The beating heart of Sugar was always the sound of Bob Mould’s guitar: a colossal, metallic, thunderous thing, like a sonic boom you could whistle. “It was incredible, being engulfed by that wall of sound,” remembers bassist David Barbe from his office at the University of Georgia, weeks before the group are due to play their first shows in more than three decades. “Bob was so loud, there were times on stage when I could see Malcolm drumming, but I couldn’t actually hear him.”
“I didn’t wear earplugs when I started playing with Bob,” adds Malcolm Travis, the aforementioned drummer, from his home in Cape Cod, Massachusetts. “But soon afterwards, I did. It was just deafening.” And while everyone involved is 30 years older than the last time they played together, age has not withered them; anyone who’s caught Mould playing solo in recent years will attest that his guitar is still fearsomely loud.
