Mark Shue has been the steadfast bassist of Guided by Voices since 2016, when Robert Pollard assembled the latest (and arguably greatest) lineup in the band’s four-plus-decade history: himself, Shue, guitarists Doug Gillard and Bobby Bare Jr., and drummer Kevin March.
Shue first discovered Guided by Voices during a pivotal stretch of his own life. In the early 2000s — newly engaged and recently departed from James Madison University — he wandered into a downtown Manhattan record store and encountered Pollard’s music for the first time.
He was immediately struck, and as he began building a life in Brooklyn’s independent music scene, he immersed himself in the band’s catalog.
In 2013, he co-founded the gnarly art-rock trio Beech Creeps as a guitarist alongside bassist Zach Lehroff, formerly of Ex Models, and Brian Chase of Yeah Yeah Yeahs. He remains part of the band to this day.
He also played in Chomper with members of Dream Police and the Men, which produced one album in 2017, Medicine Mountain.
During this period, a visit to Pollard’s art show in Chelsea, Manhattan, led to their first meeting and the beginning of a correspondence. Several years later, while working at an advertising agency, Shue received an email inviting him to join Guided by Voices. He quit his job that day.
Shue’s recorded debut with Pollard was as part of GBV satellite band ESP Ohio, also featuring Gillard on guitar and GBV producer Travis Harrison on drums. They released one album, Starting Point of the Royal Cyclopean, in 2016.
The following year, his debut with GBV by way of double album August by Cake. Shue contributed three largely self-recorded songs, which he wrote — “Absent the Man,” “Sudden Fiction,” and the instrumental “Chew the Sand.”
He even graced the front cover, demonstrating the Pollard-dubbed “Calgarian Method” of drinking beer.
He would resurface, in full rock pose, on the front of 2021’s It’s Not Them. It Couldn’t Be Them. It Is Them!.
Shue has also drawn up stage plots, helped manage the band’s merch operation alongside Port Merchandise, handled soundcheck duties for Pollard, and taken on other practical responsibilities behind the scenes.
Today, this lineup forges on: the just-announced Crawlspace of the Pantheon — out May 29 via GBV, Inc. — is their 20th together to date.
Now based in Kingston, New York, Shue approaches bass with a physical sensibility shaped by two decades of classical ballet training. His stage presence and musical approach — as compositional as it is kinetic — has elevated the band’s current run.
In this conversation, Shue reflects on his path from fan to band member, the chemistry that has sustained GBV’s most productive stretch, and a decade inside what he calls “an organization, community, family.”
Click here to pre-order Crawlspace of the Pantheon.
How’s it going, Mark? Still living upstate?
It’s going well, thanks. I am still in upstate New York, up in the Hudson Valley in Kingston, New York. I’ve been here five or six years — moved during the pandemic. I had spent a number of years in the city — 15, 16 years — so it was a good move.
I’m sure that’s very head-clearing. Do you ever miss the city?
It’s great. It is head-clearing, and it’s beautiful. There’s a great community here of all kinds of musicians, artists, and characters from all over — a lot of my neighbors are musicians — people that have ended up here over the years, people that have been here forever.
It feels creatively and socially stimulating, and there’s a good amount of fun stuff going on. I have a nice little crew here, and we’re all pretty tight. It feels like a good place to come home to, to slow down a little. Yeah, I miss the city sometimes, but not all the time — and it’s nice to know that it’s right there.
Is Tubby’s the music hub there?
Tubby’s has been a great music hub. They’re good people. Actually, I’ve known those guys for, like, 20 years — so that’s partially how I ended up here, because those guys actually lived in Austin, Texas, for a long time, and they had a record label down here that my band Beech Creeps was on [Monofonus Press].
They moved to the area before me, and opened Tubby’s shortly thereafter. And I had other people I knew upstate as well. It seemed like an obvious choice, and I always loved this area, so I always kind of imagined ending up here.
What’s your day-to-day like? Do you do design all day? Music work?
I’ve been doing a little bit of this and a little bit of that. In the time since the band hasn’t been touring, I’ve been immersing myself more in the community here. I bartend at a cool bar in town that I love called West Kill Supply. It’s a great spot. We’re neighbors with Tubby’s. We brew all our own beer at our brewery up deep in the Catskill Mountains, which is a beautiful spot to visit too.
I work at a great guitar shop in town — Stockade Guitars. I do some remote and in-studio session work playing bass on various projects. I give private lessons from time to time. I DJ — spinning vinyl records around the upstate area and in the city. I also travel for that sometimes.
I also do voiceover work. I actually recently did some voiceover work for a short film, so I’m kind of piecing it all together.
Anything you can reveal there, or nah?
The short film is called Tarnished Seed, which is written and directed by my friend Michael Lavine, who is an amazing music photographer and filmmaker.
