1991 could already be acquainted to die laborious followers, however on February 7, 2025, it is going to be formally obtainable for buy on CD and vinyl. Shortly earlier than the discharge, frontman Greg Ackell spoke with AllMusic from a recording studio, the place the band was engaged on a brand new album. He discusses 1991, the band’s return, and ideas on the music scene immediately.
Let’s bounce proper into 1991. What was the method like unearthing this time capsule of an album?
“Nicely…I am beginning to simply contemplate it an album, only recently. It was not an album ever. These have been a set of songs that have been demos on the time. We recorded them on rented reel-to-reel eight tracks, and we recorded them largely in our dorm rooms.”
“Once we recorded the primary demo, we did not know precisely what we have been going to do with it. I wasn’t actually making an attempt to get us reveals as a result of I did not even know learn how to ship it to a membership. I used to be actually younger, 18, 19 years previous, and I did not have an actual sense of the Boston golf equipment or the dwell scene. However what I did have have been data, and on the again of these data have been report firm names. They have been largely in England: Creation Information, 4AD, Manufacturing facility Information. I simply put these cassettes within the mail and despatched them over to London. I did not actually count on a lot again, however inside per week or so, we have been getting calls from these labels. And subsequently what occurred was that any person—her identify was Colleen Maloney at 4AD—she despatched a kind of cassettes to Melody Maker and NME. They have been the equal of, I suppose, Pitchfork or Rolling Stone now. Individuals lived and died by them.”
“A pair weeks after, I acquired a name from our lawyer and he stated, ‘You are a single of the week in Melody Maker,’ and I did not know what the fuck he was speaking about as a result of we did not have a single. We did not have a report deal. We did not have an album. We had nothing. However Colleen Maloney had despatched that to the press, and the press acquired a maintain of it and actually thought a whole lot of it. They needed to make up a label identify, as a result of they weren’t presupposed to evaluate demos. I believe it stated Pentatonic Information or one thing.”
“Whereas we have been determining who to signal to, we determined to go forward and make one other demo. The primary music on that demo was ‘Daymom,’ and after we lastly signed our report deal, a few yr had passed by. If you’re that age, you are—we have been anyway—shifting ahead and consistently evolving day-after-day. So after we had this report deal, we have been presupposed to report our first album. I went to the band and stated, ‘Let’s simply write a brand new album. Let’s depart these items behind us.’ It wasn’t that the fabric wasn’t good, it is simply that we have been already in a distinct place. So that is what grew to become Delaware, our first album, and these demos simply remained frozen in time. We left them behind in subsequent years.”
“There have been cassettes on the time that went out. I bear in mind we even gave them out to children at reveals. Through the years, as soon as YouTube was invented, somebody determined to add them. It acquired some consideration. We acquired so many requests, and there was a lot curiosity in it that we simply determined to revisit them—to remix them barely.”
“It is very laborious to inform that we remixed something. There’s not lots to remix while you’re speaking about eight tracks. However we labored with a very good buddy of the band’s known as Max Rose, a very good man from Seattle that was with us within the early ’90s. Once we got here again, lots of people got here out from the woodwork. Individuals have been all in favour of serving to us out in the best way they might. Max labored laborious on these to get the constancy to a degree that the band was extra comfy with releasing, and our label, Wharf Cat, was very from the very starting to launch these items. However as soon as I began accepting that we have been going to do it, it was higher. Being from to this point up to now, it did not look like a precedence to me. However we’ve got a fan base, and folks need what they need, so we’re glad to be lastly placing it on the market in some form of kind that we’re comfy with.”
“We known as it 1991 as a result of, effectively, the songs have been written and recorded in 1991. I additionally very very like that ’19’ and ’91’ are the mirror picture of each other. Clearly, this band has a factor for numbers; we known as ourselves Drop Nineteens. So I like that form of symmetry.”
That is superb. Had you been eager about revisiting the album earlier than?
“It took place when the band resurfaced…trying on the band’s historical past and what there was curiosity in. However for all these years, no, there was no curiosity. I imply, I used to be conscious of issues on YouTube. Individuals would say to me, ‘Oh, I discovered this on YouTube, Greg, is that this yours?’ and I would be like, ‘Yeah,’ however I by no means favored listening to it a lot in that setting. The audio is fairly terrible. Once more, they have been posting that from cassettes. That was the one approach. Nobody ever had ADATs or something.”
