Jeremy Lange
Drummer Jon Wurster (left) with bandmates John Darnielle, Peter Hughes and Matt Douglas.
Mountain Goats’ latest album, a road map for misfits called Goths, is not Goth music. It’s a concept album, a collection of keyboard-driven, punk-folk songs written by bandleader John Darnielle about the lives of goths. Starting with the acidic “Rain in Soho,” it’s a screwball package leavened with sarcasm, fury and joy.
Darnielle has come a long way since his own goth-like youth spent in southern California and Portland, Oregon. A DIY trailblazer, his first releases, dating back to the ‘90s, were created on boombox recorders and other lo-fi toys. Sixteen albums later his music has remained consistently idiosyncratic — his lyrics among the smartest in American pop music. It’s no wonder Darnielle attracts collaborators like drummer Jon Wurster, who leads a double life as a podcast comedy star with Tom Sharpling on The Best Show, where Wurster creates elaborate characters who “call” the show. Wurster spoke to Isthmus from his home in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, just before returning to the road with the Mountain Goats, who play a sold-out show at the Majestic Theatre on July 8.
In a routine day at home do you wake up in the morning and work on comedy? Or work on music? Is there any rhyme or reason to that?
Usually if I’m home for a few weeks I’ll really try to get more involved in a longer Best Show call. A lot of my time at home is working on that. There’s no real schedule.
You’ve said different parts of your brain are activated depending on whether you’re doing straight humor vs. music. What do you mean by that?
I guess there’s a little more focus and concentration involved with the [comedy] writing. Because the music, if you rehearse enough, becomes muscle memory, so you’re kind of operating from that level. When you’re playing music, if you’re doing it right, you’re not really thinking about anything.
There are no guitars on Goths. What did that do to your drumming approach?
John [Darnielle] wrote all these songs on a Fender Rhodes, and immediately the sound of that kind of harkened [back] to a specific era. We made the record in Nashville and they had this incredible studio where they mixed those surround-sound records. We listened to a copy of Thriller, Michael Jackson’s album, after we recorded one day and as we listened to it I realized, wow, there wasn’t a drum fill for, I think, the first three songs or so. The songs were so good that you didn’t notice that the drummer was just keeping time. I think my playing is a little less busy than what it normally is.
Is it counter-intuitive for a drummer at your level to disengage from the idea of fills as you work?
If you’re playing pop songs, or country songs, or whatever, no one is listening to that song to hear cool drum stuff. I certainly don’t. I think the drummer is doing his job if I don’t notice. If something is getting in the way of something the singer or the songwriter is trying to get across, then you’re not doing your job.
What are the top three drummer stereotypes that are true?
Mentally ill. Completely delusional about how life works. Usually the worst fashion sense.
Band in the 1960s that you wish you could have drummed for?
My favorite era actually is the ’70s, so I’ll say the Stones.
Then who?
The Clash.
Two words that describe Clyde Stubblefield.
The king.