Over the past few years, he has been making a series of sci-fi stop motion short films called The Dark Odyssey. I voice one of the main characters in the third and latest installment of the series, which has yet to be released.
Are you still doing Beech Creeps?
I am. We play out here and there. Everybody lives all over now. Our drummer, Brian, who’s also in Yeah Yeah Yeahs, lives in Brooklyn with his family, and then the other guy, Zach, lives in Princeton, New Jersey now with his family, and I’m up here.
So, we kind of make a point to all get together when we all can — when our schedules allow, and it’s always great, and we’ve been riffing around on some new stuff. We’ve been recording some new material.
It’s crazy watching “Maps” — which is an incredible song — become widely viewed as one of the most pivotal songs of our generation.
I know, it’s great. It’s wild. It’s an amazing song. That drum beat, too — that’s the Brian Chase signature right there. He’s a force of nature. I love playing music with him.
I DJed Brian’s wedding — this was probably 10 years ago now — and Yeah Yeah Yeahs did a surprise set at the wedding reception. They played a couple songs, including “Maps,” and it was a blast.
Are you working on any solo music?
Here and there. I’ve been working on a lot of other projects lately, but I’m always writing and working on my own music — pieces of this, pieces of that. I would like to put something out at some point.
I’ve been playing bass recently on a new record I’m working on with my friend Katie Eastburn, who goes by KATIEE, and that’s been a lot of fun. Been discussing a few new really exciting potential projects that are beginning to take shape. I’ve been talking with some people upstate here that I’ve become really close with about collaborating on a new project. So, a little of this, little of that. There’s always something bubbling.
And the band is keeping it in motion, having a great time making records together. We have a brand-new album coming out in May that we’re really excited about. It’s called Crawlspace of the Pantheon.
Was just listening. Doug smokes at the end of “One Last Blow.”
Oh, yeah, yeah. Fucking nuts. Doug is incredible. It’s been really fun, working on this one.
You know, we always try to reinvent how we do things slightly with every record. With the past couple records, Doug and Kevin and I have convened at my place upstate to work on the music together, and it gives us a chance to sort of reunite and hang out and catch up too. We’ll workshop the songs together in a live space, as if we were going to take them out on tour, before we put it down to tape in the studio.
It feels like a really fun exercise to be able to do things like that now — because we don’t get to see each other all the time these days, and I miss those guys.
Have you bombed out to Dayton recently?
I have. Bob and I got together around the holidays with some friends. We always have a great time. We make a point to get together as often as we can just to hang and catch up. But we keep in touch all the time; I mostly just miss hanging out with Bob and everyone since we’re out on the road less these days. I always love seeing my Dayton family and it’s definitely like a second home base.
It’s always inspiring to get together. Bob’s got so much incredible creative energy. It’s inspiring just to be around. From the moment he wakes up in the morning, he has this time to himself where he’s drinking coffee, and if he’s not making amazing collage art, he’s busy writing ideas down in his notebooks, or immersing himself in records and books.
It’s incredible — like, it’s constant. And it’s amazing to be around, because it makes you see so much beauty and creativity and potential in things. It makes me want to get up earlier, to constantly discover, and to just be creative — to make more art.
When you first heard the Crawlspace demos, what musical information popped out at you?
Well, the songs were really powerful out of the gate. I think this one initially struck me as maybe more musically and lyrically complex, less overly power pop than [its 2025 predecessor] Thick Rich and Delicious.
Another cool thing about this batch was I believe they were all brand-new pieces of music and lyrics, whereas with Thick Rich and Delicious, I think there were some older ideas that had been combined in. On a lot of this stuff, I think Bob was writing from a different mindset from the get-go. It’s a lot of maybe deeper subject matter — some of which could even be construed as semi-autobiographical at times, or not.
But, yeah, it just felt like there were some real moments on this record — opportunities for us to take the material into really beautiful directions or really sneering almost violent directions or really triumphant big rock directions, musically. It’s a very cool record with a lot of flavors.
There’s a song called “We Outlast Them All,” which is just a beautiful song to me — just elegant and powerful, and kind of feels like, in some way or another, a new Ballad of Guided by Voices. I get emotional when I hear that song, and the way Bob sings it. It’s just a gorgeous song.
What gets you emotional about it?
I just think it’s been one of the joys of celebrating 10 years of this era of the band, and not being on the road, and getting to reflect and look back more — take stock of everything.
I feel so much gratitude and pride in what we were able to achieve during that time, and that we’re still the best of friends, and we love each other so much, and we continue to inspire and push each other so much.
On the whole, it makes me emotional to be able to look back on a band and songwriter that I love and adore so much, and to see 40-something years of all this amazing music, and it hasn’t stopped. You know the phrase “Don’t stop now” — it never did stop.
