20 to celebrate a new hideous statuethey erected in their still shitty town. They even had Kurt’s guitar teacher come and speak. It will definitely keep getting weirder!

Unwound was very Olympia for the first part of its existence but I think/hope we transcended that after the mid-90s. We couldn’t have existed without the Olympia scene but in the end we were way more than an Olympia band, but maybe not to the people living there…

The recordings feel dated in some ways. Some of the production values and ideas being expressed were of the times, but hey that’s appropriate. You are a lucky artist if you make something that translates to generations and cultures besides your own and isn’t just really obvious and accessible.

The liner notes are honest, painfully so, from the discounting of New Plastic Ideas (which I disagree with btw…it may be my favorite album…and I am not a Sonic Youth fan) to (Unwound’s roadie) Dirty stealing the purse to Verne harming himself with a staple gun. As a band, raw honesty seems like was held at a premium. How important was “being honest” versus “making this sound good/cool/fun/whatever…” I’m not saying that these two ideas are contradictory…but sometimes they are.
Justin: I think as for the liner notes it was important to have those “honest” details even if it is a bit much for the casual reader. Part of it is unveiling any coolness we might be perceived to have and part of it is to figure out why these particular people made that music. I kind of wondered if it would be interesting to hear our story since we weren’t famous and we sort of lurked in the shadows of all this other stuff that happened in the 90’s, but I guess that’s kind of the story. It’s sort of the little band that could and we finally made it to the finish line!

Sara: I guess I'm starting to repeat myself, but by now you will have picked up on how important and valuable "honesty" is and was for me, and for us as a band of musicians. We played the music we played because we were the people playing it. I really don't recall us ever being deliberate about making something sound such and such a way for any other reason than the fact that we liked the way it sounded.

Also, final liner notes question I promise…they’re just very great and odd liner notes… in the notes, there’s much more focus on Sarah’s feelings and the bands feelings towards her where as the men are generally discussed in what they did, antics and what not…I could be reading too much into this, and please ignore me if I am, but is this a fair representation of the band dynamics?
Justin: Interesting observation. But I don’t think it is totally representative per se. I mean, in those early days with Sara there was hazing and trust/team building and all that stuff plus gender disparity and commonplace sexism, so it’s accurate. But as time went on those dynamics shifted and normalized. Not to say we were ever normal or well adjusted! But Sara was an equal member more so later. And she wasn’t like a wimpy girl. She dished out plenty.

Much credit is due to David Wilcox, the writer, for taking the time and energy to do this AND making it readable! AND digging into the still messy lives of ours.

Sara: Plus, I'm a girl and girls are all into feelings and boys are into stuff. I have to agree that much credit is due to David Wilcox for telling the story as it is. He and I have a very easy rapport and he cut right to the chase with me when talking about those times. He wasn't going to let me get away with a half-hearted answer when he knew there was something more to get at.

Wrapping up, what the hell have you guys been up to for the last 12 years? (Yeah I know it’s an annoying question as your various side/post-Unwound projects are documented…but let’s assume not everyone is up to date…you can push Survival Knife or Corin Tucker Band, the Unwound Archive, or discuss non-music related stuff if you’d prefer. Be wild and free.)
Justin: I did some recording for other people for a couple of years after Unwound but didn’t play a show again until 2012 and have been busy with Survival Knife since then. We have a full record coming out this spring. I’m also working on this other music project that I have wanted to do for like 15 years. Hopefully I will be done with that this year. I took a pretty long break from pursuing music or anything very creative. I guess I poured that energy into other things like school and learning about real nature and doing things I always wanted to do like rock climbing and martial arts and hanging out with my girlfriend and my dogs. So coming back to music felt fresh with new perspectives and all that. I have a lot left to do, but I didn’t know that in 2002. Playing rock shows is a small piece of the pie.

Sara: Well, in addition playing lots of different music with lots of different people (more on that in a second), I got married, went to grad school and got a Masters in Library Science, and had a son who is now almost 5. Being a mum takes up a lot of time and energy, in no small part due to the fact that my husband ended up in a band that tours all the time, but I continue to make music a priority and squeeze in as much as I can. Besides playing on the two Corin Tucker Band records with a few tours to support them, I have had a band called Hungry Ghost for going on seven years now. We put out a record in 2012 and are working on writing another (we work slow). I played in both 77Boadrum and 88Boadrum, the Boredoms amazing multi-drummer performances. I made a crazy, improv record with keyboardist Thollem McDonus that is coming out and in June and we're doing a west coast tour, also in June. I have been playing with a percussion ensemble called Secret Drum Band, led by the incredibly talented Lisa Schonberg. And always looking for more ways to stay creatively satisfied.

Unwound’s musical style, even with the stated and apparent influences, is so idiosyncratic. Do you think, with SO many influences available and swirling because of the internet, that would be possible now? Are there new bands that you particularly like/admire?
Justin: I think if people want to do their own thing they have to put in lots of “trigger time.” Natural talent and geniuses are rare, right? We used to practice, practice, tour, tour and play, play, play. Bands now are all multi-media personalities with funny kooky arty videos and twitter feeds and are really good at branding themselves. I like how accessible things have become in theory but it hasn’t made the music scene any better. Obviously, sound shaping is more relevant to music than image shaping.

But, there are a number of bands/musicians doing good stuff these days, as we can predict for the foreseeable future. Not very many interesting straight up rock bands other than some of the bigger established ones (like Mastodon and QOTSA). The Gorguts Coloured Sands record that came out recently is remarkable. Brent Arnold’s Night Exquisite is worth checking out. I like Helms Alee from here in Washington. And the last Knife record and Fuck Buttons—some interesting kind of experimental but accessible stuff. I always pay attention to what PJ Harvey is doing and along those lines I like stuff like Julia Holter. But honestly, give me a killer string quartet, some piano music or new age guitar and I’ll be a way happy camper.

Sara: Asking if Unwound's music could exist now is like asking if Justin, Vern and Sara could exist as the same 20 year olds they were 20 years ago today. And that is probably not possible because we live in a different world.

But is it still possible for musicians to create from a place of truth and passion? Sure. We are now dealing with a glut of music makers so it is even harder to sift out the "good music" from the din. And I don't really have the drive and energy for it that I had in my music obsessed youth. So i just wait for something great to land on my lap, instead of spending my hours seeking.

Nowadays I am more drawn to the more raw and trashy stuff, being pretty bored and burned out by all the precious, perfectly honed stuff. That said, if it's good, it's good.

I like Ty Segall, in all his prolific glory. I also like Helms Alee, self-avowed Unwound fans, so there is an element of parental pride. I always look forward to hearing what Sam & Janet of Quasi come up with, as they are 2 people who hold tight to their integrity and devotion to honest expression. My husband's band, Red Fang, is pretty great. I like them because they are also making music from the heart and I'm excited to see the response. Obviously there is a need to connect to, ahem, authenticity, and I think people see that in them.

I also enjoy Hornet Leg's shows, as well as Magic Mouth—both from Portland. But mostly I listen to olden days music, rarely sparked by the new. And I admit to being both a curmudgeon and lazy.

What’s next for the reissue series?
Justin: After Rat Conspiracy, two more sets every six months or so, and then we’ll see. Most of the hard work is over.

What would it take, and please don’t feel beholden by constraints of reality; again, be a as fanciful and free as you like, for there to be an Unwound reunion?
Justin: Piles of cash. Everything has a price tag. But, no, actually it ain’t gonna happen folks.

Sara: Not to be constrained by reality, it would take different people living in different realities.

Zachary Lipez is Noisey's Punk Uncle-In-Residence. He's on Twitter - @zacharylipez