2009 [sic] Magazine: Interview – Afghan Whigs

Legendary 90’s band The Afghan Whigs combined their angst-rock with groove, soul and a showmanship unrivaled by their alternative music scene peers. Last month we inducted their third album proper, ‘Gentlemen’ into the [sic] Magazine Hall of fame, the ‘Classic Album Revisited’ section.

Sadly, The Whigs are no more, although they did reunite briefly in 2008 to bring us their retrospective collection ‘Unbreakable’. In Europe we at least have the opportunity to see Greg Dulli (former frontman) from time to time, performing with his Twilight Singers and Gutter Twins projects. The other members are much missed, so [sic]’s Brett Spaceman caught up with John Curley (bass player and far right in our lead photo) and Rick McCollum (guitarist and far left in photo) to talk about those compelling days, about Gentlemen plus the other acclaimed albums, and inevitably about the break up and beyond.

Brett Spaceman: For me, Gentlemen is the first moment that you guys hit upon the Whigs sound and carried it through an entire album. There were signs before, notably on Turn On The Water and Miles iz Ded (from Congregation) Did it feel that way to you too?

John Curley: It did. Gentlemen was 90% done when we went into the studio. We had already recorded demos of all the songs except Now You Know and Brother Woodrow/Closing Prayer. We had also been performing many of the songs live while touring for Congregation. We even knew what the album cover was going to look like. All of those things helped focus the sound and the songs.

Rick McCollum: It takes time for the same musicians to develop and get their own original sound so we apparently reached it at that point. It is almost extinct in today’s world of ‘solo’ artists with the package deal right there on the table to sell to the audience since no one has patience to grow with a band thru their life at all today. Also at that stage having a larger budget thru the major label allowed us to capture a better quality sounding piece of work which I never thought we hit on till then and to get a steady engineer to the table Jeff Powell, who has worked wonders after that point ..the sound we had was one from playing a lot together at that point, half way thru the Whigs existence of 7 yrs so it was obvious we could reach a coexistence with each other at that point in songwriting -it was Dark Side of the Moon.

Brett Spaceman: Did you all have similar musical loves?

John Curley: When The Afghan Whigs formed, we had a lot in common musically; the ‘classic rock’ we heard on the radio growing up. We also had individual tastes that we shared with each other. Rick was into some free jazz, experimental and Indian music. Greg’s love of Motown, hip hop and soul music is well documented. When I met those guys I had been listening to a lot of blues, new wave and punk that I heard in college. We were always competing with each other to find new music that the others hadn’t heard or unearth an unknown track by a familiar artist.

Rick McCollum: Yeah that’s definitely the reason that our sound was such a melting pot of everything we grew up from the baby boom generation alongside every original source of music available that hasn’t been retread enough now.. physically we were born the middle of the spectrum of all the pop music that exists up to today so the richness of the music was very wide in every style … it seemed it lost its way along with saturation and unoriginal ideas as the last decade has evolved and its all about the bling .. I had been into r- n –b with some friends when I started at first playing drums but also I had my rock friends .. I loved I remember distinctly at first were the cool parts of songs that made me dig those first and I think that eventually brought the riff/pop mentality to the forefront of my songwriting ..something memorable or transcendent would be suitable .. but along the way in growing up I experienced different attractions to all styles and that grew in knowledge from all of us sharing the best qualities of each of those thing s which goes with life .. we were just growing up together be it movie soundtracks thru Duke, Miles, Motown, ACDC, Dolphy, Sly, Prince, anything that seemed original and time sustaining was easier to pick out over time like a piece of clothing that u knew u loved over everything else .. hence make the best work u can and don’t be too prolific

Brett Spaceman: Rick, you’ve declared a love for Sly and Hendrix. There’s another famous Minneapolis resident musician who idolises those same two Have you ever encountered His Purple Holiness, Prince?

Rick McCollum: No, not at all .. I do like purple though

Brett Spaceman: Can we surmise that Gentlemen is a logical progression of Congregation and Black Love a further development of Gentlemen?

John Curley: I think we can. From my point of view, each record seemed like a logical procession from the previous one.

Rick McCollum: It is but it isn’t …after Uptown Avondale, with Earle leaving as one of the original members that contributed to the sound and the rest of us dispelling in different locations to live along with deadlines to continue what we started was evident that the next album became a more focused objective in a concept album that was easier to piece together in that style since it wasn’t a group of guys growing up in the same town playing music but a group of adults in a profession …it was a logical step from the Gentlemen course ‘cause the positive side of the maturity was the passion that the three of us had to get it done and not be unsuccessful at what we started .. we were unbreakable ..

Brett Spaceman: Were The Afghan Whigs a close unit? Was Gentlemen a high point or a low point?

Rick McCollum: I think so in the most passive way that unconditional love for one another can grow into from living and playing together ..it seemed like a very steady incline to that point and with the exposure that comes with a major label it was somewhat of a high point but one that wasn’t felt deserved which at this point was halfway thru our existence as a band .. there was never a low point of the band .. the train was moving ….

John Curley: We were close and we remain close. We’re family. When you’re in the middle of something, it’s impossible to know if it’s going to be the high point. Only time will tell. Low points are a lot easier to identify in the moment! The making of Gentlemen was definitely not a low point, though. We knew we had a solid collection of songs for our major label debut. Musically, the constant touring had turned us into a great band. I think we all knew we were about to do something special.

Brett Spaceman: How did The Afghan Whigs write songs?

John Curley: Most songs would start as a riff or a drum beat. We’d jam on the idea as a group and try to come up with changes and turn it into a song. Sometimes we’d record the part(s) we had and Greg would take it home to work on it. Greg always knew right away if he wanted to chase an idea. It was extremely rare that we’d work on something that didn’t actually become a song. Not every song made it on to a record but if Greg didn’t have a visceral reaction to the riff or the beat, we didn’t waste time trying to convince ourselves.

Rick McCollum: Different way depending on what evolved being a riff brought here a riff brought there a series of happening s from jamming together as a whole .. the overall direction of the song is always from the singer’s point of view if there are vocals involved so getting a riff going to inspire Greg to sing over was my contribution and a mind to mimic melody lines in the course of the dynamics was very prevalent as done with some slide guitar etc .. also , taking a solo and making it a story within a story was key .. I mean if u can remember a solo from a song then yr doing good …its back to the nursery rhyme which is the strongest message in time.

Brett Spaceman: Gentlemen is pretty heavy, suffocating stuff. What was it like on tour promoting that dark material night after night?

Rick McCollum: I never really thought of it as suffocating but I wasn’t down the other end like u were I guess .. playing music is fun and if u are playing to full houses every night there’s nothing negative about that at all ..it might have been more suffocating to Greg since he wrote the words. But its all entertainment …

John Curley: As a musician, I could appreciate playing songs with such deep content. It didn’t get boring because the emotion was always real. It took a toll on Greg and as a friend, that was hard to watch. It was personal, dark and painfully honest music.