One of the things I’ve really enjoyed about this series that you’ve been doing is reading all the great stories from so many of the people that have been involved in this organization in some way or another through all the years, and how special that bond is that we all share. I have a tremendous amount of respect for everyone that’s been there and contributed along the way.
It’s sort of a moment to look back a little and reflect, and be quite grateful that I’ve had this creatively rewarding experience like nothing else.
I think of all that when I hear a song like “We Outlast Them All.” I think of the good ship Guided by Voices as a band, and I think of Bob’s amazing vision that he just never gave up on, and he’s still here. Thank god. At the peak of his powers, kicking it out.
How has your bass language evolved across this last decade? At this point, you — Doug and Bobby included — probably know his compositional touchstones and idiosyncrasies like the back of your hand.
Certainly. I mean, it’s been quite a musical journey. We’ve all definitely become familiar with his unique shapes and moves, compositionally speaking, and playing-wise. But there are always tons of surprises, new territories being explored, and new doors being blown open every step along the way. Bob pushes himself, and we all push ourselves and each other.
When I think about the musical evolution of my own playing, and how our chemistry has evolved through the years, I think back to the first time I ever played with Kevin March as a rhythm section together. I had already been playing with Doug Gillard in his solo band for a while, and that was a great experience.
Doug, of course, is such an incredible musician, and just a genius of a guitar player, and that really pushed me initially. And we had a terrific experience making the ESP Ohio record together, along with Bob and Travis Harrison, who in addition to being such a great producer, and our sixth Beatle, is also a great drummer.
When this era of Guided by Voices began, the first person that I played with was Kevin. I took the train out to Montclair, New Jersey, and we met for the first time and got in a room together, just bass and drums. After a few minutes, I remember we just looked at each other and were like, This is going to be good. It just felt like, Wow, this chemistry is just there immediately.
What was so cool for me is that Kevin went to Berklee and studied music there — and he’s quite trained as a drummer, formally. I have no real training on my instrument whatsoever, and have just sort of been winging it my whole life. Discovering it as I go.
When I picked up guitar, I had this mentality of, Learn a chord or two and you’re off to the races. So, for me, to have that chemistry with somebody that was so steeped in this amazing training was really, really cool.
You can connect in a musical language with all kinds of people, and you never know. But I think, on the whole, with this group of people in particular, we all shared this magic chemistry off the bat when we played together in a room.
So, to go through all the years and albums and shows that we’ve played and everything, I think about how much we’ve been able to evolve as musicians, and ourselves.
Bob always has great conceptual and production ideas, and at the same time, he has really encouraged us to put our own fingerprints on everything we do, and that’s been a really creatively rewarding thing for me. As a bass player, I’ve really been allowed the freedom to develop and explore my own style.
Also, I have so much respect for everyone who’s been in the band before me, and everyone who’s worked with Bob for all these years. I love Greg Demos and his playing, and I love Jimmy Pollard’s bass contributions, and I love when Toby or Bob plays a bass line on a guitar.
I try my best to do justice to all of that, while still maintaining my own identity in it, and at the same time carving my own path forward in our era. I think that I’ve been able to and that Bob has really encouraged that, and it’s something I’m super grateful for.
I admire your bass playing. I’ve noticed you use slides a lot to create motion in a song. Can you talk about what you’ve honed, on that front?
Thank you. Totally. I always aim to play with a real physicality. I view my approach to my instrument in this physical way, probably in some part because I was a dancer for so many years of my life. I did classical ballet for 20 years, so I think all that is baked in me somewhere.
So, when I perform live, when I come up with bass parts and moves, I always visualize it with this physicality. I think about how it feels, not just how it sounds.
On stage, I want to feel the vibrations of the bass through my feet and feel the air being pushed and moving me. Kevin March really plays drums with this physical energy too. He kind of plays as a dancer. He plays with so much power, yet he dances on the drums.
So, the way the bass notes hit with the drums, I always want to feel this primal power but also this light dancing playfulness and motion to it. The way we play together as a rhythm section, there’s this innate power there, but it also has to move and be light and dance. Kevin and I always vibe on that. Powerful but light. Tight, but also loose.
What was classical ballet like? I had no idea.
Yeah, I grew up doing classical ballet from when I was six to my early 20s, sometimes seven days a week. I taught pas de deux — ballet partnering — towards the end of that for a few years, and it was great.
I was really drawn to the collaborative aspect of pas de deux. It requires a lot of mutual trust between dance partners, because some of the moves in the choreography can be quite dangerous. When you really lock in together, the results can be beautiful and stunning. I see a lot of parallels between that and musical collaboration.
I was always doing a balance of ballet and some sort of music and/or performance. Ballet was quite disciplined, and I think it gave me a discipline that I could then carry into music, and later on with Guided by Voices. And, yeah — all that jumping around onstage, I’m sure wouldn’t be possible without those years of ballet.
