Lou Barlow isn’t entirely sure why the press release for Act Surprised used the word “reunited.”
“I mean, yeah, reunited… sure?” he says, sounding only vaguely amused. “We never broke up. We’re never going to break up. I mean, we could take in, you know, huge yawning hiatuses… but breaking up? Nah. We just stop now and then if it seems like we can’t get things together.”
That’s about as close to a mission statement as Sebadoh’s ever had.
Six years after their last record, the indie rock staples returned with an album Barlow calls the “most focused” of their career. Act Surprised trades in acoustic detours for a no-nonsense electric onslaught, with all three members playing on every track. “I didn’t want to make the overt ‘sensitive statement’ of tossing an acoustic song on it,” Barlow says. “I wanted this to be a full electric record where all of us play on every track. We’re a really solid three-piece rock band. Let’s just be that.”
They even did a week of pre-production, which, in Sebadoh terms, is practically prog. “Five days of prep—monumental for us,” he laughs. “We actually knew what we were doing when we walked into the studio. No cutting stuff together, no surgery—just conviction. And Bob [drummer Bob D’Amico] came in like a beast. I was like, ‘Whoa. That’s what we’ve been missing.’”
Barlow says the songs began on ukulele, including “Medicate,” a track that seems to straddle the line between personal trauma and social commentary. “It’s dealing with drug addiction, opioids, the shortcut to peace of mind, and the profit generated by all that,” he says. “But yeah, it’s personal too. I broke my collarbone last year and they gave me a giant bottle of Oxys. I thought, ‘This is where I find out if I go full addiction arc.’”
He didn’t. Instead, he got introspective. “You start thinking about what pain is. Do I need to numb it, or should I sit with it and figure out what it’s trying to tell me?” That thought process led to one of the record’s most sharply drawn themes: resolution is overrated.
“There is no big answer,” Barlow says. “You’re not going to resolve anything. You think you will, but all you’re doing is climbing from one plateau to the next. It’s a continuous process. Especially with my daughter turning 14. You want the answer, you want the fix, but sometimes the only thing you can do is be calm. That’s the whole ‘Celebrate the Void’ thing. The resistance was always there—but sometimes the walls are just too high.”
That push and pull plays out even in the weirder corners of the album, like the moment in “Reykjavik” where Barlow yells “Power!” out of nowhere. “That song’s deadly serious,” he admits. “But you gotta put a little candy in there, you know? A little levity. It’s a heavy record, but it’s also fun to scream ‘Blood troll!’ at the top of your lungs and confuse your bandmates.”
Sebadoh may not be in a hurry to throw their own 20th anniversary party for The Sebadoh, but that hasn’t stopped fans from reminding them. “That record?” Barlow says. “It’s an important piece of our history, sure… but who cares? I mean, not to sound like an ass, but I was in no hurry to remind anybody about it.”
Instead, he’s looking forward. “I’ve never felt like Sebadoh had a definitive moment,” he says. “But this record… maybe this is the one. Maybe this is where we really came together.”
Until the next hiatus, anyway.
Listen to the full interview above and then check out this earlier interview below:
