Lou's Company

Received wisdom about Sebadoh accuses the Yankee doodlers of perennial underachievement, a talented troupe who somehow deliberately sabotage their own chances of success for fear of blowing their cover as princes among slackers.
Certainly, their tendency to divide up their albums between bare-naked, gut-thumping love songs and shouty white noise does seem the mark of a band with an unresolved identity crisis. According to Lou Barlow, though, that can work to his band's advantage.
"No matter how much we suck, we don't suck," philosophises Lou. "We built in an anti-suck device. No matter how horrible the show we play is, someone will always say, 'that was grrreat' because no one really knows what we are. Or when we're good. No one knows. There's a sense of mystery about the band that we didn't even purposely cultivate."
There is indeed a distinct hit-and-miss quality about the Sebadoh live experience, as they will demonstrate later on in Dublin's Mean Fiddler, where the Sebadoh frontman seemed to be wrestling as much with niggly technical glitches as with his own personal demons. But rewind an hour or so and you will find him wrestling with an ashtray in a bar just across the road from Vince Power's pad, with bass player/vocalist Jason Loewenstein and new drummer Russ Pollard in attendance.
The recruitment of Pollard has made the band an altogether tighter proposition than before and I suggest to Barlow that the new album, The Sebadoh, sounds more dynamic, more 'together' than previous works.
"Personally, I think it's as ramshackle as anything we've done but then I've heard so many different interpretations of this new record."
And what is Barlow's own interpretation?
"I think it ROCKS, man!" he explodes, laying on the sarcasm even though deep down you know he really means it, man. "I heard a bit of it today and I really wanted to run out of the room the minute that I heard it, but then I had to stay and I thought 'ah, it's pretty good'. But if we could re-record the record now we would."
Why?
"Because hindsight is 20/20," says Jason, with almost Confucian poise. To these ears, it doesn't need fixing, its rhythm section never sounding more sinuous, and its great hulking guitar lines rarely offering such immediate gratification. It rocks, alright. And yet no matter how much Lou cranks up his amp, his lyrics will always have him pinned as a hopelessly sensitive soul whose heart is but an unreturned phone call away from Papworth General.
"No!" shouts Lou, recoiling in horror at the very thought. "Sensitive souls are always fucking soulless assholes. Don't trust sensitivity, whatever you do."
So there.
Sebadoh have just had their biggest UK hit to date with 'Flame', a muzzle-free Doberman of a single which is Barlow's highest chart placing since the Folk Implosion his ongoing side project with John Davis gave him an unexpected hit in the States with 'Natural One' a few years ago, on the back of its use in the 'adult teen flick', Kids.
Maybe now the rainforests of critical praise heaped on Barlow and his band will start to bear fruit commercially. Did he ever imagine when he stepped out of J Mascis's shadow and formed Sebadoh a decade ago that the band, albeit in a slightly different guise, would still be here at millennium's end?
"I'm just amazed that people are still keeping track of time," says Barlow.
"But no, there was never any expectations when we started this band . . . Except for Eric Gaffney (original founding member long departed NK) who thought we were going to be as big as The Beatles."
" . . . but who thought that he wouldn't have to do anything to get that," continues Jason, lamenting that slacker ethos that has constantly stalked the band's public image.
Along with the likes of Pavement, Sebadoh are seen by some as elder statesmen of collegiate campus rock. But Barlow baulks at the tag.
"Elder statesmen?" he repeats, incredulous. "The band that wouldn't die! The band with a contract, more like." But at one point Sebadoh were riding the wild surf of American alt rock until
". . .. until Kurt killed himself." Barlow's sudden interjection catches your reporter off guard. Talk about cutting to the chase. "Nirvana were really the only good band, to be honest. What was there? There was Nirvana and then he killed himself."
I suggest the Pixies.
"Fuck the Pixies, man. Fuck the Pixies," spits Barlow with as much contempt as he can muster. But what about Kurt's admission that 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' was just a rip-off of Black Francis's mob?