Do you look back on those days with fond memories?
Yeah, totally cool. It was a good experience. I haven’t danced for over 20 years now, but it taught me a lot, and I have a lifelong appreciation for the ballet and good memories.
Was rock ‘n’ roll a little bit of a reaction to that?
Yeah, I think they were sort of pushing against each other in a way. But they were also complimenting each other. For me, it was a nice balance to have growing up.
And then this great thing about Bob and his work ethic is how much discipline he has — not just with himself as a songwriter and artist, but as a bandleader. I really admire the way that he’s always operated when we’re on tour, when we’re making a record. The reason that the band’s able to be as productive and prolific as it is is because of the discipline that Bob and the band bring to it.
So, I think there was always a real parallel with that for me — where I could really identify with that and really dig into that because of my background with dancing. And I think Bob had that, respectively, with his career in sports, and that really gave him a sense of discipline and sportsmanship.
You really have to train every day. Whether it’s your body or your creative juices, you have to keep them flexed and flowing. I think that’s why he’s been able to maintain this pace.
You’ve had a hand in other instruments on GBV records, too. Didn’t you play organ on “In Calculus Strategem”?
Yes. We recorded the album Styles We Paid For during the pandemic, and if memory serves, it was the first of several records that we made entirely during lockdown.
I was staying down in Virginia with my parents during the first six months or so of the pandemic, and we were recording and making records remotely. My dad is an organist, so we had a piano in the house, and he also had this 1890s chapel pump organ — a really cool, fun instrument to play. It has a great sound. So, I played the pump organ on that song, because it was down there and seemed to fit the song perfectly.
And, yeah, in addition to a few August By Cake songs and some B-sides through the years where I might have sang and played guitar, bass, and sometimes drums, I’ve played some piano and synthesizers from time to time, lent some backup vocals here and there, maybe an amp drop for good measure.
And the autoharp. I recently inherited my grandfather’s autoharp and had it totally restored. At some point before my time he had a radio show on a local station in the town I grew up in in Virginia on Sundays, where he would play autoharp and read poetry and sing.
He passed away when I was very young, but I recently uncovered his autoharp and fixed it up and used it on the latest Guided by Voices record. It’s on the track “Landscaping” from Crawlspace of the Pantheon.
That’s a pretty song.
Yeah, it’s a great song. I literally got that thing back right in time for the recording session, and it seemed like it belonged in there.
But primarily of course, I’m on the bass guitar. And, you know, music aside, we do things behind the scenes here and there sometimes. I still help with the merchandise along with Kevin and our friends down in North Carolina at Port Merchandise, so that’s a fun and rewarding way to stay involved outside of just the music.
It’s a family — a DIY institution — so it’s kind of amazing how all-hands-on-deck it is. Everybody really functions well together. It’s awesome, and unique for a band of this level. And we’re about to start on a new album here fairly shortly — you know, we’ve got to keep it in motion.
Have you gotten the demos?
Yes. I've been speaking with Bob about it, and I’m super looking forward to us digging into this one. All I can say about it so far is that it will certainly be a departure from the previous couple of albums. I’m excited — as excited as ever. It’s like Christmas, getting a new batch of demos.
Like I said, I’m so grateful every day for all of it, but I really have gotten this opportunity to reflect lately. And the magic of it all is that it never ceases to be exciting and it just gets better.
I think back to all the moments of meeting Bob for the first time, of hearing Guided by Voices for the first time, the first show we played together, 10 years ago, at the Cannery Ballroom in Nashville. I remember the vibe backstage — we were just having so much fun, drinking beer and joking around, and it was all totally new for me.
And I remember getting the sheets of paper out to write the set lists on, and Bob showing me how he liked to write the set list so that all of the titles fit perfectly on the page. I started writing my set list, and he said, “Man, your handwriting kind of looks like mine! You should write my set list from now on,” which I often did.
So, here we are writing the set lists out in the downstairs rock room — and all of a sudden, the ceiling starts shaking, because the crowd had filled into the club above, and they were stomping on the floor chanting “GBV!”
I just remember this tingle going through my whole body, and feeling the magic and the joy of walking out on that stage to that and playing these songs together, and how easy and natural and beautiful it felt, and connecting with the fans — which, as you know, are the best fans, and they’re such a wonderful community. But that moment just felt like the greatest feeling.
And I remember walking off that stage and we’re all hugging and high-fiving, feeling that love going back and forth between everyone in the band and the audience, and that feeling has never gone away. It’s only gotten greater through the years. Those are things I think about all the time: like, How is this possible? We’re still here…
You outlast them all.
Yeah, and we’re family, and we have so much fun doing this. It’s such a blast. It’s hard to imagine not doing this. It’s the best time ever, and I love those guys.
Any other shows really stick out in your memory?
There’s so many, but in particular, the 40th anniversary shows that we did a couple years back in Dayton were really magical.
