With a soulful sound and soul-baring lyrics, the Afghan Whigs rode the post-Nirvana boom to the big leagues. Their frontman explains his exploration of the male ego \u2013 and how Usher got the band back together<\/p>\n
The Afghan Whigs were always heavier than their grunge-era brethren. Not musically \u2013 their turbulent, sophisticated rock was rooted in soul and funk, and frontman Greg Dulli says the group only embraced distortion in order to be heard over the volume of metalhead drummer Steve Earle\u2019s playing. \u201cAny kind of jangle wasn\u2019t gonna work.\u201d But Dulli\u2019s lyrics, inspired by the likes of Motown bards Holland\/Dozier\/Holland, were pitch-black, depicting lovers in co-dependent cycles of betrayal and recrimination. Afghan Whigs songs take place in a world where sin is irresistible, punishment inevitable and some kind of judgment inescapable.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy songs acknowledge consequence, more than they deal in judgment,\u201d Dulli says, between sips of water in the bar of a London hotel. Forty years on from their formation, the Whigs are resurgent. Their new album, Soft Control, ably holds its own with earlier dark masterpieces such as their 1993 breakthrough Gentlemen, and its bleakly funky conceptual follow-up, 1996\u2019s Black Love \u2013 records that affirmed their frontman as alt-rock\u2019s poet of arch romantic dysfunction. \u201cI understood sorrow and loss and loneliness from an early age,\u201d he says. His dad was the youngest of 14; several of Dulli\u2019s uncles died when he was young. \u201cI had been there, so why wouldn\u2019t I explore it?\u201d<\/p>\n
Possessed of devilish charm, Dulli was raised Catholic during a \u201cvery Huckleberry Finn childhood\u201d in Hamilton, Ohio. \u201cI was an altar boy,\u201d he grins. \u201cMy attitude was, if I\u2019m going to church, I might as well be on stage. I had a great seat, could scope out the talent. Clearly, I was into the attention.\u201d By age 12, however, he was \u201casking hard questions. Like, what\u2019s with all the kid killing? \u2018God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son\u2019? Not necessary. I told Mom: I\u2019m not going to church any more, I don\u2019t believe in it.\u201d Dulli leers \u201cWe both know God ain\u2019t real, baby\u201d on one of the new album\u2019s songs.<\/p>\n
Dulli\u2019s dad \u201cwasn\u2019t around a lot\u201d, so he was raised by his mother, grandmother and aunts. \u201cWhen you\u2019re surrounded by ladies you gotta work hard to get away with stuff, because they\u2019re vigilant. But they were also nurturing, supportive and encouraging.\u201d And his mum had a killer record collection: \u201cMotown 45s and Jesus Christ Superstar,\u201d Dulli remembers, smiling. Their influence would prove indelible, as would that of his first gig: psychedelic soulsters the 5th Dimension at Ohio state fair in 1973. \u201cI developed a crush on Marilyn McCoo immediately. They did Let the Sunshine In, and her husband \u2013 Billy Davis Jr \u2013 went off on his full-on gospel lift. I was eight years old, but I was high. Some kids want to be an astronaut or a cowboy; I always wanted to be a rock star.\u201d<\/p>\n
He played his first gig at 14, wrote his first song at 15, and spent college in the pit for shows by Ramones, H\u00fcsker D\u00fc and Black Flag. Inspired, he formed the Black Republicans, whose shows were frequented by a bearded guy who regularly told him, \u201cI\u2019m better than your bassist.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd he was,\u201d Dulli adds. The bearded guy, John Curley, asked if he and guitarist friend Rick McCollum could sit in. Soon, the Black Republicans were done, drummer Earle enlisted and the Afghan Whigs were ascendant. Their first rehearsal was Halloween 1986. \u201cWe played One Day by the Church, Psychedelic Shack by the Temptations and Powderfinger by Neil Young, and fucked around with 39 Lashes; Rick loved Jesus Christ Superstar as much as I did.\u201d<\/p>\n
