When I first heard Yuck's debut LP last year, it wasn't so much that is sounded like I was listening to Pavement as much as it felt like I was. The beauty of a raw, fuzzed-out drone is often lost these days in the cynical rantings of critics who think that any alternative band formed after 1983 owes a royalty check to My Bloody Valentine. But leave it up to an enormously innocent British kid to finally, and rightfully blossom in the regenerative cycle of the 90's indie-rock heyday. Yuck is not only a new landmark article in the continuing cycle of rock music's development, but should be seen to stand as an equal with the seminal albums that many hear in its echoes. To put in perspective, frontman Daniel Blumberg was 6 months old when Slanted and Enchanted was first released, and Sonic Youth was already 7 albums deep by the time he was born. Being critical of his references is like saying Television sounds too much like The Velvet Underground. But all indie-god references aside, the only way music like this can be made in a honest fashion these days is to have it made by a kid who's not trying to make it sound like anything at all. I talked with Daniel about growing up while thousands of people are listening, as well as what it's like to be mentioned in the same breath as some of his heroes. Catching up with him as their big US tour was winding down, the charming lad tried to politely hide his longing for getting home and off the road, and was still surprised that people can tell a girl broke his heart.
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Adam King: You're at the tail end of your first headlining US tour -- how are you feeling about it?
Daniel: Yeah, it's exciting.
The crowds are alright?
The crowds are quite different everywhere in the States. There's a definitely a vibe with the crowds here -- a lot of energy.
I wanted to talk to you about your transition from Cajun Dance Party into the stuff with Yuck. It's a stark difference in the sound. Was Cajun Dance Party more about teenage years, where this stuff is more about how you're feeling and what you feel most passionate about making?
It all started with Cajun Dance Party in terms of songwriting and being in bands. But right now, well a few months ago I released my fourth debut album [laughs]. It's been quite funny, because that was a school band and we were fifteen and I was writing the vocals over this other guy's music. It's weird when you're that age and you release an album of your first tunes, and in particularly with that, we were at school so everything happened so slowly and spaced out. But then when I was eighteen we released the album, which was a massive… when it came out I was in Nashville recording an album for -- a piano/bass album, which I never released in the end. I guess that represents the times quite well because when you're starting you don't have too many ambitions or idea of what you're doing. And I still sort of feel that way now.
You're twenty years old, right?
Next month I turn twenty-one.

That's the best -- you can have a drink.
[laughs] Maury's laughing -- he's supporting this tour and he's a good friend of mine and he just noticed we were talking about age. We usually don't talk about age. I missed his 21st birthday.
I think as you age things slow down. At that age, you know, fifteen - that's like puberty. At least it was for me, physically [laughs]. At that age, anything you do four month later and you're going to be like "Fuck!" I feel like I'm like that to an extent, but not as strong.
Right. When you think of Yuck, do you project a vision for the band? Do you think about the future more, like you're trying to create a lasting thing more than just releasing songs at the moment?
I had a stint with a band when I was younger, and then I was in Nashville with some people that I really love and respect -- I took a lot away with how to approach things from that time in Nashville. And soon after that, I started writing with Max [Bloom]. We never wrote together and we've been friends for fourteen or fifteen years -- he's one of my oldest friends. When we started writing together it was really exciting. We always hung out with each other, and were constantly writing songs and being really excited about them. Tonight we're playing those songs. And we just released a re-issue with a bunch of those songs together, which… musically we weren't really thinking too much about things because I think the best ways of working out how you work is to just do it and see what feels good. It sounds a bit lame, but that was the basis for it. Things like artwork and getting the band together, that was real exciting at the time. You're just really responding to what you're doing that moment and not thinking "Oh, in six months hopefully we'll be releasing our single." We didn't really know how much we'd tour… we're just responding to what happened around that group of songs we wrote [laughs].
Right. Are you reaching a point now where people are making you have to think about those things?
Well I don't think I would've liked to think about them more, but I think it's going change over… well, the album sort of travels on its own, you know? The weird thing about having this thing, even when we were releasing singles at the beginning, was that we were pretty much producing everything. And then you do interviews and you play shows and it becomes how other people are responding to it. You do film interviews online as much as you perform your songs, that's kind of weird [laughter]. Now we're just gonna get off tour and… when we're off tour, I sort of hoped it was like this, but I still feel the same. I think we'll back to where we're before we went on tour and played a bunch of shows, just in the sense that we're still a really new band. Max and I just actually started working together. I don't know yet, we might try to make a new record or might try and making something, again I don't know…
You recorded most of this album at your parent's house?
No, Max's parent's house.
Was that just where you ended up? Or was that a comfortable spot that you knew you wanted to do it at?
When we started writing together it was after Max written and recording the song "Operation." I record in my room, he recorded in his room. I guess we went over there because he recorded this song and I wanted to start writing with him. And then we just started writing and recording at his parent's in his bedroom. When we did the record we kept some of the songs we recorded, and then re-recorded some with drums -- when Mary and Johnny joined us.
What were you using to record with when you were in your bedroom?
It's really weird, we pulled up to the venue tonight and they have one. It's like "oh my god!" It's a Tascam, a really bad eight track digital recorder [laughter]. I wouldn't recommend it at all; it's a terrible way of recording anything. That's what we're really used to -- using that machine. And getting guitar sounds… we tried and it's really difficult to record when you start to get that right.