J. Mascis, who is most well-known for his work with Dinosaur Jr, is currently traveling around playing solo shows. If you were lucky enough to see him, you know how great he can be, and if he’s coming to your town soon, go. I caught up with J. shortly before his show in Phoenix, Arizona. The conversation started a little slow but eventually picked up, and while the famously laconic Mascis seemed to be interested and actually engaged during a few points, his utter slacker-ness burned bright during our conversation. Maybe it is the drummer in him, but he definitely set the pace for our chat.

This is a solo tour….

Right.

Just you couple guitars and some effects pedals?

Right.

What have you learned about yourself as a musician in doing this?

I guess, learn how to play a little bit tighter when you’re alone. I can’t play as loose as I can with a band. Have to be on the ball all the time.

Do you like touring?

I don’t even think about that anymore. I like something about it.

What’s your favorite thing about it?

The playing.

What’s the least favorite thing about it?

Driving.

Do you have somebody with you on tour?

I have one guy with me.

Can you throw your stuff in the back of an SUV and head out?

We have a mini-van…we have lots of boxes of merch and stuff. It’s annoying.

You do a lot of projects. Do you focus on one at a time or are you able to focus on multiple projects.

I guess I could. It doesn’t seem like I have to focus on different things much. But yeah, I could do that. It usually just one thing at a time. My life’s not that hectic, I guess.

That’s a good thing. Are you constantly writing?

I usually write for a specific project.

When you’re writing, do you think along the lines of, “that’s a Dino Jr song or that’s a solo song?

Yeah. Usually I’m writing for one thing but if I have something that doesn’t fit what I’m trying to do, I usually save it for something else.

Was there a defining moment when you thought, I’m going to be a musician.

I don’t remember it. I don’t remember really ever….(pauses) thinking I wanted to do anything else.

Going back to the Deep Wound (Mascis’ first band) days do remember a moment where you decided you wanted to be in a hardcore band?

I don’t remember. I just wanted to do it. It was hard to get it together. In our town, there wasn’t that many people who were into punk rock, so it was a big challenge, you know, finding someone to play with. Then with Dino, I guess we were interested in touring, you know, we’d seen all these bands, you know, Black Flag kind of started the whole touring band thing in America, and all the SST bands were getting a network of places to play. We wanted to do that.

As a fan, I’ve always been curious…what was it that drove you guys to end Deep Wound and start Dinosuar?

Um. It just seemed like hardcore ended or something. Suddenly it was over and it was time do something else. It was definitely time to not do that anymore and we wanted to still play music, so it was time to do something else. It definitely felt like hardcore (punk) just ended and Negative Approach (seminal Detroit hardcore punk band) turned into the Laughing Hyenas (heavy, noisy, aggressive, and featured the great John Brannon from Negative Approach on vocals) and Minor Threat(part of the straightedge movement and hardcore heroes from Washington DC) turned into Fugazi (Dischord Records anchor band) and one day it was just kind of over. It was interesting.

I’m going to get some hate mail for writing that hardcore was dead.

Why?

Anytime you say that a genre is over or dead, it brings out the inner 15 year old in people.

It’s not that I still didn’t like that music. It just felt like it…it just seemed to be over.

That’s a sentiment shared by many of the elder statesmen of the punk scene…Derrick Bostrom, original drummer of the Meat Puppets, said something very similar to me not long ago.

The Meat Puppets first record was pretty amazing to us when it came out. The 7”…

With “In a Car” (The Meat Puppets first ep doesn’t actually have a title, but most people refer to it as “In a Car)?

I followed all their records when they came out.

I always felt there was a strong correlation between the Dino Jr stuff and the Meat Puppets. That was something you were paying attention to?

People thought we were a Meat Puppets rip off at first. Influential band.

Whatever happened to Gobblehoof (a fantastic band Mascis played drums in and produced)?

I heard mumblings they were trying to release some stuff by Halloween. They seem to be forgotten.

Are you competitive with other musicians? I once heard that you always wanted to be the loudest band at any show you played.

No. You know, it’s basically just trying to amuse ourselves and somehow, just playing that loud was just kind of offensive to people in the beginning. It’s why we would get banned from every club. Just having an idea and sticking with it, you know, despite all the hatred we got, it wasn’t being the loudest band, it was just kind of a concept that we should just play really loud, and it just…. It just seemed better, somehow.

Well, you can feel it.

Yeah. And from playing drums, you know, and switching to guitars, it’s a lame feeling. Playing loud, it’s a way to get some feeling into it, get some dynamics.

I can see that…especially because as a drummer you have so much control over the power.

Yeah, it’s just sounded like, so wimpy compared to drums. I don’t know. I was just trying to create that same feeling somehow.

Do you like to be in control of pretty much everything going on with your projects. Is that true or is that just the media?

Um, yeah, not really. There’s certain things a lot of people never understood that like uh, you know I play drums and if you write a song, like to me drums are part of a song. It’s not like it’s just a beat. I hear the drums and a lot of people can’t understand that. It’s not like there is a lot of room for any drum input or something on the songs, so I’m teaching Murph (Dinorsaur Jr. drummer). And I don’t have that with bass, I don’t really hear it, so I don’t care what happens with the bass. But yeah, when I was younger, I just wanted to have it sound a certain way. We had really unsympathetic (sound and recording) engineers in our area who just thought you sucked and we had to fight to get it to sound a certain way. Now, though, everybody is really, you know, engineers are a lot hipper than they used to be. It’s not a battle. It was amazing when we got our first sympathetic engineer, which was Wharton Tiers (Sonic Youth, Unsane, Alice Donut), who was amazing...someone who liked the music and wanted to help.

Was that for You’re Living All Over Me?

Yeah.

Did he do Green Mind, too?

No, that Sean Slade (who engineered and Mascis himself produced) who was pretty sympathetic also, which everyone has been since then, but back in the day, it was a battle.

You’ve had a lot of cool collaborations. I remember seeing you with the Fog here many years ago with Mike Watt on bass. Anybody you’d like to collaborate with you that you haven’t had a chance to work with yet?

Sure, tons of people The Stones. (Laughs) I don’t know.

That would be interesting. Drums or guitar? Or Produce?

Well I don’t know. I mean, if you got Charlie Watts, probably guitar.

What would you like fans to know about the show at the Crescent?

Oh I don’t care. I mean, its…. I’m playing alone but I have some gadgets so it’s not totally boring. Hopefully though, they’ll be into it.

Oh I doubt it. You get a pretty good reception here in Phoenix, don’t you?

I don’t know. I don’t think I’ve played there enough times to discern a typical reaction.

Punk Globe would like to thank Tom Reardon for doing the interview...