“I don’t remember any conflict inside the band. We were determined to grab back the reins from anyone who was holding them and do the album the way we wanted it to bedone”: Bob Mould on myth vs reality and the making of Hüsker Dü’s New Day Rising

Hüsker Dü play live in the mid '80s, with Bob Mould playing a Flying V and wearing a pink and gray plaid shirt.

Through the revisionist lens of rock history, Hüsker Dü’s third full-length album, New Day Rising, is often viewed as highly anticipated and groundbreaking.

It’s seen as an album that upped the ante on the success of the band’s abrasive, semi-melodic second record, Zen Arcade, by incorporating more open chords and hooks into their scratchy, sloppy hardcore. And in the process, the legend goes, the Minnesota trio fueled their enmity toward one another and their label into their music, creating melody-tinged songs that created the groundwork for angst-fueled alternative rock.