Leading up to that weekend, I had been on the phone with Bob back and forth, and Bob was going back and revisiting a lot of the albums from the era that we had done. So, I started listening to them, and a bunch of the other guys started listening to them, and it was really the first time that I think any of us had gotten to really sit back and reflect on some of it.
There were whole albums that we almost forgot that we made — and to revisit them was such a joy, because it was full of so many great memories that we all had from those specific moments.
So, it culminated in that weekend, where we had these amazing friends supporting us — Dinosaur Jr., Built to Spill, Wednesday. We had fans coming in from all over the world to Dayton, and it just felt like a truly special moment.
I remember coming out on stage and opening with “A Salty Salute” — and when Bob’s vocals came in, every person there was singing at the top of their lungs, and the vibrations going through that building were just chilling.
This was on September 3 — the exact day of my 40th birthday — and here we are celebrating the 40th birthday of the band. I always trip out that I was born the year the band started, and that I got to celebrate my 40th birthday on the same day we got to celebrate the band's 40th anniversary.
At its best, rock ‘n’ roll has always been a religious experience for me. I’m sure you’ve had that quasi-touching-the-face-of-God feeling.
Yes, absolutely. Rock ‘n’ roll is powerful, and it’s definitely a religious experience when at its best. It’s bigger than any of us.
I think we all need powerful experiences like that, especially right now. Everybody needs those positive transcendent experiences that bring people together over something that isn’t divisive, and isn’t political — that isn’t trying to cajole you into buying into one thing or the other. It’s rock.
What was the first rock concert that really whammed you?
Oh, gosh, I mostly went to local DIY shows on my own at first when I was growing up, because we didn’t have the big city shows anywhere close to us to get to and from that easily.
So, really, the first show that I remember that I was totally shaken by was a local band from my area called the Union of a Man and a Woman. They put out their first and only record [1998’s The Sound of the Union of a Man and a Woman] in the early days of Jagjaguwar.
That record was largely, if not entirely, recorded live, I think, and the band was a three-piece — guitar, bass, drums. All three of them, I went to school with, and all three were just incredible musicians.
The bass player, Kurt Beals — I remember seeing them play live and hearing his bass playing and it just hit me in the chest, and that was a real moment for me where I thought that was a great way to play the bass. And he totally played it like a guitar as far as the interplay within the band. Really melodic and a great, gnarly tone. I was probably, like, 14, but that was it.
And then I’m sure you played in a million bands in the interim between those days and GBV.
Yeah, but I don’t really feel like I got my education playing music until I moved to New York City, and that’s when I really started playing with a lot of people and immersing myself in what was going on there. That move was probably almost 20 years ago…
What precipitated that move?
So, I dropped out of James Madison University in Virginia because I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life. I kind of had no direction at all. I moved back to my hometown, and I was pretty down about it.
I got a job managing a health food store — and it was the first of its kind in the area, you know. At the time, you couldn’t even get hummus at our regular grocery store; it was sort of a specialized thing. But I ended up working with the vitamins and supplements manager there, who I later married.
Funny story: she turned to me one day and said, “You’ve got to get the heck out of here. Where do you want to go?” And I said, “Well, I would love to move to New York City, but I don’t really know anybody.” She said, “Well, I’ll move with you.”
What drew you to New York? Was it music?
Yeah, I think I knew I wanted to play in a band, or play music in some way. I just wanted to get my mind blown and absorb all the culture around me. I didn’t really know — I just knew I wanted to play music in some capacity, and I knew that just wasn’t gonna happen in the way that I would have wanted it to if I stayed in my hometown.
I had family roots in the city from my Italian side of the family, coming over in the 1880s. I had cousins on the other side of my family that lived there back in the 1980s and were involved in the downtown art scene at the time, and I just always loved New York City and felt a connection there. Growing up in a small town, it was slightly intimidating, which was very attractive to me.
This was before we got married, but we took a trip up to New York just to hang out. I was probably 19 or 20. I proposed to my health food store girlfriend then and there, that day in New York.
On that trip, we went to Sounds on St. Mark’s Place — the record store that used to be there. I had heard about Guided by Voices several times, but I wasn’t too familiar. I picked up a copy of Alien Lanes on CD, and I think maybe a copy of [their 2003 best-of] Human Amusements at Hourly Rates on CD, which I think had just come out.
So, we’re driving back to Virginia, and I put on Guided by Voices, and I was moved to tears.
I remember I pulled off — it’s still there — at Funck’s Family Truck Stop in Pennsylvania, and I just had to sit in the parking lot and listen to it. It was everything I ever wanted to hear in a rock ‘n’ roll band, and Bob’s voice was just perfect.
There was something about it: I just knew that I had to dive deep into this thing and find out everything there was to know about it, which I subsequently did.