Brett Spaceman: Was Greg battling addiction at that point?

John Curley: Probably. I kind of put my head in the sand and tried to do my job. When I read the 33 1/3 book, I learned a few things. None of us were choir boys. The traveling and exhaustion could be a grind. We all dealt with our problems as best we could. If you could get on stage and play a great show, that was what mattered. At a certain point during the Gentlemen tour, Steve Earle was no longer able to do that.

Rick McCollum: Y’ kno, everyone has addictions in every form and that’s what makes each individual an original specimen not just Greg

Brett Spaceman: Gentlemen is clearly a very personal record and listeners will invariably experience that aspect through Gregs viewpoint. But what about you? What were you going through at the time? In other words, from your point of view were there similar (or other) factors influencing your contribution to that record?

Rick McCollum: I honestly can’t remember what was going on 15 years ago … I was growing up playing in my first band as I was growing up with these guys as friends too so a lot of doubt, a lot of trust, and a lot of wandering thru dark caves were prevalent as I shined some moments of brilliance which was my conduit at that time – it takes a long time to catch on to everything in life but I master it with a very clear picture in the end looking back.

John Curley: Greg and I will joke that he is Kirk and I am Spock. Kirk is impulsive, mercurial and passionate. Spock is unemotional, logical and quiet. Obviously, these are caricatures. Greg has a firm grasp of logic. I can be quite moody. I can’t really remember what was going on on my life at that point. The Afghan Whigs were a big part of it. I got married to my wife in Feb. 1993. We had been together for 7 years. We are still together. I guess my point is that I spend my life trying to avoid situations that would provide me with the kind of experiences that would inspire a record like Gentlemen. I watched Greg live through it and then I watched him turn it into a record. I’m in awe of that. It’s something I could never do but I’m glad I was part of it.

Brett Spaceman: I recall a comment by Greg along the lines of – he only wrote his own songs because his voice wasn’t up to Motown standards. If his pipes had been better he would have happily covered Soul classics his entire career. Were you all in agreement over the songs that the Whigs did cover?

John Curley: I thought Greg was joking about a Supremes cover the first time he mentioned it. The Temple was my introduction to Jesus Christ Superstar which is one of my favorite albums to this day. I learned early on that Greg had pretty good taste and if he wanted to cover a song there was a good reason for it even if it wasn’t immediately apparent.

Rick McCollum: Yeah I liked that music as much as any other music out there and his voice is perfect for that ..

Brett_Spaceman: Black Love is a colossal achievement. Do you think of it as your masterpiece? Did it get its dues from the critics?

Rick McCollum: No its not our masterpiece but it sounds like it’s the cool underrated one that got away .. it didn’t get it’s dues probably cause they didn’t know how to push it but that occurred at the same time as the merger of the labels so the support had dwindled .. and critics are just opinions of people who get paid to do so and may not even be musicians at all but that album definitely didn’t get the props it deserved.

John Curley: I really like Black Love. At times, it has been my favorite AW record. It has some of my favorite songs on it: Crime Scene Pt. 1, Faded and Blame. Did we get our props? I would have to say yes. The people that liked our band loved it. We had, and continue to have, passionate fans. I only ever saw a couple bad reviews. We never broke through commercially but we definitely got our props.

Brett Spaceman: And then with 1965 your sound became a lot more commercial. Were those songs and those gigs as fun to play as they looked? What caused that shift in direction?

John Curley: The songs on 1965 were great fun to play live. We played every song on 1965 live at one point or another. The shift in direction was a natural one. We knew we wanted to make a party record so we relocated to New Orleans to write and record. Greg was already living there. Rick, drummer Michael Horrigan and I were there for about 10 months. Another great thing about the 1965 tour was that we had a deep well from which to draw when it came to choosing songs. Being able to change the set list from night to night helped keep the shows fresh.

Rick McCollum: Well personally I think we put out the best album with 1965 it captured all the nuances that we adopted in writing songs together thru our whole life and we finished it properly with the best work ..it wasn’t a shift in any direction ..it was a logical step we meant and that was to make a pop album that was timeless and had the best quality throughout and we accomplished that which I’m proud of .. every album before that u could’ve written off a couple of songs from each of them … this one u couldn’t .

Brett Spaceman: And then the split – which I gather was mainly due to Geography, right?

Rick McCollum: It was due to that which leant to everyone having to live their own lives which goes along with age and maturity .. change is good , like death ,which Ive learned thru my life.. it can lead to the next step of the big picture and it only makes everyone better individually and best of friends ..

John Curley: Geography was one of the main reasons we called it quits. Looking back on it, I think we were also running out of gas as a creative unit. People were ready to move on. I had become a father in Feb. 2000 and the idea of leaving for months at a time was unbearable. It’s funny because we had “broken up” a dozen times. Everyone had been fired. Everyone had quit at some point or another. When we actually broke up for real, it was friendly and respectful. And sad, of course.

There was a TV show a couple years ago where they would reunite bands that had broken up. Most of the bands had a couple members that hadn’t spoken in years. Most of them couldn’t remember why they broke up. I remember thinking what a drag that would be – to have spent so much time together and shared so many experiences and not be able to remember it without being angry or bitter.

Brett Spaceman: Do you remain in touch with each other? Were there any discussions about re-uniting to promote Unbreakable? Could The Afghan Whigs ever play together again?

Rick McCollum: Not as much as I like but we do stay in touch if a comet flies by … No there has not been talk of reuniting and it won’t happen .. it was good to see each other during those recording sessions but time has moved on and other priorities exist .. I enjoyed every minute with those guys when we played and it was an astounding amount of time we held it together but just enough in the scheme of things and I will take that to my grave but its time to move on …

John Curley: We stay in touch. I spoke to Greg on his birthday a week ago. Rick just sent me his new CD. Michael lives here in Cincinnati so I see him all the time. He plays bass in a band called The Hiders. Will The Afghan Whigs ever play together again? I don’t know. There’s no reason why not. We’re all happy with what we’re doing so it hasn’t been a priority for us.

Brett Spaceman: Tell us about your latest projects? What are the intentions there and what can Afghan Whigs fans expect from Moon Maan and Staggering Statistics?

Rick McCollum: Well Moon Maan has been around for 5 years now so its not new .. we’ve had one cd out two years ag,o,just released a few new songs a few months ago digitally on Itunes so all our stuff is out there … the first line-up was a four piece with two bass players and a lead guitarist who all left after the first cd three new songs were recorded last year as a duo with Erik Mathison on drums and now currently have a new bass player, Rashard to hopefully take this into the next full length in mind to record in the fall as a trio …

John Curley: Staggering Statistics ended about 2 years ago. We began in late 2003. Most of our shows were in Cincinnati. We did a short midwest stint opening for the Violent Femmes. Ultimately, we weren’t able to muster the energy (buy a van, tour constantly) to get to the next level and it became difficult to sustain creative momentum. Comparing The Afghan Whigs and Staggering Statistics, I would say my role as bass player was different in each band. In the Gentlemen-era Afghan Whigs, I felt like I was riding three runaway mustangs. Rick, Greg and Steve played furiously so I tried to find bass parts that would help hold it all together. As The Afghan Whigs evolved, I found a little more room to improvise. Greg and Rick have such unique guitar styles so I was trying to write bass parts that would provide a context for what they were doing. The Staggering Statistics began as a three-piece. Our guitar player wasn’t into solos so I took over that role. Later, Staggering Statistics added a 4th and I had to reign it back in a bit.

Brett Spaceman: I was surprised when I first heard Staggering Statistics. It’s quite lo-fi and art-rocky. Not unlike Pavement. I don’t know why but I was expecting something more bluesy.

John Curley: Staggering Statistics got the Pavement comparison a lot. We all liked Pavement so that’s OK, I guess. Most people can’t talk about music without comparing it to something else. People struggled to find comparisons for The Afghan Whigs. Maybe that worked against us commercially? Now, I see bands being compared to The Afghan Whigs.

Brett Spaceman: What now? What next?

John Curley: Staggering Statistics’ final CD, “I’m Thinking About Changing”, never got released but you can download it for free at www.staggeringstatistics.com

Unless something really special comes along, I’m probably done with playing in bands for a while. I have a recording studio in Cincinnati called Ultrasuede Studio where I record and produce a lot of great bands and talented artists. It’s creatively rewarding. My wife and I have 2 girls in grade school and I get to spend a lot of quality time with them. I still play bass for fun and sometimes in the studio on other people’s songs. I’m also trying to learn how to play drums and piano.

Brett Spaceman: And Moon Maan?

Rick McCollum: Right now finally have a stable force on bass to hopefully continue this project as a trio in recording the next full length over this fall .. stay tuned ‘cause it’s the tip of the iceberg ..

[sic] Magazine wish to thank John and Rick. Further information on Moon Maan and Staggering Statistics can be accessed from the links below. The retrospective Afghan Whigs collection ‘Unbreakable’ is available now on Rhino Recordings. Finally the excellent Summers Kiss release their Afghan Whigs tribute compilation very soon. Keep watching.

Greg Dulli and Mark Lanegan are two of the most intimidating dudes in rock’n'roll, their lengthy discographies littered with bad drugs, bad women, and the violence (physical, emotional, and spiritual) that surrounds these bad situations.

As the frontmen for the Afghan Whigs and the Screaming Trees, respectively, they spent the mid-1980s through the late 1990s on the fringes of grunge and alt-rock, building up loyal followings among those searching for something just a little more evil. When those bands disintegrated, Dulli started a new project, the Twilight Singers. Lanegan continued a solo career that had begun with his 1990 album The Winding Sheet, did time in Queens of the Stone Age, and made an album with former Belle and Sebastian member Isobel Campbell. Both men also contributed to too many other musical projects to mention in one sitting.

The idea of Dulli and Lanegan collaborating together as the Gutter Twins has been in the works since 2003, and Lanegan joined the Twilight Singers on tour in 2006. But it wasn’t until last year that the pair finally turned their full attention to the project. Saturnalia, the Gutter Twins’ debut, was released earlier this year by Sub Pop, a label that the Afghan Whigs, the Screaming Trees, and Lanegan solo had recorded for in the 1990s. The album is yet another exploration of the dark side, searching for salvation among the temptations of the flesh.

Throughout the interview, Dulli drank iced tea and Lanegan watched the Bulls play the Celtics on TV (on mute). We broke the ice by chatting about the 1993 Phillies. Turns out these guys like sports. A lot. In fact, sports are pretty much the only thing Mark Lanegan wants to talk about these days…

Pitchfork: How did you end up back on Sub Pop? It’s been over a decade and a half since you guys last put out records on that label.

Greg Dulli: The devil you know is better than the devil you don’t. That’s my answer.

Pitchfork: [laughs] Mark, do you agree? Is that it?

GD: He didn’t even hear what I said.

Mark Lanegan: What he said.

Pitchfork: [laughs] OK then! It’s funny thinking about you guys in the context of Sub Pop now; they have such a varied roster, but very little of it has much in common with the kind of music the Gutter Twins are making. How does it feel to be on a label with, like, the Shins and Iron and Wine?

GD: I think the Shins and Iron and Wine make nice music, you know? I don’t know a lot about them but I’ve heard some stuff. You just kind of like what you like. Even when I was on Sub Pop, luckily, I liked Mudhoney, I liked Tad, I liked Nirvana, I liked the Fluid, I liked L7, I liked Cat Butt. So I did like the bands they were putting out. When they first started putting out Mark’s solo records that, to me, was their first turn into another style of music. He was certainly trying something new but…I like what I like, I don’t really associate it with towns or movements of labels.

I listen to new music frequently. Jeff Klein, he plays keyboards in our group, he’s like 29 or 30, he turned me on to Pitchfork and Stereogum and stuff like that. I don’t really read much music stuff but I was aware of this kind of– and I’m going to get killed for saying this– snarky hipsterism, exclusionary thing. It’s like, “We listen to bands that haven’t even formed yet.” That punk rock thing of trying to be cool…

Pitchfork: Well, that attitude certainly isn’t anything new, it’s not like the internet invented music snobbery…

GD: …and as soon as some other dude likes what you like you can’t like it anymore. You have to move to the next thing. I just think that’s kind of– and I’m not saying your site or the site you work for is like that– but that’s always a thing that repelled me. I mean I can certainly see a band like Nirvana, like when they started having to play to the kind of guys that beat them up in high school– that was probably shocking. But you make music to move people and you don’t get to pick who you move. You just don’t. It’s exclusionary and elitist and I just never felt that way about music, of all things. The great unifier.

Pitchfork: Mark, do you have anything to add?

ML: [looking at television screen] I was just thinking how big [Boston Celtics forward] Glen Davis was in college. He was humongous. They just had a picture of him in his LSU uniform.

GD: Big Baby.

ML: Yeah, he must’ve weighed like 350.

GD: I think he was pushing 400, I think he was 370.

ML: Wow.

GD: He’s still over 300 pounds.

Pitchfork: So Mark, basketball’s your big thing? Music and basketball?

ML: I enjoy watching basketball, yeah.

Pitchfork: Do you play at all?

ML: I have not played in quite a few years. Only time I did play recently was me and my dad played in December and he beat me.

GD: In Alaska? Really?

ML: Yeah, he’s 73 years old, my dad is.

GD: Where was he shooting from?

ML: Way out.

Pitchfork: Must be in good shape.

