Seminal indie rockers Superchunk did not need to put out another album.
In fact, after a nine-year recording hiatus and the daily hustle of running the respected Chapel Hill, N.C., record label Merge, the band’s founders weren’t even sure they wanted to.
But when leader Mac McCaughan found the songwriting spark was still there, an album seemed inevitable. And as we’ll all hear when “Majesty Shedding” is released Sept. 14, Superchunk still spits melodies like broken glass and pitches tightly wound guitar riffs with a muscle bred from years of touring with the best bands of the past two decades.
Superchunk will play its first television appearance in 16 years on “Late Night With Jimmy Fallon” on Sept. 20, but first it’s helping itself to some summer festival dates — kicking off with a co-headlining spot at the annual Westword Music Showcase in the Golden Triangle neighborhood on Saturday.
We chatted with McCaughan earlier this week in advance of the show.
Q: So is there anything to the timing of this new album given the nine-year hiatus?A: I think it was just more like a hole in everybody’s schedule. We were doing a few shows here and there every year and working up to that. And then we recorded “Learn to Surf” for the “Leaves in the Gutter” EP and that was really the first time in a long time where we had recorded the way we used to — where I’d have a demo and we’d all just kind of learn it fairly quickly and record it.
Q: And that’s also how you recorded this new album?A: We thought, ‘Well, we could do a whole record like this.’ And it’s by necessity, since (drummer) Jon Wurster doesn’t live here and he’s busy playing with the Mountain Goats and Bob Mould and A.C. Newman. We can’t practice three times a week for three hours at a time, and we can’t tour for eight weeks at a time because (bassist and Merge co-founder) Laura Ballance has kids and I have kids.
Q: Does it ever freak you out that the band’s been around for 21 years, even though no one thinks of you as a heritage act?A: It doesn’t freak me out. I guess just because you get used to the idea of it existing. It sounds like a long time. And you don’t want to overstay your welcome. If you haven’t made a record in nine years and then you make it, you think, “Is this still what a good record sounds like?” We would have made it anyway for our own sake and we like it, but are other people going to have the reaction of, “Well, you waited nine years and you made this?”
Q: Right. Living up to expectations is a prickly thing.A: And we have less of that than some other bands, but now that it’s done, does it justify having done it? It’s a hypothetical question just because it’s justified because we wanted to do it. No one has to justify making a record, but you do still think about that in the back of your mind.
Read more of our interview with McCaughan at .
John Wenzel: 303-954-1642 or jwenzel@denverpost.com
Superchunk.
Indie rock. Westword Music Showcase in the Golden Triangle neighborhood, corner of Acoma Street and West 12th Avenue; featuring Ghostland Observatory, Dirty Projectors, Neon Indian and more than 80 local bands. Saturday. 12:15 p.m. $15-$30. 303-296-7744 or
