Bob Mould is eyeing a June release for his next solo album, which he has been recording with Fugazi drummer Brendan Canty. The artist is in talks with several labels to release the follow-up to 2005’s “Body of Song,” which was issued by Yep Roc and debuted at No. 22 on Billboard’s Heatseekers chart.
“I would best describe it as the logical extension of ‘Body of Song,’ — lots of guitars, shorter pop songs,” Mould tells Billboard.com. “There’s a couple of down things that are a little more loop-based. It’s Brendan’s opinion that it’s a little more somber than the last record. He was like, ‘This is some serious stuff!'”
Mould will spend December cleaning up the tapes and whittling the 14 songs down to 10 for the as-yet-untitled album. One track sure to make the cut is “Again and Again,” which he has been performing acoustically of late. “People are pretty speechless by the end of the song,” he says.
Also in the pipeline is the live DVD “Circle of Friends,” which chronicles an October 2005 show at the 9:30 Club in Mould’s Washington, D.C., home base. Canty’s production company, Trixie, assembled the project, which Mould hopes to release before the new studio album.
“That was show 21 out of the 25 shows, so we were on fire at that point,” Mould says of the 9:30 Club gig. “That was about as tight as we were going to get without going through the motions. It was easily the best show of the tour.”
The general plan is to hit the road in the fall in support of the album with the same band from the 2005 tour: Canty on drums, Jason Narducy on bass on Richard Morel on keyboards. On that trek, Mould performed Husker Du songs such as “Makes No Sense At All,” “Celebrated Summer,” “Chartered Trips” and “I Apologize” with a full band for the first time as a solo artist, and he promises they will remain part of future set lists.
“The four of us had such a great time,” Mould says. “I wanted to get this next album out in March, but Brendan is unavailable until June or July. It’s working so well that I’m pushing my schedule back so we can all get back together and tour in the fall.”