GD: I played basketball all through school and then even played in this 30-and-under league for a little while. It’s funny, as long as I’ve known him [Lanegan], I guess we’ve never been around a basketball court, but at some point this run [we should]. We threw a baseball on the last Twilights tour, in North Carolina, and my arm hurt for a week after that. But Mark pitched in high school.

Pitchfork: Greg, do you think you could take Mark in a basketball game? He did get beat by a 73-year-old guy.

GD: If his dad can take him…I’m not saying I could take him in a one-on-one game, but if his dad beat him it would take me exactly 20 minutes to dial in three shots that are really hard to follow up in HORSE. Coffin corner, top of the key, way out to the left side, and a couple of weird lay-ups.

ML: Hope you’re good with your left hand.

GD: I am, actually. Are you gonna call left hand shot?

ML: Yeah.

GD: Oh shit. All right.

ML: The gauntlet has been thrown down. [laughs]

GD: Well I’m ready for that. Can you hit with your left hand? Are you ambidextrous?

ML: I shoot really well with my left hand.

GD: Can you throw with your left hand?

ML: I’ve had to, yeah. Actually I played a game left-handed once.

GD: Wow. What position did you play?

ML: Second base.

Pitchfork: Why?

ML: I fucked up my shoulder and we didn’t have enough guys on our team.

Pitchfork: I imagine a basketball team’s a lot like a band. Everyone’s got their thing…

GD: Everybody’s got their role. Drawing up the plays, strategizing before the play. Absolutely.

Pitchfork: You guys both spent many years in a single band, but now you seem to be drifting around, collaborating with different people all the time. Is that a result of having been in one group for so long? Is it kind of like being married and then getting divorced, playing the field again?

GD: I think when you’re young and you get together with a group of guys who think like you and you start to make something that moves you as a group of people and you have a common goal, that’s an exciting time. The more years you put behind you, hopefully making music that surpasses what you did before, you’re playing bigger places and it kind of weirdly becomes a business. In my opinion young bands have a shelf life and it ranges in time. I’m really glad the Whigs went to make [final album, 1998's] 1965 because honestly it’s my favorite record that we made. It was the most fun I had on tour with them and I was even looking forward to making another record with them. In between that time and the time it took to make another record, it just wasn’t there anymore. And you have to know when that is.

Since then, the ability to play with different people is infinitely fascinating to me. Just the people I’ve played with: I’ve played with [Cypress Hill DJ/producer] Muggs, I’ve played with [Italian band] Afterhours, I’ve played with Mark, I’ve played with [British rave group] Lo Fidelity Allstars, who I love. Intramural [the latest project from Denver Dalley of Desaparecidos and Statistics]. I’ve jammed with Lucinda Williams, you know. And that’s not to mention that I played with the MC5, I played with War, the Whigs toured with Aerosmith and Neil Young.

So I’ve kind of gotten to do a lot of things and meet a lot of people that I admired outside of what I did. When you get a chance to play with people–informally is one thing, but when you hook up and make something that’s going to last or mean something to someone, I take it very seriously. I take it no less seriously than the band I was in for 15 years; it’s just a new place that I’m in. I’m in the Gutter Twins right now and that’s what I am. But if I’m a Twilight Singer next year, it will be with no less passion.

Pitchfork: So what’s the plan right now for this? Is there going to be another Gutter Twins album? Will this name stick around for a while?

ML: We enjoyed the process of making the record, we enjoyed the results, we enjoy each other’s company, we enjoy traveling together. So I don’t know why we wouldn’t make another record. Whether it’s the next thing that we do or not, I can’t really say, but I’m sure that there’ll be another one.

GD: I haven’t had this much fun touring, ever. I get to hear him sing every night, I get to sing with him. We’ve done this so many times, there’s no hassle, the band and crew all get along. It’s a joy to do, you know? And the fact that we go out and there’s a rammed house every night, and they didn’t even know the songs…

Pitchfork: Yeah, the record just came out this week.

GD: …but we won them over every time. It’s very encouraging.

Pitchfork: Mark, do you share that feeling? Is this the best time you’ve ever had on tour?

ML: It’s great, I get to hang out with my friends, hang out, play music.

Pitchfork: Does this feel like a comfortable place for you? Is this is where you want to be– this band right now? You seem to be a very restless musical spirit, always looking for something new.

ML: It’s just that we’ve played together a lot of times, this is new, new songs, new experience. So yeah, of course, I’m digging it.

Pitchfork: You guys are in a lucky place that I’m sure a lot of bands envy. You’ve built up a loyal fanbase that will be interested in pretty much anything you put your name on.

GD: Yeah, but you’ve got to back it up, man. The thing is, if you just stick your name on something…eh. You could do yourself damage, too, by putting your name on something that sucks. And suck is relative, but I’ve never put my name on something that I didn’t believe in 100%.

Pitchfork: The rock star perception of you guys is that you’re scary, dangerous, evil. I mean, you call yourselves the Gutter Twins, for one thing. How much of that is myth, how much of that is theater? Because I’m sitting here with you guys, and you don’t seem very frightening.

ML: We’re too old to be scary.

GD: The interview’s not over yet, either.

Pitchfork: [laughs] That’s true. But is it a persona? I mean it’s a good persona, it makes for great records.

GD: I think a myth is created from truth and I think the fact that we haven’t gone around and publicized every aspect of our lives like a lot of people do– it’s such an instant gratification backstage access entertainment world, with websites where you go into people’s houses, “here’s my car, here’s my girlfriend,” and I don’t really want to know all that stuff about people. I would prefer that you were like Led Zeppelin, who didn’t let anybody take pictures and weren’t on their album covers. Pink Floyd, too. When they came to your town, you went because you wanted to see if they were real or not. And all the stuff: Jimmy Page lived in Aleister Crowley’s castle? Wow. But I didn’t get to see it, you know?

There’s just so little mystery left in music or film. It was all that was magical to me as a child. And I’m a very private person. What I did in the past or what somebody heard me do or has a bootleg of me doing…well, if you have a bootleg, then I did it. But I’ve never presented myself as anything less than a flawed person.

Pitchfork: You’re a private person, but you put forth a public persona that is in some way rooted in who you are, right?

GD: Yeah, but Al Pacino isn’t Tony Montana. That’s why I always liked Bowie, he would take it on, he was the Thin White Duke, he was Ziggy Stardust, he played with that and that’s cool. That’s why when the Whigs made 1965 and I wore a hat or a fedora or cock feather or had a cane or I had a 12-piece band. When you get in that environment, you start to act like a different person and it’s kind of fun. You get to not be you for two hours and you’re entertaining people. I mean, I certainly wasn’t that when I put on my sweatpants and played checkers in the back of the bus. It’s escapism and it’s escapism for the audience and it’s escapism for yourself. That’s what I’ve always loved about music, that I could go be another guy for two hours. But ultimately it all comes back to: do you have the songs, can you sing them, do you have a great band that can play them with you? You’re charging money to have people come watch you play; I want them to feel taken someplace good or provoked into thinking my way for an hour and a half or two hours. I have been a provoker and I’ll probably always be one in the public arena for the rest of my life.