Fast forward a few years: we moved to New York City, and we were just getting to know people. We ran into a friend of a friend who happened to be a Guided by Voices fan, and he said, “Did you know that Robert Pollard has an art show tonight? It’s his first-ever art show at Michael Imperioli’s gallery, Studio Dante, in Chelsea.” I said, “No, I had no idea.”
So, on a whim, I went to the art show, not having any idea that Bob would be there. But I walk in, and there’s Bob’s amazing art on the walls, and there’s Doug Gillard, and there’s Kevin March — everybody was there.
I remember walking up to Bob and just saying, “Thank you so much for everything. Thank you for the music.” And he said, “Thank you, brother,” and he passed me the tequila bottle he had been nursing, and that was it.
We kept in touch after that. There was always something really familiar about him and the GBV community — like I was already a part of it, or something.
It’s kind of amazing the way that these things happen — because fast forward a few years after that, right around the time we were making the ESP Ohio record, I got an email one day from Bob’s wife Sarah saying that Bob was thinking about reforming the band, and welcome to Guided by Voices.
And that was it. I was at my desk job at an advertising agency, so I walked up to my boss and I quit my job, and the rest was history.
Then rehearsals began?
Yeah, a few months later.
Were you nervous?
I was all of the emotions — excited and nervous, and everything that one could feel. But, of course, the moment that we all got in the room together, it was the most natural thing you could imagine. It felt like it was exactly where I was supposed to be, right there and then.
I have to say, being the younger person in the band…
How old were you when you joined?
I was 32, I think. I had just gotten divorced like a month before I was asked to join the band. So, here I was, newly divorced, and now I’m in Guided by Voices. As a bandleader — and just an all-around great guy — Bob really took me under his wing. He was so encouraging out of the gate about my contributions and about discovering music.
He and I would go record shopping everywhere on tours — and going record shopping with Bob Pollard is one of the great joys in life. So is going and having a great meal with Bob Pollard — or pretty much doing anything.
Because it’s all larger than life, and you enjoy things even more than you ever thought you could, because the way that Bob sees and embraces life is so rich and open and wide-eyed and passionate. And we’re always busting a gut. That’s how Cash Rivers came to be. It was always just so much fun, and so inspiring, and enriched my life in every way. It still is.
Crawlspace of the Pantheon is the 20th album by this lineup. When you look back on everything you played on, what jumps out the most?
Wow. The 20th? That’s wild. August by Cake always sticks out as a moment that sort of solidified this era. So, the memories associated with that — of going into the studio for the first time as this group — are something that I’ll always cherish.
But I think, on the whole, I think about the albums in terms of where we were and what was going on around us. So, when I listen back to some of the albums, I fondly remember the context — whether it was Space Gun, where we were touring pretty much the whole year and wearing our shiny gold jackets and getting to travel all over, or Earth Man Blues, where we were figuring out creative ways to record, because we were totally isolated and locked down. They all kind of hold their own special power in my memory.
But for me, right now, I love Thick Rich and Delicious — because I love a great power pop tune, and Bob is just the king of hooks. I’m very excited of course about Crawlspace. I can’t wait to get it out there in the wild.
When I hear those latest records, I hear the band firing on every cylinder. I hear Bob just belting it out, singing at the top of his game, I hear Kevin March drumming like I’ve never heard Kevin March drum before, and Doug Gillard playing like I’ve never heard Doug Gillard play before, and I hear Bobby Bare’s creamy vocal harmonies that blend so nicely with Bob’s vocals. When I hear my own work on those records, it feels like I hear myself very transparently in a moment in time.
So, that’s a really good place-and-time feeling, and I think we successfully captured that on our last record, and I think we really continued exploring in that vein on this next record, so I‘m really excited about this one coming out.
That must have been fun as hell in close quarters at Travis’s.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Absolutely, it was so much fun.
Like I said, being able to have Doug and Kevin come up and stay with me and workshop the songs together in a rehearsal studio in upstate New York — and then come into Travis’s space just ready to crank up the amps and go — felt very freeing.
The music was completed on both these records in less than two days. We didn’t really spend any time overthinking or redoing or editing or overdubbing — it was just totally raw. It felt like we captured our stage chemistry on tape. It’s quite a special thing that we share together.
Anything else you can tease about Crawlspace of the Pantheon?
I think it’s a heavy rock ‘n’ roll ride. It’s pretty raw, and it’s pretty honest. It’s pretty deep. It’s very exciting for me when I hear it, and I can only hope the listener will be moved by it as well.
What are you listening to lately?
I’m always listening to a lot of post-punk and power pop, and there’s a lot of stuff I love from the late ‘70s and early ‘80s. I love Devo. I love Wire. I’m a huge Pylon fan; I’m a huge Flamin’ Groovies fan; I’ve been listening to the first Love Tractor album a lot lately, and a lot of Felt.
