Bob Mould

Robert Arthur Mould (born October 16, 1960) is an American musician, principally known for his work as guitarist, vocalist, and songwriter for alternative rock bands Hüsker Dü in the 1980s and Sugar in the 1990s.

Born in Malone, New York, Mould lived in several places, including the Minneapolis-St. Paul area, where he attended Simley High School in Inver Grove Heights and Macalester College in Saint Paul.

At Macalester, he formed Hüsker Dü in the late 1970s with drummer/singer Grant Hart and bass guitarist Greg Norton.

Mould and Hart were the principal songwriters for Hüsker Dü, with Hart's higher-pitched vocals and Mould's baritone taking the lead in alternate songs.

Forming in 1979, Hüsker Dü first gained notice as a punk rock group with a series of recordings on the independent label SST Records.

In the late 1980s, Hüsker Dü broke up acrimoniously amid members' drug abuse, personal problems, disputes over songwriting credits, musical direction, and the suicide of the band's manager, David Savoy.

In 1986, they signed with a major record label (Warner Bros. Records), but found only modest commercial success.

After Hüsker Dü broke up in 1988, Mould sequestered himself in a remote farmhouse in Pine City, Minnesota, having quit drinking and drugs, and wrote the songs that would make up his first solo album.

Signing to the newly formed Virgin Records America label, 1989's Workbook eschewed Mould's trademark wall-of-noise guitar for a lighter tone.

Drummer Anton Fier (of The Feelies and later The Golden Palominos) and bassist Tony Maimone (of Pere Ubu) served as Mould's rhythm section.

The album peaked at number 127 on the Billboard 200 chart, and the single "See a Little Light" reached number 4 on the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks chart.

The label released singles from bands such as Daniel Johnston, Grant Lee Buffalo, Moby, Mojo Nixon, Morphine, Nikki Sudden, and R. Stevie Moore from 1989 to 1994.

Mould then formed the group Sugar, with bassist David Barbe and drummer Malcolm Travis.

Along with extensive touring, Sugar released two albums, an EP and a B-sides collection before breaking up.

However, they were later often cited as one of the key influences on 1990s alternative rock, including bands such as Foo Fighters and Pixies.

1990's Black Sheets of Rain had a much heavier guitar sound, recalling Hüsker Dü's louder, angrier moments.

During a stint living in New York City in the late-1990s, as he more fully embraced his identity as a gay man, Mould's tastes took a detour into dance music and electronica.

1992's Copper Blue was named as NME's 1992 Album of the Year, and was Mould's most successful commercial album, selling nearly 300,000 copies.

While in the band Sugar, in 1993 he contributed the track "Can't Fight It" as a solo artist to the AIDS Benefit Album No Alternative produced by the Red Hot Organization.

In 1994, he recorded "Turning of the Tide" for Beat The Retreat, a tribute album to the English guitarist and songwriter Richard Thompson.

In 1996, Mould returned to solo recording, releasing a self-titled album in 1996 on Rykodisc, often referred to as Hubcap because of the cover photo.

Mould played all of the instruments himself, and programmed the drums instead of using a real drummer.

The album peaked at number 101 on the Billboard 200 chart, and number 1 on the Heatseekers chart.

In 1998, Mould released The Last Dog and Pony Show, his final album on Rykodisc (who had released all of the Sugar albums in the U.S.).

The album was named as such because Mould decided that the tour that followed would be his "last electric band tour."

By this time, he had changed his mind on touring with a band, and announced his first band tour since 1998.

The tour lineup included bassist Jason Narducy (of Verbow), drummer Brendan Canty (of Fugazi), and Mould's Blowoff collaborator, Morel, on keyboards.

In addition to his solo work, Mould also worked as a live DJ in collaboration with Washington DC-area dance music artist Richard Morel, under the collective banner Blowoff.

After the tour, Mould took a break from the music world to get involved with another passion of his, professional wrestling, when he joined WCW as a scriptwriter in 1999 for a brief period.

Creative differences with some of the other writers led to Mould's leaving the company and returning to music.

The liner notes for the 2002 album Modulate thank some of the wrestlers he associated with, most notably Kevin Nash and Kevin Sullivan.

Those influences were clear on his 2002 release Modulate, which featured a strong electronica influence to mixed critical reviews and poor fan reaction.

One song, "The Receipt," was fairly straightforward, according to City Pages: it "can be taken as a barely veiled attack on Mould's old Husker Dü-mate Grant Hart."

(In fact, another song on the album ["Trade"] had been written and performed live during his Hüsker Dü days.) In further pursuit of this sound, Mould also began recording under the pseudonym LoudBomb (an anagram of his name), releasing one CD ("Long Playing Grooves") so far under this name.

His next solo album, Body of Song, had been originally scheduled to closely follow the release of 2002's Modulate.

Instead, Mould worked on the album for the next three years, resulting in a 2005 release.

According to the liner notes for the 2012 re-release of Sugar's Copper Blue, Creation Records president Alan McGee verified that total album sales were 7,000 copies.

Still, the album peaked at number 123 on the Billboard 200 chart, and the single "It's Too Late" reached number 10 on the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks chart.

Mould also co-founded a record label, Singles Only Label, with Coyote Records label founder Steve Fallon.

Mould and Grant Hart, the band's other songwriter and vocalist, still took occasional jabs at each other in the press until Hart's death in 2017, though the two briefly revisited their Hüsker Dü back catalog together at a 2004 benefit concert for an ailing friend, the late Karl Mueller of Soul Asylum.