Pitchfork: Mark, do you feel like you’re playing the role of an entertainer when you’re writing songs or when you get on stage? Or do you feel like you’re just being you?

ML: I’m pretty much exactly the same way I am right now. Only a little less talkative.

[Laughter all around]

Pitchfork: One thing I noticed on the Gutter Twins record is that your voices sound really strong. I mean, both of you have been up there screaming your lungs out for years and years; how do you keep your voices in such good shape?

ML: Just lucky I guess. [laughs]

GD: I think that when we started to sing together, just casually at my house in L.A. eight years ago, singing other people’s songs– we both are fans of music and keen interpreters– when we sang together on my back porch, I remember thinking that we sang well together and it was very natural, the low end and the high end. And there are times on this record where I’m the low guy, he’s the high guy. Rarely, but it’s cool when it happens. That to me was why I knew this would be cool, because we didn’t have to try, we just did it and it sounded great and the battle was won right there. All we had to do was put forth the material to back it up.

When I heard that Massive Attack song ["Live With Me", covered by the Twilight Singers with Lanegan on the 2006 EP A Stitch in Time] a couple years ago, I knew exactly what to do with it and I called him and told him, “I have one for us.” That sort of reignited the fact that we should probably finish the Gutter Twins record and get it out before Chinese Democracy came out.

Pitchfork: And you succeeded. This project had been in the works for something like five years, right?

GD: Since late 2003. The entire process was three years and nine months from start to finish, but that time is all accounted for. I think that when he toured with the Twilight Singers, I just asked him to do one gig and he ended up doing 100. At the end of that we were in Australia, and he had to go to Scotland to sing with Isobel [Campbell], and I asked him if he wanted to finish the record this year. He said yes and I said, “meet me in New Orleans in 30 days.” I picked him up 30 days later at the airport in New Orleans and we started working on it. We worked on it in March and then in May and June, we worked on things separately and then I went out to L.A. in July and stayed until it was done.

Pitchfork: I’m sensing a certain dynamic here, between you guys: Greg, you talk a lot, and Mark doesn’t talk a lot. Does it ever reverse itself?

GD: As soon as you leave it will. And I don’t talk a lot, I just fill up the uncomfortable spaces of him not talking. [laughs]

Pitchfork: Well, thank you! So one thing I wanted to talk about is the cover of Saturnalia, which I think is just gorgeous. It’s like something terrible is about to happen or something terrible just happened. What’s the story behind that image?

GD: I have a friend named Frank Relle who takes long exposure night shots of New Orleans. I was already familiar with some of his work, but he took a nighttime shot of [New Orleans jazz club] Vaughn’s for [jazz musician] Kermit Ruffins’ record cover [2007's Live at Vaughn's]. Kermit has been playing Thursday nights at Vaughn’s for 20 years. I really liked that shot. He showed me a couple shots after Katrina. I believe the one we used is from Solomon Street, down in the Ninth Ward. The two chairs got me and the empty space, the nakedness of the shot. Scott Ford, who plays bass in the group, tweaked it out for its apocalyptic drama.

Pitchfork: The sky looks amazing.

GD: Yeah, he did the sky. I’ve always been a fan of album covers with no writing on them and have used them a lot in my own groups.

Pitchfork: But then the label always puts a sticker on the cover with the band name on it.

GD: But you take it off. In the end it’s probably cost me sales because they don’t know who I am. But again, I like what I like, so I showed the picture to Mark and he just wrote back, “I love it,” and we had the cover.

Pitchfork: When you open the CD, the first thing you see is a photo of you guys laughing. I thought that made for a great counterpoint to the desolation of the cover. There’s a sense of joy there. Was that the intention?

ML: I just liked it because it reminded me of the Muddy Waters record Electric Mud. Inside, there’s a picture of him sitting in a barber’s chair getting his hair cut, just so random and weird. It was fitting somehow.

GD: Yeah, I mean, we’re friends. We don’t sit around and count the days until the apocalypse, it’s not like we’re Satan’s elves.

Pitchfork: What do you guys do together as friends, when you’re not making music?

GD: We went to a Bulls game last night. Shitty game. Usually we just hang out over lunch and we’ll watch sports together. But a lot of times we don’t live in the same town so we don’t hang out. We have, of course, lives outside of music. But whenever I’m in California I probably see him like once a week.

Pitchfork: You live in L.A. and New Orleans.

GD: Yeah.

Pitchfork: And you own a bar in L.A.?

GD: I own two bars in L.A., I own one bar in New Orleans.

Pitchfork: You’re a mogul!

GD: Uh, mogul, no. “Burgeoning entrepreneur” perhaps would be the phrase I would use. Bring on the passive income, that’s what I’m talking about.

Pitchfork: Mark, is music it for you? Do you do other stuff?

ML: You mean to make a living?

Pitchfork: Yes.

ML: No, I pretty much just play music.

GD: Counting stacks of money he makes from his lucrative…

ML: …musical career. [laughs]

Pitchfork: Mark, I want to talk about your collaboration with Isobel Campbell. You just announced this week that you two have a second album in the works. [Sunday at Devil Dirt is due out May 5 in the UK on V2/Cooperative Music.] When you two collaborate, she writes all of the music and then you come in and sing it. That’s an interesting dynamic, because you usually write the music that you sing. What drew you to that project?

ML: It’s just something different. I could see my place in it and it’s something outside the norm, which keeps music interesting for me.

Pitchfork: Are you going to tour with Isobel Campbell again?

ML: A little bit, yes.

Pitchfork: The title of the Gutter Twins album, Saturnalia, is the name of an ancient Roman festival during which slaves and masters trade places. Who is the master in the Gutter Twins? Who is the slave? Or are you both the master or the slave?

GD: I believe it was Depeche Mode who said, “we play a game called master and servant.” So it’s perhaps our homage to Depeche Mode, perhaps that’s the best way I can describe it. I think you can find yourself in life perhaps not really being the master of your own life and it is within your own will and tenacity whether you switch the roles or not. So I think it has more to do with that, a person’s individual will to be master or servant. I’ve been both in my own life and I prefer the former.

Pitchfork: The Gutter Twins have been covering the José González song “Down the Line” on this tour. What drew you to that particular song?

GD: Well, I love him. I really love that type of music where someone can take a guitar or light instrumentation and a beautiful voice and can send me somewhere. There are two artists currently who do that to me better than anyone. José González is one and Vetiver is the other. I can honestly say that I have all the Vetiver records, all the José González records, and I never skip any of their songs. I love all of their songs. And I really can’t say that about anybody else. I know Vetiver has a new album coming out and I cannot wait to hear it. I love them. I think that guy’s voice is beautiful; I think he writes perfect little songs. I hope he becomes rich and famous–at least rich. And José González, too. We were playing this festival a couple years ago in Norway and I was backstage and I heard this guy playing guitar. I just kind of peeked in, didn’t bother him, didn’t say anything. I looked at his name right on the little cabin, it said “José González”. I heard him play, he wasn’t singing or anything. Then I heard him sing and I went, “oh my goodness, beautiful voice.”