I’ve been revisiting a lot of ‘60s French pop lately, especially Françoise Hardy and Jacques Dutronc. All winter long it’s been Scott Walker too. The first four Scott Walker albums are desert island for me.
But recently, I’ve been trying to make more of an effort to get into newer stuff. I really like the Wet Leg record that came out last year [Moisturizer]. And Sharp Pins, that guy Kai [Slater] — I love his band Lifeguard as well.
I’ve gotta get him on the Substack.
Yeah, I think there’s a lot of cool stuff floating around — and it seems like the concept of the rock ‘n’ roll band might be coming back a little, which is exciting. So, I’ve got to keep my ear out.
Anything else inspiring you out in the world? Movies, books?
Oh, man, yeah. I saw Devo and B-52s a few times in 2025 on their tour together and it was just spectacular. I saw Cat Power recently and it was very powerful.
As far as new films, I thought One Battle After Another was great. I love Paul Thomas Anderson. The new Devo documentary is excellent. I really enjoyed Joel Gion’s book — from Brian Jonestown Massacre. Mike Campbell’s recent memoir was great. I thought Miranda July’s All Fours was great. I’m looking forward to reading Melissa Auf der Maur’s book.
I just finished one of the greatest books this morning. My friend David Baerwald just wrote a novel of historical fiction called The Fire Agent. It’s based on the life of his grandfather, who was working in espionage during the First and Second World Wars and in between.
It’s a really interesting and epic story — a lot of behind-the-scenes of the fascist powers rising in the 20th century. There are a lot of parallels to now, and it’s just a fascinating and fun book. It comes out in June, but he gave me an advance copy. It’s quite a ride. I highly recommend it.
It really does kind of help to try to understand why we are where we are as a global community at this point. There’s a lot of nuance behind all that stuff.
I think it’s important for everyone to educate themselves as much as possible, because everything can feel so tribal right now. I don’t think that’s necessarily the healthiest way to combat things. Critical thinking is so important. So, I’m trying to enlighten myself as much as possible and to try to live with as much kindness and love as I can — because we all need it, certainly.
Off the top of your head, which Pollard song hits you most right now?
I think “Your Name is Wild” [from 1996’s Under the Bushes Under the Stars]. I just heard some live version of it randomly the other day, and it always just knocks me over how powerful that song is.
Didn’t he write that for his daughter?
It could be. I don’t know.
Maybe that’s not right.
I think that’s the interesting thing. People always want to pin a literal story behind a lot of Bob’s songs. You know, I’ve heard that about the song, and I’ve heard other stories too. I think for Bob as an artist, if you asked him directly, I think he’d say, “Well, it could be, or it could not be.” Ultimately, I think it’s how the listener interprets it, and what it means for them.
For sure. That’s his whole M.O.
I always love that he’ll find new meaning in his own songs constantly. Which I think is really cool, because it’s what enabled us to continue to play the crowd favorites and the old hits — as well as keep pushing and introducing new stuff — because those old songs keep reinventing themselves all the time.
Just starting out as a fan, that was always the thing that was so attractive about it. He’s not singing about, “Oh, my heart is broken, and now I’ve got to get in my pickup truck and drive to the bar and drown my sorrows” — it’s not so literal.
And it ages well with you. With a lot of music I might have heard when I was younger, I hear it now and I’m like, Oh, I can’t believe I liked that. It lost relevance with me because it was so literal or something. I keep being surprised by even Bob’s oldest songs in the canon. I’ll not hear them for a long time, and then I’ll be like, Holy shit. That’s fucking powerful.
My answer right now would be “Our Man Syracuse.”
Yeah, when it hits that [sings chorus] “And it’s the reason why he came / Yeah, it’s the reason why he came” — it tugs at my heartstrings.
There’s powerful messages in these songs. They’ve helped me keep going, you know?
Yeah, absolutely. And as somebody who’s been really fortunate to be extremely close to his process when he’s doing this — I mean, when we’ve been on the road, I’m usually sitting right next to him when he’s writing all this stuff for the first time. I was on the road with him when he wrote “Our Man Syracuse.” I think I even have a picture of him writing it in a notebook.
It’s amazing to watch him conceive these things, and then rework and reinvent them. They’re just constantly being sculpted and chiseled until he finally goes in to record them. It’s just incredible.
People have said in the past, “How does he just crank these things out?” But there’s so much craft and care that’s going 24/7, and it’s amazing. I’m so grateful to have been around that as much as I have been fortunate to.
He’ll just put his glasses on and fill up notebook after notebook after notebook — and then we’d stop for lunch and get back in the van and keep at it.
What would you like to read on Excited Ones!, and in general, what would you like to see more of about this subject in the world?