"Yeah, well, fuck Kurt then," sneers Barlow. Jason erupts into laughter. But his partner is on a roll and he's now deadly serious. "Kurt was so lame that he killed himself. He didn't even know how cool he was. He didn't even know what he had. And he killed himself.
"He killed himself for punk rock. FUCK THAT. That's like the dumbest thing that anyone could ever do. Punk rock is such a transient, bullshit thing. Punk rock means absolutely nothing. And he killed himself for it. He killed himself because he was miserable and because he didn't think he was punk rock enough. . . But mostly because he was miserable."
"And Courtney," whispers Jason.
"And Courtney," agrees Lou. "Courtney embodies the whole nagging horrible celebrity spirit of punk rock."
Jason takes up the point. "Punk rock is all about, 'I wanna be famous 'cos I'm such an ASSHOLE'. I mean, fuck that."
It's true that a lot of the revered punk rock icons appear, from their biographies at least, to have had, how you say, some rather unattractive personality traits.
"I hate that," says Lou animatedly. "'cos it makes people think that they too should be an asshole."
Does that put him off the music?
"Actually, it makes me more into it," he answers. "Cos the media makes everybody seem like they're nice people. And that's why punk rock is so cool because in punk rock they were admitting that they had bad days. Whereas in the media, everybody has a great day every day and they're really happy to be there. Punk rock basically said: not every day is great and some days I'm really angry. But then people like Kurt Cobain or Eric Gaffney bought into the idea that you had to be an asshole every day. Even to people in their own bands."
Ignoring the fact that Lou's just taken another swipe at his old bandmate, I wonder if the psychotic reactions and carburettor dung of a lot of punk rockers is mostly due to their level of chemical intake. Lou and Jason, though, have stepped off their soapbox and once again play it for laughs.
"Coke makes me really nice, honestly," jokes Lou.
"Out of a can?" asks Jason, sarcastically.
"Actually, yeah,' Lou replies. "It works really well. I don't think I've ever been really miserable after drinking a Coca Cola. I have however been really miserable after taking cocaine." "Why are you guys talking about cocaine?" pipes Russ, until now happy to let the others do the talking but suddenly concerned at the direction the interview is taking.
"He brought it up," says Lou defensively, staring accusingly at your reporter. "You got any?" Cue more unrestrained laughter.
Now seems like a good time to change the subject. I ask Lou if he ever gets disillusioned with the whole merry-go-round; if he's ever come close to just jacking it in?
"It's gone down to once a week. There's always some moment where either I just don't think I can do it anymore or the world is just a horrible place to be in and people should all just run off to the forest. The world is a terrible place, of course, everybody knows that."
Thinking back to his earlier assertion that the whole grunge movement spawned only one band worth mentioning, I ask Barlow if he sees any upturn in the quality of the American underground scene since. I'm half-expecting him to name-check Mercury Rev, Sparklehorse, Smog et al. . .
"I haven't heard a good rock band from the States in a really fucking long time," he laments. "Since Nirvana probably. There's experimental stuff that's always really cool."
People using samplers and all that?.
"Samplers is bullshit. It's not really what makes good music. It's a combination of a lot of things, which people haven't really figured out yet."
What about Beck?
"I think he's really inspiring but he doesn't make me feel like Nirvana did."
Is he too clever?
"Maybe. It's not his fault though."
What about dance culture?
"I think dancing is a great thing. I don't dance much myself though. But percussion is always an important thing. Percussion and guitar should exist side by side. Er, like they always have."
You don't see 'dance' and 'rock' as mutually antagonistic forces? "Absolutely not. The Bee Gees were a rock band. Disco was rock music. I think they're actually very friendly to each other. It takes unlikely combinations to make it work. The Bee Gees took early '70s funk and ended up making the most popular disco record in the world. That's beautiful but it's totally by chance."
But you've really got to listen to it in a club, haven't you?
"Yes. It's got to be really fucking loud and there's got to be loads of beautiful women around." And with that there follows a final burst of laughter, a final lurch from eye-popping earnestness to jesting joviality. In conversation, as with their music, it seems there are two quite different sides to Sebadoh. And both of them, quite literally, have just left the building. n
The Sebadoh is out now on Domino Records.