Jurasic Lark

Listening to his music you’d never guess it, but Dinosaur Jr’s Lou Barlow is a glass half-full kind of guy. “My heart started beating really fast for an hour or so – it was painful and scary,” says the indie icon, cheerfully recounting a recent dash to hospital.

“They did all kinds of tests, which came back as negative. Apparently there’s nothing wrong with my heart. As you enter middle-age that’s a good thing to know. I don’t normally visit doctors, so in way it was a blessing.”
The good news doesn’t end there. Recently Dinosaur Jr, ’90s noiseniks enjoying a second lease of life, crashed into the American charts at number 19 with new album Farm – their highest ever position by... oh several zillion places.
“I was pleased, but not surprised,” reflects the 43-year-old New England native. “The way things are right now, it’s not as shocking as it used to be. I think the last Arcade Fire record debuted at number one. Spoon, Deathcab For Cutie... they’ve all charted. Things have changed pretty drastically. You can reach much higher up the charts nowadays with much lower sales.”
Barlow gets a little antsy when people describe Dinosaur Jr, which he co-fronts with guitarist J. Mascis, as the godfathers of grunge. Ditto, assertions that, with his ’90s band Sebadoh, he single-handedly created lo-fi.
“How did The Ting Tings put it? ‘We started nothing.’ Dinosaur Jr had a lot of ’60s influences. And to call Sebadoh the beginning of lo-fi is absurd. There was a phenomenon of post-punk in the late ’70s and early ’80s, bands on Rough Trade like Swell Maps and Young Marble Giants. Those were artists I took direct inspiration from. When people say, ‘you started lo-fi’ it’s ridiculous, especially when you consider that Young Marble Giants actually sold a tremendous amount of records and a lot of people have heard of them.”
Barlow rejoined Dinosaur Jr in 2005, having had an unpleasant parting of the ways with the band’s frontman J Mascis in the late ’80s. Actually ‘unpleasant’ is something of an understatement, as anyone who’s read music journalist Michael Azerrad’s account of their split in his seminal study of the pre-grunge era, Our Band Could Be Your Life. The way Azerrad tells it, Barlow was angry, resentful and unable to express his emotions – until one day, they came out in an ill-tempered venting.
“I read his account and it was very depressing to me,” Barlow rues. “I have to say, it really inspired me to pursue the reunion. I felt so bad, when I read the whole story. It was depressing and awful.”
How do they get on now?
“The thing was, back then we didn’t have any arguments. It was all sublimated and passive aggressive. Nowadays, I’m much more inclined to speak my mind and cause tension. To me, that’s the only way to address things. Sometimes, it’s the best way to be more creative. There’s definitely more discussion now. I wouldn’t call them fights... I really want to know what’s on people’s minds.”
What of J Mascis’ reputation as a monosyllabic stoner dude, the proverbial rock and roll man of few words?
“With J, it really depends on who you are. There are people who are close to him and are good friends... well, he’s got quite a lot to say to the people who know him. If you’re close, he’s a lovely person and someone who’s fun to talk to. I think for people who don’t know him, he can seem a little bit mysterious. But isn’t it that way with a lot of people?”
In Europe, the release of Farm was delayed when it emerged that vinyl pressings of the record had been recorded at too high a volume. By all accounts, the resulting din was excessively frazzled even for dedicated Dinosaur Jr fans.
Says Barlow: “Apparently there was a lot of digital distortion where it was not natural. A lot of CDs are mastered really loudly. It’s called brick mastering. There was a conscious decision not to do that. Somehow, when the record went into production in Europe it was too loud. The actual physical production was somehow faulty.”
As a 25-year veteran of the business, Barlow has a lot of festival memories – not always happy ones. At a Sebadoh show at Reading in the mid-’90s, he had an infamous onstage meltdown, in which he flung his guitar to the floor and stomped off stage. Can Electric Picnicers expect a repeat of such shenanigans?
“I really enjoy playing festivals with Dinosaur. Because our sound is so...thick. We have a very full sound between the three of us. That’s really reassuring. When I do festivals with Sebadoh and stuff, it’s much more difficult. When you’re playing music that’s not as loud, it’s a challenge – the big stage feels incredibly empty and people are standing so far away. You can feel incredibly exposed. When I’m in Dinosaur, because I’m the bass-player, I feel invisible.”