I’ve really been enjoying it. Thanks for doing it. It’s such a cool concept — really cool to see. Whatever trajectory it’s going on, it seems like you’re probably going to talk to a lot of the people, which is good.
What I think that you’ve shown so far that I’m really interested in — or, I’m really interested in the story being told of — is that this organization, community, family, is quite unique. It’s really cool to share the stories of some of the Rockathon crew and beyond.
We’re a team. Like I said, I help with merchandise. Kevin March was our tour manager, and I designed the stage plots for the band and often soundchecked for Bob at the shows. We all have these roles that we play as part of this bigger picture, and I just think it’s cool that you showcase that.
The whole story is amazing, from the very beginning of Guided by Voices. It’s a story that — in any way that it gets to be told — is always being introduced to people that are new to it.
At the point that I got into Guided by Voices, it gave me a lot of hope that you can dream, and that your dreams are worth something, and that if you keep putting your heart in the right place and keep following that, you can realize those dreams somehow — and you can find other people along the way that are trying to do that too.
It’s just amazing to me that it’s been ongoing all these years. And the joy that I’ve had reading your stuff is that, like, you’re fucking talking to Rich Turiel. I love that guy so much. He was such an instrumental part of things during a certain period, and everybody sort of had that little building block, and it’s awesome.
Rich is a really special person.
He’s the best, man. At the end of the day, the thing that I take away from all of it is that I’ll always have this incredible community. It has been such a family, and that feeling will never go anywhere.
I feel so proud and so grateful to have that — to have this incredibly creatively rewarding experience with this extraordinary artist and this amazing group of people, and to have this body of work around it all that I’m proud of and will live on forever.
Thanks again for these amazing pieces, Morgan! I literally open Substack DAILY looking for your posts, and while I’m more often than not sad there isn’t a post, it makes me thankful for the lack of over-exposure and thankful for the fresh, new posts!!!
What a great interview. I just found out about this series. Can't wait to go through all the interviews.
I fell in love with Guided by Voices when I heard Official Ironman Rally Song on Xmas Eve 2007. I was alone and feeling sorry for myself and drinking red wine. But I ended up hearing GbV by accident and falling in love. I listened to everything I could find by GbV that night and by the next day I was fully hooked. Went through all the GbV albums and Robert Pollard solo stuff. Became obsessed. For a while there, I listened to almost exclusively Bob stuff because I had SO much to catch up on. My fav era is probably 1996 (Not in My Airforce, Sunfish Holy Breakfast, UTBUTS).
I got a Gbv tattoo, bought all the albums I could find, tried to convert my friends. I had a low success rate but the ones I did manage to convert took to GbV with the same manic cultic energy as me and every other fan.
If my memory serves me, which it doesn't, Pollard retired from touring around that time after a knee injury? Anyway, even if he had been touring, he doesn't like crossing the U.S.-Canada border, so if I was ever going to see GbV, it was going to be in the USA cuz I live in Toronto.
Then in 2010, GbV reunited for that Matador thing. Then they announced a tour! Holy shit. I got a ticket for the show in Detroit on Oct 30 2010. (I mention the exact date for a reason that will soon become clear). Drove down with a few friends.
It was a dream setlist. Amazing show. Afterwards, I decided to try and sneak backstage (I was drunk obv and felt like seizing the night or something). So I walked past a bouncer all casual flashing my ordinary wristband. It took him a second to clue in, but when he did, he grabbed me and threw me into a pile of stacked tables. Ouch.
No Canadian wants to break a bone in the United States and have to go to an American hospital. Dying would be cheaper. Luckily, I was drunkenly loose so I only bounced off the tables, kinda stunned but not severely hurt.
The bouncer then shoved me out of the backstage area. I'd started looking for my friends when a guy came up to me. I recognized him. It was the lead singer from the opening band. Love Language I think they were called?
"Dude, I just saw you get your ass kicked. Are you okay?"
"I'm okay. I was just trying to get backstage to meet Bob. I don't know if I'll ever get another chance."
So the guy took me backstage via a different route so we didn't run into the same bouncer. What a sweetheart. I'll always love him for that. I ended up buying his band's CD because of that. I remember liking it but not enough to put it on heavy rotation.
Bob was hanging out backstage with the rest of the band eating birthday cake and shooting tequila. I didn't know that his birthday fell on Hallowe'en. It was only 1 a.m. but he was getting an early start on celebrations.
I got to talk to him for a few minutes. I'm sure I was fawning and obnoxious but he was in a super cheerful mood. I had one of his solo songs stuck in my head that day ("All You Need to Know") and he sang the know-oh-oh-ohhhh part with me. It was so damn cool.
Then the bouncer from earlier spotted me again. This time, he made sure I was escorted out of the building.
It was a great night. One of the great nights of my life actually. I ended up seeing GbV a few more times after that but the first time was the most special.
Anyway, great job on this interview. I look forward to the rest of em.