From that I went and started listening to him. His covers are fantastic. That Knife song– unbelievable. The Kylie Minogue song breaks my fucking heart. And the Massive Attack song that he did. So with his covers I felt like he was ripe to be covered. “Down the Line” was one that I felt like I could do. I was doing this acoustic show in Seattle back in October with Jeff Klein and Petra Haden. We did it in my living room and whipped it up and we had it. We ran through it one time and it was like oh, sweet.

Pitchfork: That version is up on the Twilight Singers’ MySpace page.

GD: Yeah, then he sent a message to my manager that he liked it, too. I would like to see him live one day. I would love to see Vetiver live one day too. The only bands that I’ve YouTubed are those two.

Pitchfork: Have you seen the “Down the Line” video?

GD: Yeah. With the pig? Pig man? It’s fantastic. I also like MGMT.

Pitchfork: Really? I think they’re terrible. Except for that one song, “Time to Pretend”.

GD: You don’t like “Electric Feel”? “Electric Feel” is killer, man. That song is the shit. I like them, I like Yeasayer. Who else do I like right now? I don’t know if I could find myself really listening to their records that much, but I found myself at a Brightblack Morning Light concert with these crazy kaleidoscope 3D glasses that they gave out at the show. I did smoke some reefer at that show and I totally dug it. Give MGMT another…I feel the backlash coming on those guys.

Pitchfork: I’ve been trying, man. Everybody loves ‘em.

GD: They’re good-looking kids. I saw them on “David Letterman” and they wore Dracula capes and I was like, sweet. Drummer even in a Dracula cape, sweet. They seem tentative live.

Pitchfork: They’re terrible live.

GD: The heavy hand of Dave Fridmann is all over their record, you know. But they’ll figure it out. I think they’ll be very good and I think they’ll be very good for a while.

Pitchfork: Have you heard this new band called the Whigs?

GD: I have not heard them. I’ve heard of them and best of luck to them. My next band is going to be called the Stones. Or the Lips. I couldn’t be bothered to see them. But I’ll accidentally hear them one day, I’m sure– I hear they’re getting pretty popular.

Pitchfork: You also started a Twilight trend. There are a few Twilight bands out there now: the Twilight Sad, Twilight Sleep…

GD: Not only that, but it’s Twilight with an S! Using Twilight is fine but use another consonant to follow it!

Pitchfork: Nobody really seems to have followed the Screaming Trees’ example, though. I guess there are a few Trees bands: Taken by Trees, the Dead Trees…

ML: Screamin’ Cheetah Wheelies. That’s the only one I can think of. Screaming for Vengeance, the Judas Priest tribute band. [laughs]

Pitchfork: You guys were both at one point in MGMT or Yeasayer’s spot, the buzzed-about hot new thing. What would you say to these dudes? Obviously it’s a very different landscape now than when you were starting out.

GD: Get everything up front. Get all the money up front. Unless you know something that I don’t know, always take it up front. Don’t wait for it, it never comes.

Pitchfork: Mark?

GD: Mark, what would you tell the young kids starting out in music today? [laughs]

[Lanegan rolls eyes]

Pitchfork: Good advice! Mark, what artists are you excited about right now?

ML: Delroy Wilson.

GD: A 70s reggae artist.

ML: Johnny Clarke, another 70s reggae artist. And I was listening to a lot of Lightning Bolt the other day.

GD: The other day? You’ve been listening to Lightning Bolt for a couple of weeks, man.

ML: In between Delroy Wilson.

Pitchfork: That’s a nice contrast– one is very chill, and one is not chill at all.

ML: But Lightning Bolt is chill. They totally chill me out for some reason.

GD: I listened to Lightning Bolt and it made me feel like I needed to lay down. I liked them but it was very aggressive. I liked it, don’t get me wrong– it reminded me of Squirrel Bait a little bit, some of the drumming. But I was riding on the train with him in Belgium while he was listening to Lightning Bolt at full fucking blast and he seemed to be in a transcendental, peaceful state. So what works for people, I don’t know. Have you heard Cully [Symington]’s band 1986?

ML: I have not.

GD: They’re a two-man outfit, too. The guy kind of sounds like J Mascis a little bit, but they’re pushing way harder that Dinosaur. The absence of a bass player always makes things go faster and hit harder in the high-end range. Check it out. Cully’s our drummer, Cully’s 23 and he’s a badass.

Pitchfork: I suspect you have to be to play with you guys.

GD: Full-blown badass and he’s got this band called 1986 that are, I think, really, really great.

Pitchfork: Mark, would you ever want to make a reggae record or a brutal noise record?

ML: Maybe a brutal noise reggae record.

GD: Maybe you could get Dr. Know to produce it. That would be the guy.

Pitchfork: Speaking of Bad Brains and Dinosaur Jr., with all of these reunions going on lately, did either of you guys ever want to jump on the reunion train with your old bands? The Afghan Whigs recorded a couple new songs for last year’s Unbreakable retrospective and there were rumors of some live shows.

GD: Anything lower than mid-six figures is not going to get me interested in that. And honestly, I just don’t want to. It’s nothing against those bands that have gotten together because for whatever reason they’ve gotten together it’s working for them. I’m guessing that a lot of that is a financial thing, far be it from me to judge anyone. I’ll say this, I saw Dinosaur in New Orleans in December and they were awesome. They were actually really good and the new songs that I heard sounded good. So if we re playing festivals this summer and My Bloody Valentine is on one of those bills, I will go watch them play.

Pitchfork: I’m kind of afraid of the My Bloody Valentine reunion. It might be great, but…

GD: You run the risk of falling on your face, but, again, music is an individual pursuit– it is made to please yourself first. The pleasure of other people is a byproduct of the pleasure that comes from yourself so again I cannot judge or look down on someone who does whatever they feel like doing. Conversely, for me the past is the past and I would hate to dilute the great times I had in the Afghan Whigs by dragging it back out and beating its corpse. I just don’t know if I could do that.

Pitchfork: Mark, do you share those feelings?

ML: I share those feelings and I have a great many more of those feelings. [laughs] I prefer to stay in the here and now and move forward. There’s a reason why it’s not part of my life anymore nor can I ever see it being a part of my life again.