With their second album, 1990\u2019s Up in It, the group became one of the first non-Seattle signings to the Sub Pop label \u2013 who had released Nirvana\u2019s debut \u2013 building a buzz with their eclectic live cover versions. \u201cWe could learn them fast,\u201d Dulli says. \u201cHad no desire to be a covers band. But eight songs into our show and we wanna play Mandinka by Sin\u00e9ad O\u2019Connor? We would. We were onstage one night, a couple of us tripping on acid, and I told John, play the bass line to Hall & Oates\u2019 Maneater. I started riffing on the Supremes\u2019 My World Is Empty Without You. People freaked. We were subverting it, but still honouring it.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Whigs wore their influences on their sleeves, particularly soul music. Further covers followed, on stage and as B-sides: Freda Payne\u2019s Band of Gold; TLC\u2019s Creep; the Supremes\u2019 Come See About Me. \u201cThat song is so desperate,\u201d Dulli says, admiringly. \u201cMotown songs are dark, but the music is peppy and happy. I thought, what if the music was more sympathetic to the lyrics? It darkens the song, it changes the meaning. And it\u2019s exciting. You listen to the words, and it\u2019s so awful what\u2019s happening to that person.\u201d<\/p>\n
As the Whigs completed Congregation, their second album for Sub Pop, Nirvana became unlikely superstars. \u201cWatching those dudes knock Michael Jackson off the No 1 spot \u2026 that escalated quickly,\u201d Dulli says. When the post-Nevermind gold rush started, \u201cour lives changed\u201d. The group signed with Elektra, a major label. \u201cBut we weren\u2019t worrying over if we\u2019d be as big as Pearl Jam. We\u2019d created our own sound.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gentlmen was the product of Dulli\u2019s \u201cvery stormy relationship\u201d with a woman credited on the sleeve as Miss Ruby Belle, and whose voice had graced Congregation (her true identity has been the subject of fevered conjecture among Whigs devotees). \u201cWe were gone all the time, and nature abhors a vacuum,\u201d he remembers. \u201cI came back from a seven-week tour and my girlfriend had a new boyfriend, and he\u2019d been in our bed. I asked her, \u2018How dare you do this to me?\u2019 Even though I\u2019d done it to her all the time on tour. I was confronted with my own hypocrisy. Gentlemen became my exploration of my culpability.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gentlemen also served as an examination of male ego, sexuality and chauvinism. \u201cI\u2019d grown up surrounded by women, but I come from a very patriarchal society,\u201d he says. \u201cHomemakers stayed home, made babies and dinner and shut the fuck up. I had to learn how to be, for lack of a better word, a feminist \u2013 to realise, there is another side to this.\u201d The song What Jail Is Like posited fear of commitment as existential panic; Be Sweet had Dulli playing a suave lothario with \u201ca dick for a brain\u201d, using said brain to \u201csell my ass to you\u201d. On My Curse, meanwhile, Dulli put forth \u201cthe counterpoint \u2013 I put myself in her head as best I could\u201d, and drafted his friend, Marcy Mays of Ohio indie-rockers Scrawl, to sing its lyric of helpless, self-destructive infatuation. \u201cI micromanaged Marcy\u2019s performance,\u201d Dulli remembers, \u201cuntil she said: \u2018I really wish you\u2019d get the fuck out of here and let me do this by myself.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
When Dulli played his mother the record, he told me in 2004, \u201cshe couldn\u2019t believe I still got laid\u201d. Today, he says that midway through touring Gentlemen in 1993, he struck Be Sweet from the setlist, never to return. \u201cIt was a great lyric,\u201d he says, but its central \u201cdick for a brain\u201d bon mot \u201cbecame the pull-quote for every magazine story about us. I was like, \u2018I\u2019m not singing this fucking song \u2013 I don\u2019t want to be that guy any more.\u2019 I felt like an animal in a zoo.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Whigs\u2019 next album, the excellent Black Love, spun a film-noirish yarn, fulfilling \u201cconcept album ambitions\u201d Dulli had developed since obsessing over Quadrophenia as a kid. \u201cIt is wildly misunderstood, and still one of my favourite things I\u2019ve ever done,\u201d he says. But the hits Elektra had been banking on never materialised. They moved to Columbia, releasing their next LP in 1998: 1965 was an open bid for mainstream success. \u201cThat was the only time I tried to write a hit song,\u201d Dulli says. \u201cThat was our \u2018the self-loathing is gone \u2013 it\u2019s party-time\u2019 album. And I loved the freedom: thank God, I don\u2019t have to be in fucking Hamlet again.\u201d<\/p>\n
They toured with Aerosmith, \u201cthe nicest band\u201d Dulli has ever toured with. Still, commercial success didn\u2019t arrive. \u201cBy the end, we were three guys going in three different directions.\u201d<\/p>\n