The Daily Swarm Interview: Steve Albini on Recording 2,000 Albums, Nirvana, How Geffen Tried to Put Him Out of Business.
A really fantastic and thoughtful interview. I hate you, Ryan, for not recording with him.
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Great interview (as always from that dude). Most resonant line for me is something I’m always doing my old guy yapping about:
“Nobody ever thought of it as a career when I first got into a band. Nobody had any commercial aspirations. I was participating in ‘band culture.’ It was a social thing like being on a bowling team. The same way that if a friend was having a cookout and needed to borrow your grill, of course you’d let him borrow your grill and of course you’d go to the cookout and of course he’d offer you a hot dog.”
I’m not someone who dismisses new music and I think for my age I keep up with and appreciate a lot of it. But the one thing I will always maintain is just what he’s saying here. The music created in a vacuum where there is absolutely not even the slightest remote possibility you can parlay it into anything beyond something enjoyed by a small group of friends is going to be drastically different and drastically more bold than when it’s created with even the most modest goals of success and finance. Doesn’t mean what’s come after that era is bad, it just will never be that way again given the level of cultural connectivity we have now.
I take no blame in that. I WANTED to record with Albini, so much so that i was going to fund the 5 glorious days in Chi-town to do it. But the rest of my band wimped out, twice actually.
I BLAME YOU.
NO!