GD: I look at it this way: if he or I were having to rehearse for a reunion tour, you don’t have time to write new songs that mean something to you now. We’ve made careers after our groups that people come to. There are people that I’ve met that didn’t know who the Afghan Whigs were when they came to a Twilight Singers show and that’s great. I loved being in the Afghan Whigs, Rick [McCollum] and John [Curley] are still two of my best friends ever, and when we did the songs that we did for the retrospective it was fun with the understanding that that was it. We were doing someone at Rhino– a mutual friend of all of ours– a favor by doing that. It was fun, it was so much fun, but then it became not fun and that’s when you know. It’s like, you don’t go shacking up with your ex-girlfriend or ex-boyfriend. It ends in tears.

Pitchfork: When Unbreakable came out, there was talk of the Afghan Whigs doing a video for one of the new songs.

GD: Lies, lies, lies.

Pitchfork: I specifically remember an interview you did with Billboard that mentioned a video for “I’m a Soldier”.

GD: I lie all the time. [laughs] That is my right as a liar.

Pitchfork: Are you guys going to make any Gutter Twins videos?

GD: We made one for “All Misery/Flowers” down in New Orleans and that one’s done now, but it’s the one for “Idle Hands” that I cannot wait to see. That’s all I’m going to say. I cannot wait to see it. We are not in it but I cannot wait to watch it.

Pitchfork: Greg, one thing I wanted to ask about was how the Twilight Singers were one of the first people to cover Outkast’s “Hey Ya”, and then you were one of the first people to cover Gnarls Barkley’s “Crazy”…

GD: …and we would’ve covered [Rihanna's] “Umbrella”!

Pitchfork: That was my question!

ML: Why did you not?

GD: Because we weren’t touring. But the first time I heard that song I went, “oh shit.” Loved it, loved it. I would’ve done it in a fucking heartbeat. And I would’ve done it before everyone else like I did the other ones. I did it in my house. I had a version of it that I played for myself.

Pitchfork: Every cover of “Umbrella” that I’ve heard has sucked.

GD: Yeah, when people do them just like they were already done: boring. Actually, more than “Hey Ya”, I loved the cover that we did of “Roses”, the Outkast song.

Pitchfork: I don’t think I’ve heard that, actually. Was it live only or did you record it?

GD: Yeah, it’s live, but there’s a bootleg of it somewhere. It’s on piano, it’s a very gospel-sounding song. [TV on the Radio's] “Wolf Like Me” was good too, I thought.

Pitchfork: What is it about a song that makes you want to cover it?

GD: I just hear it. It’s gotta be great, it’s got to make my hair stand up and I have to wish that I wrote it and then I wish it so much that I do write it again for me. And it’s always for me. It’s for my own entertainment. Again, if someone else likes them, great, but you are indulging me watching me do that.

Pitchfork: Your songs have been covered by Dashboard Confessional, the New Amsterdams…

GD: Haven’t heard it.

Pitchfork: Emo guys seem to like you. Why do you think that is?

GD: I don’t know. He was asking me that the other day. I don’t know.

ML: There’s nothing wrong with it, it just seems a little weird.

GD: Perhaps it’s because I’m the Godfather of Emo. [laughs] It’s weird, emo, which is short for emotional– of course music should be emotional. It’s like soul music, isn’t it all soul music? Otherwise what is it, non-soul music? I-have-no-soul music? Soulless music? People need to put a name on something to identify it, and I understand it, but I have not heard either one of those covers.

Most of the Afghan Whigs’ albums were such cinematic affairs — with beginnings, middles and ends — that it’s hard to imagine the band’s songs all scrambled up. Luckily, Greg Dulli and Co. manage to pull it off on this belated send-off, which stitches together 16 of their best tunes, plus a pair of songs newly recorded by the band’s final lineup.

The Whigs always were at their best mining the dark alleys of the soul, wedding the sounds of Motown and Seattle for a unique sonic imprint both grim and passionate. Unbreakable succeeds by not simply collecting the band’s singles, but, rather, presenting a series of songs that best fit that theme, from the self-loathing of “Be Sweet,” off of 1993’s gut-wrenching Gentlemen, to a creepy, downtempo take on the Supremes’ “Come See About Me.”

New songs “I’m a Soldier” and “Magazine,” as almost always is the case with these collections, are fine and fitting, yet don’t stand up to the band’s best. The Whigs really get it right, though, by closing the disc with their most ambitious pairing: “Crime Scene Part One” and “Faded,” the epic, movie-like bookends of 1996’s Black Love.

And with that, it’s a wrap. (Matt Sebastian, Camera Staff Writer) 

Frontman Greg Dulli played up his role as smooth motherfucker with such gusto on tracks like “Debonair” and the “Be Sweet” (with its infamous “I got a dick for a brain” line) that casual listeners figured they had him pegged as yet another arrogant post-punk rocker with a big mouth and an overactive libido. Lyrics such as “Do you think I’m beautiful/Or do you think I’m evil?” on the devastating “Crime Scene Part One” from 1996’s Black Love encapsulated some people’s frustration with Dulli. But his affinity for soul music and his surprising tenderness — encapsulated on the cover of The Supremes’ “Come See About Me,” darker and sadder than the original by far — reveals a different character, one significantly deeper than expected.

The songs swagger with confidence; the numbers from the band’s last record, 1998’s upbeat 1965, still feel like a hazy, absinthe-fueled party, but much of the earlier material seethes with real menace. Dulli implores his lover “Don’t you let me breathe” on Congregation’s “Turn On The Water,” while the tracks from Black Love, the band’s dark masterpiece, are both claustrophobic and cathartic; even the catchy “Going To Town” has Dulli arming his companion with a “match and gasoline,” the goals being “burn it down, turn around, and get your stroll on, baby.” The epic “Faded,” guitarist Rick McCollum’s finest moment, closes the record on an impassioned-yet-world-weary note. “Do you believe in me baby?” Dulli asks, hardly the braggart from the grungy, Sub Pop album-opener “Retarded,” “Can I believe in you?”

Unbreakable is the first — and, with the band’s plethora of great live cuts, covers and B-sides, hopefully not the last — Whigs compilation and, while the awkward tracklisting leaves something to be desired at times (1965’s “John The Baptist” sticks out like a sore thumb — and where are the singles “You My Flower,” “Honky’s Ladder” or the band’s signature set-closer, “Miles Iz Ded”?), this delivers the goods. For fans, it’s a way to reevaluate old favorites in a new context and hear two recently-recorded tracks, the gripping “I’m A Soldier” and the trip-hoppy “Magazine,” which wouldn’t have sounded out of place on the first Twilight Singers record. For the uninitiated, it’s a treasure trove, with would-be classic singles and songs that feel like missed opportunities on the part of the Whigs’ three labels; how Columbia missed turning the buoyant, sexy “66″ into the club hit of the late ’90s is beyond me.

Mark Cappelletty

As leader of the terrifically lost, vastly unloved Afghan Whigs, singer-songwriter Greg Dulli mixed the howling self-hate of the grunge movement with the heart-sleeved hope of arena rockers. The Cincinnati-born band should have been bigger, but its emotionally disheveled leader expected this frustrated fate. There’s a bipolar beauty to Dulli’s songs, with soft moments often turning into vengeful screams. On the jarring “Be Sweet”, his pillow talk turns punk ugly… then pretty… then ugly again, as the singer just can’t get a handle on love.

