Uncertain Sarcasm: An Interview With Archers of Loaf’s Eric Bachmann (Part I)

On the anger, humor, and noise of their classic debut as it turns 30

Archers of Loaf in the 1990s

Indie-rock classic, sure, but Icky Mettle is one of rock’s best debut albums. I’m biased I guess, because Archers of Loaf are one of my favorite bands. But how do you think they reached that status? Honestly, all their records rule, including B-sides comp The Speed of Cattle and lone EP Archers of Loaf vs. The Greatest of All Time, both of which are cannibalized on Icky Mettle’s long-needed Merge reissue from 2011, the rare package that makes an essential listen even better by inflating the runtime. (OK, White Trash Heroes is a little scattershot, but the incredible closing title epic sends it straight to the canon.)

These four North Carolina punk weirdos never got as famous as Pavement or Sonic Youth and most people have only heard their perfect opening shot, “Web in Front.” But their catalog doesn’t just hone the noise-pop synthesis as well as anyone to ever do it. These guys had anthems, loads of funny, catchy, misanthropic, rip-roaring bangers in their first four years of existence alone: “Wrong,” “Plumb Line,” “You and Me,” “Toast,” “Backwash,” “Harnessed in Slums,” “Lowest Part Is Free!” “Freezing Point,” “Fabricoh,” “Greatest of All Time,” “What Did You Expect,” “Quinnbeast.” Half those titles are on Icky Mettle alone, which screeches and shouts itself hoarse as often as it flaunts rock candy. For every moment of fist-pumping sugar like “Might,” there’s a torrid blast like “Sick File” to upset the balance. Eric Bachmann and Eric Johnson’s guitars wired themselves around each other whether giving the listener a dissonant shock or an accidental-sounding burst of harmony.

By All the Nations Airports, the band was experimenting with Eno-esque instrumentals and one stone classic in the mold of Tom Waits’ bar-piano bawlers, “Chumming the Ocean.” The skittering title track from initial swan song White Trash Heroes predated the glitchy-pretty synthesis of Kid A by a couple years. Last year, the respectable Reason in Decline, this band’s first full-length since 1998, displayed grandiosities unheard on an Archers record that would be more familiar to fans of Bachmann’s material as Crooked Fingers and under his own name, which have borne a chunk of great songs in their own right, especially 2003’s “You Can Never Leave” and 2006’s austere “Man O’ War.”

Similarly, the frontman has occupied every corner of the alt-rock landscape, from opening one of Weezer’s earliest tours to joining the rosters of Merge and Saddle Creek. He’s even played guitar in Neko Case’s touring band and donated his signature growl to offset Britt Daniel’s falsetto in one of Spoon’s best-known hits, “I Turn My Camera On.” But we’re here to celebrate the noise. Icky Mettle just turned 30 and on the heels of Archers of Loaf’s surprise reunion LP last year, Bachmann was in fine form to discuss it via phone, from the songs’ inarticulate origins to the bizarre journey it sent him on, the missing link between dropping out as a sax major and spotting Madonna in the audience.

If there was ever a musical era when angry young men were getting something productive out of their rage, it was the early 1990s. Do you remember feeling particularly angry when you made Icky Mettle?

I don’t remember “angry” but hearing it back, it’s definitely authentic anger. That’s plagued me my entire life and it’s a silly pathology to have, but I have it still. And it was especially satisfying back then to channel it because there was no sense of psychology to it, I was just doing it out of desire naturally. It just came out organically. I wanted to play in a band, I wanted to drink beer with my friends. It wasn’t like I thought about wanting to express my anger or any of that. It was just coming out effortlessly.