The gross with the most

They were still in nappies when bands like Dinosaur Jr. and Teenage Fanclub were at the peak of their success, but that hasn’t stopped Max Bloom, Jonny Rogoff, Daniel Blumberg and Mariko Doi from making an album straight out of 1992.

Yuck’s connection with ‘90s slacker rock may well be the worst-kept secret in indie (us meeja types were on it like white on rice!), did the band ever feel tempted to deny their grunge-strewn roots?
“It’s obviously a really frequently asked question,” guitarist Max Bloom tells me, without a trace of exasperation in his voice, “but I don’t exactly have anything to prove. The bands we get compared to are my favourite bands in the world. When I discovered those bands, it was a really big thing for me, and in some ways it changed things a lot. I was also learning a lot about guitar, building up pedals and working on my sound and it was just really inspiring to hear amazing guitarists get a unique sound out of their guitar. It gave me something to aspire to, maybe. But, yeah, obviously we don’t only listen to that stuff.”

Yuck spent last night in Gothenburg, Sweden, where they played a show ‘til 2.30am, rested their heads at 4am and got up again at 6.30am to drive to Hamburg for – you guessed it – another show. A schedule like that must be taking its toll...
“You kind of have to learn how to do it.” Bloom shrugs. “It’s a natural instinct to think, ‘I’m in this place, I’m gonna go crazy!’, but you have to find the balance. It is a really surreal existence. When you’re on tour, you’re not really in control of your day, things are being done for you. It’s like an environment that a baby can exist in! You don’t have to do anything, you don’t even have to think. I mean, I quite like it. I like traveling to different places, but I prefer making music at home.”
Yuck’s critically-fawned over debut album was recorded in Bloom’s parents’ house in London, much to the dismay of his neighbours.

“I started off in my bedroom and that was next to my neighbour’s house, and the first thing I did on day one of recording was just turn up my amp so loudly and started recording ‘Get Away’. Then about 30 minutes in, I took off my headphones and my neighbour, who’s like this really threatening guy, was like, (screaming) ‘Turn the fucking music down!’ I got kind of scared, so I had to move to another room which was a lot smaller!”

Sounds like a pretty claustrophobic existence.
“It had advantages and disadvantages. At times it was difficult to know when to draw the line. When you’re doing it yourself, your head’s really in it and you don’t have the ability to step back from what you’re doing and think, ‘This is good, I’m happy with this.’ Sometimes it got a little bit stressful but at the same time I don’t think we could have recorded it in any other way than we did, because it was something that we knew and it was honest and true to us.”
The guitarist adds that recording in such a familiar environment made it all the more nerve-wracking when it came time to release Yuck the album to the world.
“We recorded it in a kind of bubble,” he says. “So suddenly bringing it out and letting everyone hear it was just weird. But I don’t early make a habit of reading reviews or anything like that because personally, it would probably really affect me in a negative way. It’s just not very helpful, and it’s not really constructive for us as a band.”

Yuck made their Irish live debut at Cork By Southwest in June, but Bloom stresses that it’s not a performance they’re hoping to repeat.
“I remember that one very clearly,” he winces. “It was really bad! The crowd were good, and I love Ireland, don’t get me wrong, but all bands have terrible gigs and that was one of our really bad ones. Sometimes you just get on stage and nothing’s going your way. Jonny counted us in – ‘1, 2, 3, 4’ – and then as soon as we started playing it just sounded so shit, like awful! It became really, really funny after a while how bad it was sounding, but I mean Electric Picnic – it has to be better, it will be better.”