Sean Daly

Greg Dulli didn’t just wear his heart on his sleeve when leading the Afghan Whigs. He nailed it to his forearm with a railroad spike and then walked down the street, shoving it in stranger’s faces. He didn’t whine about his nail-driven heart, either; he was pissed off, and made sure you heard — and felt — every bloody detail.

Cincinnati’s Afghan Whigs are considered by many one of the finest bands of the 1990s, and also one that never quite got its due. Dulli, John Curley, Rick McCollum and Steve Earle unleashed a decade’s worth of dark rock ‘n’ roll splashed with even darker soul, all of it informed by Dulli’s torrential anger and disappointment at himself and the world.

What the Afghan Whigs did exceedingly well was create an atmosphere that was pure Whigs and purely distinctive. The band recorded for Seattle’s Sub-Pop Records alongside Nirvana and made music that was equally powerful, with hooks as big as any that Kurt Cobain crafted. But the Whigs never made the leap to commercial success. Maybe Dulli was ultimately too scary for the masses.

“Unbreakable: A Retrospective 1990-2006″ is the first Whigs compilation and it’s a solid, if brief, reminder of their legacy. Two unreleased songs, recorded specifically for this collection, manage to hang with the classics, but it’s the vintage material that thrills, from the blistering “Retarded” to the epic “Crime Scene Part One.” This was Afghan Whigs at their conflicted best, cathartic without the emotional cleansing, uplifting even as Dulli dragged you down.

How does one begin reviewing a compilation of a band that was so dear to one’s heart? That is the question as I sit with Unbreakable: A Retrospective of The Afghan Whigs playing on the headphones. I know what’s around every corner, I even anticipated correctly the two new recordings that Greg Dulli and gang recorded for this Rhino comp (“I’m A Soldier” and “Magazine”), which both are nice additions to the Whigs catalog. While there is no compilation that could replace the perfect Gentlemen album Unbreakable does a great job on tying as much as one can into one 18 track album.

Apparently Dulli and bassist John Curley handpicked the songs and sequenced them as well. When Afghan albums are so meticulously sequenced this must have been a hard thing to separate tracks like “What Jail Is Like”, “Be Sweet” and “Gentlemen” from their best album, Gentlemen. The album also takes a number of tracks from Black Love and 1965 to fill out the track listing. “Turn On The Water” made the cut from Congregation and the album opener, “Retarded” from Up In It.

So, even though it seems obvious, Unbreakable is a good place for those who have never heard this very influential 1990s band that was so sadly overlooked. Don’t miss out on Dulli’s equally impressive Twilight Singers.

Nonetheless, this career-spanning compilation boasts a shrewd mix of tunes that ought to appeal to the generation of rock fans (I’m talking about those of you who made the move from grunge to Britpop) that missed out on the Whigs first time around.

The creative core of the group, Greg Dulli (vocals, rhythm guitar), Rick McCollum (lead guitar) and John Curley (bass) were ever-present over the course of the six albums recorded between 1988 and 1998 (the first independently-released album Big Top Halloween has been excluded from this collection).

They’ve even re-formed for two new tracks (I’m a Soldier and Magazine) which unfortunately aren’t among the best songs here.

Generally, though, the whole Afghan Whigs tale has been compiled and presented reasonably in this little nugget. Sure, there are a handful of omissions like early favourite White Trash Party, but it’s hard to dispute that most of the group’s definitive material is here.

The songs range from early brash, near-grunge recordings like Retarded to altogether sleeker animals in the vein of Debonair and Gentleman and culminate in the highly melodic layered products (the brassy, occasionally funky stuff like Crazy and John the Baptist) of what is surely the best and (frustratingly) final Whigs album 1965.

Aside from those two excellent tracks, other personal favourites include the bleak adult tale Let Me Lie to You (“discover your lover between the legs of another”) and the rockier Turn on the Water. Dulli’s preoccupation with the politics of sex-drenched relationships can get a little wearisome and I still can’t shake the feeling that the Whigs could have, and should have, done more than they did, but their story is still worth listening to.

– MARTIN VENGADESAN

The Afghan Whigs might be described as the “contenders” of 1990s rock. They had some hits in the grunge era, but their style was a little too idiosyncratic for them to rise to the top of the charts when every band with a gritty guitar solo was doing that.

The Whigs still boast a fervent fan base – and six years after their breakup in 2001, a new collection, Unbreakable (A Retrospective 1990-2006) cherry-picks the best from five of their albums and an EP. The Whigs combined an ear for a hook with lyrics that dig in with an ingratiating tingle. They started out on iconic grunge label Sub Pop and later moved to Elektra Records and then Columbia. Despite some terrific songs, they never quite seemed to be in the right place at the right time for mass appeal. You can feel them surfing through styles in this non-chronological collection of 18 tracks, which offers a fine survey of the Whigs at their peak.

God knows the Whigs deserved a big hit more than ’90s rockers like Bush or Candlebox – perhaps frontman Greg Dulli’s fervent stew of psycho-sexual angst was a bit too fiery for the masses. He’s got a knack for marrying jangling power chords with some marvelously blunt, unsentimental lyrics – “She wants love / I still wanna f––k,” he croons in “Be Sweet.” Dulli comes across as a lovelorn, tortured everyman – but unlike a lot of the flannel-clad depression cases of the era, he had the musical chops to make tunes that were more than grinding self-indulgence.

The two new tracks here, “I’m A Soldier” and the older unreleased song “Magazine,” don’t quite qualify as essential, but they’re nice to have here. The gems are in the tunes that made the Whigs’ reputation, though. “Debonair” ascended to the upper reaches of modern rock charts with creepily snarling lines about “Tonight I go to hell / for what I’ve done to you.” There’s a willingness to try anything – the molten thrash of “Retarded,” the snide, screaming frenzy of “Gentleman,” the dreamy reverie of “Let Me Lie To You,” the pumped-up horns blaring in “John The Baptist.” The band even managed a smart deconstruction of The Supremes in their cover of “Come See About Me.”

Dulli’s stunning vocals, equal parts hard rock and grittily soulful, anchor the band’s sound, while Rick McCollum’s fluid guitar lines tear classic riffs into the tunes. The Afghan Whigs excelled at making music that was menacing, mysterious and melodic. They couldn’t quite be pegged down – and maybe that’s why they never quite “made it.”

The die-hards will have heard all this before, but Unbreakable is really aimed at once again trying to break the Whigs to the world at large. If anything, their reputation has grown since the breakup, and Unbreakable is here to show what the fuss was all about – sturdy, hook-filled and strangely subversive rock that deserves a fresh listen.