Onstage, the Murder City Devils frontman Spencer Moody is a ball of
booze-burning fire, staggering around and screaming about heartache and
rotgut and punk rock, while his band tear garage rock ‘n’ roll a new
one with equal fury. Offstage, Moody is soft-
spoken, articulate,
almost mousy—and he’s more than a little ambivalent about the
recurring reunion of his R.I.P.’d and revered band.

“I get down on the Murder City Devils sometimes,” says Moody from
behind his desk at the Anne Bonny, his Capitol Hill antique shop and
art gallery. “I just fucking dread the fact—it is a nightmare to
me—that I’m going to have to listen to these songs over and over
again to try to relearn them. But then, when I actually start listening
to the songs that we’ve discussed playing, I like them. I don’t feel
particularly nostalgic, but I think it’s a pretty good band, and some
of the songs are pretty good.”

I will go so far as to say that several of their songs are in fact
fucking classics. For the uninitiated: The Murder City Devils formed in
Seattle in 1996. Over the next five years, they released several
excellent 7-inch singles, three albums (at least the first two of which
are wall-to-wall with sing-along anthems), and an EP. In 2001, they
broke up, issuing a live album two years later recorded at their “last
ever” show. They reunited in 2006 to play the Capitol Hill Block Party
and a semisecret show the next night at the Showbox. Then they got back
together again in 2007 to play the Fun Fun Fun Fest in Austin. And then
again in 2008, for a (canceled) appearance at MusicfestNW.

All of which begs the question: Just what the fuck is going on here,
Murder City Devils—are you guys broken up or what?

“I sort of wish that we hadn’t said we were breaking up,” says
Moody. “I wish we had just said, ‘We may never do this again, we don’t
get along, and we’re not gonna play shows and make records anymore.’
Since we made this big deal about breaking up, and did a last tour and
a last show and all that shit, now we have to say, ‘Oh, we’re
reuniting,’ which is kind of aesthetically unfortunate. I mean, I was
stoked that I got to see Slint, but I’m not a big supporter of reunion
concerts, generally speaking. I feel like it’s not a forward momentum;
but at the same time, I think it can complement the other things that
are happening in our lives in a way that is nice.”

So maybe it’s more like they’re seeing other people, and they have
plenty of other things happening. Moody and guitarist Dann Gallucci
both play in local droners Triumph of Lethargy Skinned Alive to Death;
bassist Derek Fudesco plays with the Cave Singers; Coady Willis plays
in Melvins/Big Business and lives in L.A.; guitarist Nate Manny lives
and works in Seattle and is raising two kids; keyboardist Leslie Hardy
lives in Detroit, where she makes music and sells real estate; Gabe
Kerbrat technically lives in Seattle, but spends most of his time out
on tour as a roadie for the likes of the White Stripes, M.I.A., and
Cold War Kids. The real issues with doing a reunion tour, says Moody,
have been purely logistical.

“After we did the Block Party shows, we knew that we were capable of
it,” says Moody. “Everyone was open to the idea. It just finally worked
out that we could figure out a week where everyone could do it.”

The band will have three whole days together in Seattle to practice
before playing their first shows, a two-night stand at the
Showbox—it will be the most rehearsal time they’ve had for any
reunion show. There are some songs, though, even some stone-cold
classics, that the band likely won’t be relearning.

“We probably won’t do ‘Broken Glass,'” says Moody. “I would probably
refuse to do that. It’s just kind of embarrassing. Like, the songs on
the first record, for the most part, are just, at their very worst,
kind of goofy. Some of us refused to do ‘Boom Swagger Boom’ at the last
two shows.”

Again, though, Moody is mutable.

“But you know, if Andrea Zollo is around and wants to do it, then
maybe we’ll just do it, because it’ll be fun. There’s stuff that you
sort of cringe at after the fact to some degree, but then you decide
that it’s fine, it doesn’t matter. You know, maybe I think I care, but
I don’t care. I don’t know what’s better—is it better to care or
to not care?”

Another aspect of the band about which Moody has mixed feelings is
their late-career success and posthumous cult status.

“The fact that the MCD were, in relative terms, pretty successful
toward the end—we were pretty popular, we could play pretty big
places and people would come—that sort of makes me assume that it
wasn’t that good,” he says. “It’s weird, because we started off and we
were real confrontational and hostile, and then people started liking
us, and then you can’t really do [confrontation] anymore, because I
appreciate people coming to see our band.”

One thing Moody is almost totally certain of is the unlikelihood of
the band writing and recording any new material in the future.

“That seems like it probably wouldn’t happen. There’s no one in the
MCD who I would not be totally stoked to make and record music with,
and I respect everyone’s musical tastes and abilities, but I don’t
foresee that. I would be surprised.”

Ah well, at least you can catch this reunion—and maybe next
year’s or the year after that’s or… recommended

16 replies on “Rock and Roll Will Wait”

  2. Unfortunately, everytime I hear about the MCD’s, I get a slight bile taste as I recall the way Kathleen Wilson used to yammer on about them in almost every column and article she used to write.

    Example of a Kathleen Wilson sentence: “…so I was sitting at the Cha Cha, when in comes all of the Muder City Devils and they all ran up and gave me a hug, and we spent the rest of the night at the Cha Cha laughing and talking, then the bartender of the Cha Cha…”

  5. I’m with Bruce on this one. They’re a catchy band but they are saddled with the baggage of the turn-of-the-millenium hiptard scene that this city just now seems to be emerging from.

  6. That’s a pretty stupid reason to loathe a band, cause a eeekly’s writer (whom I thought was a prety damn good one) talked about them too much? A tad petty, don’t you think?

  8. If I could have one band reunite from that era it would be the Kent 3. Seattle needs that type of energy/smarts/fun in its music scene right now, without the pretense or hipster-flakes.

  9. Saying Gabe Kerbrat is just a roadie, these days, is insulting. He’s tour managing those bands. No disrespect to roadies but c’mon the guys been around forever show some respect.

  10. I agree with Marco.

    Dirtytime: If you hate an overgeneralized group of people so much why do you let them have that much of an effect on what you listen to? It’s pretty much exactly the same as listening to shit because it’s “cool” instead of because you like it – except, you know, the opposite. But it’s the same mentality and end result.

  11. Whoever that dumb looking fat guy with the trucker hat is (and the wannabe Lemmy ‘stache) needs to go. I hope he’s not the singer! What a douche!

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