Other guests on Let The War Against Music Begin include Sean O’Hagan and Rob Allum of British pop band the High Llamas, Los Lobos saxophonist Steve Berlin, the enigmatic Robyn Hitchcock (who contributes a spoken-word cameo), and McCaughey’s pre-teen daughter, Nadine.
Historically, the Minus 5’s live-show lineup has been similarly rampant. Backing crews at various shows over the years have included Wilco, for the landmark last weekend at Chicago club Lounge Ax in January 2000; Athens, Georgia, band the Possibilities, whose song “You Don’t Mean It” is covered on Let The War Against Music Begin; Austin, Texas, band the Wannabes, who backed McCaughey at a South By Southwest gig in 1995; Portland, Oregon, band the Maroons; and a broad range of familiar faces from the Seattle scene.
Yet while on record the Minus 5 continues to sprawl far and wide, the live lineup has largely solidified in recent months, with Buck on bass, Stringfellow and the Model Rockets’ John Ramberg on guitar, and Bill Rieflin (ex-Ministry) on drums. “We’ve sorta had a regular band that’s been playing most of the shows this year, and we’ve played fairly steadily, and now it’s kind of like a rock band,” McCaughey says.
The result has been a fairly significant evolution from the band’s initial premise of being a studio outlet for more esoteric, acoustic-oriented material. “It’s sort of gradually become less of that original concept,” he acknowledges. “Because all of a sudden we started playing shows, and regardless of who would play, Minus 5 shows tended to be a little bit more of a rock show than the records would lead you to believe. Just because it’s more fun to play rock music when you’re playing live, to me.
“And even the new record is more poppy and a little more rockin’ than you’d expect maybe from a Minus 5 record. Some of the songs could be Fellows songs….So the original concept is sort of gone. But it still offers me a release for different kinds of music, and more music than maybe we would do with the Fellows. And it’s just fun to play with other people, too. And then it’s fun to get back and play with the Fellows.”
“If somebody goes off and does something else for awhile, it makes it so it’s actually more fun when you do get back to working together, in whatever way,” concurs Young Fresh Fellows guitarist Kurt Bloch.
“You know, the idea of somebody only doing their one band for 20 years is ridiculous, unless it was going to totally subsidize your life as far as money goes. And let’s face it, the Fastbacks, Young Fresh Fellows, Minus 5, they’re not bands of the commercial caliber that are gonna be paying for anyone’s families or anything like that. Which is too bad. But in some ways it might be good. As far as the music goes, it’s probably good. As far as the livelihood of the musicians, it’s maybe not very good. But you don’t have to look around too much to see that maybe that’s OK.”
Bloch, who joined the Fellows in 1989 in place of original member Chuck Carroll — the only lineup change in the band’s 17-year history — has his own unique perspective on the Fellows’ longevity, having played in pop-punk band the Fastbacks since 1980. “You’re asking somebody that’s been in another band for 21 years,” he says with a laugh. “So, no, it’s not surprising at all that there is still a Young Fresh Fellows, to me.
“It’s kind of a running joke — these bands that go, ‘Oh, we’re this band and we’ve been around and we did all this stuff, and now we’re breaking up for no good reason, and we’re gonna have our last show, and we’re gonna make a big spectacle of it. All these great years and all these great things, and, OK, our final show.’
“And then, you know, two years later, everyone’s sitting around, and they go, ‘Well, nothing else we did was as fun as being in our original band. Wow, we should get together and do another show. OK, we’ll have a reunion show!’ And then, ‘God, that was fun, we should do some more reunion shows. And, yeah, that was great, and OK, well, we’re done now. So we’re gonna have another last show, we really mean it this time.’ It’s like, oh brother.
“A lot of people say being in a band is like being in a marriage,” he continues. “It is in a lot of ways, but it isn’t in a lot of ways, too. You can have a band and, if nobody feels like doing it, you can not do anything, and then do it when you feel like it, or when the opportunity is there. It’s not like you have to destroy it to do something else.”