Do you bear in mind any of your inventive inspirations for 1991? Which of these nonetheless maintain true immediately, and what has been inspiring you recently that did not earlier than?
“In these days, I believe there have been two albums—two bands particularly that I bear in mind. One among them was My Bloody Valentine Is not Something. Maybe that is apparent. For those who take heed to our music, it is actually spinoff of it. The second was Spacemen 3‘s The Good Prescription. These two albums simply appeared very cool to me. I used to be additionally a fan of Sonic Youth‘s Daydream Nation; that is form of an in depth third. I used to be additionally an enormous Cocteau Twins fan rising up.”
“I used to be speaking to Neil [Halstead] from Slowdive. I bear in mind after we met 30 years in the past, in London, we had each been conscious of one another’s bands. When he learn the evaluate in Melody Maker, he thought that it appeared like his band. And the identical goes for us.”
“What we realized was that we weren’t copying one another a lot as we have been each impressed by the identical sorts of music—the identical data, and rising up roughly the identical age. We simply have been on completely different sides of the Atlantic. It was form of humorous revisiting that with him. Slowdive, to their credit score, largely caught by their sound, whereas my band form of advanced into different issues. You do not all the time know what you are going to get with Drop Nineteens. That is simply our nature. So, the 1991 materials does mirror our shoegaziest interval. It was actually new to us, determining learn how to sound like that. It was an thrilling time to be discovering learn how to make these sorts of sounds.”
“However in Delaware, we moved barely away from that. It is just a little bit much less blown out, rather less ethereal. It nonetheless has what we name ‘the feels,’ however it was form of a step away from shoegaze, regardless that we hear on a regular basis that Delaware is a shoegaze album. I all the time depart it to different individuals to explain what style we’re. I am proudly shoegaze, however I am not expressly a fan of it. There’s an entire fashionable shoegaze scene, significantly in America, that I am nonetheless studying about after over a yr of being again.”
“All types of issues transfer me now. I like the band Deerhunter. I believe they’re actually good. There is a band known as Spoon that I believe is perhaps the perfect band on the earth; I’ve studied every little thing they do. I am an enormous fan of LCD Soundsystem and Automobile Seat Headrest. These are the bands that I take heed to lots. I am nonetheless a fan of My Bloody Valentine. I am excited they’re coming again.”
Each My Bloody Valentine and Slowdive, like Drop Nineteens, are bands from the ’90s that had resurrections some two or three many years later. There’s additionally been an enormous resurgence within the fanbases of those ’90s bands as a consequence of TikTok. What are your opinions on these sorts of rebirths in music? How do you view your band’s position within the scene?
“Nicely, it is solely been a service to us. Once we determined to return again, I wasn’t even fairly conscious of this fan base. I am form of tuned out. I did not have Spotify on the time; I do now. I am not on social media. However it was fortuitous, and it was a welcome factor as soon as we have been again as a result of it signifies that there’s an viewers. However we’d have come again and recorded Laborious Gentle whether or not there was an viewers or not. The resurgence wasn’t the explanation for doing it, however after all it makes a distinction.”
“I wasn’t conscious of some issues. I did not know if we’d have the ability to report and determine issues out and play dwell. I did not know if individuals would present up. The final time I performed on stage was within the early nineties. I might look out on the viewers, they usually have been all individuals my age. I known as them children again then, ‘trigger I used to be a child, you understand, 18 to 22, 23. However the unusual factor now’s that we play dwell, and I am that very same age group. It is uncanny, actually. There are individuals from that period within the viewers, however I see them extra on YouTube movies of the band, some bald heads within the again. I do know that these are the individuals which might be extra our period. Everybody in Drop Nineteens nonetheless has their hair, however we’re accepting of the truth that we’re all getting older. However the children within the entrance are the sunshine.”
“I do not know what makes one thing go away, and I do not know what makes it come again. I’ve seen that the guitar sound in shoegaze has grow to be form of ubiquitous. It is in nearly every little thing; it is in pop music, it is in hip-hop—I imply, take heed to Earl Sweatshirt. I name it “woozy guitars.” I bear in mind Kevin Shields [of My Bloody Valentine] saying to me that since you’re detuning a chord, the ear and the mind is striving to listen to the chord that you just’re not delivering. So by definition, it is form of a romantic software since you’re promising one thing and never delivering it. I imply romantic within the literary sense: one thing misplaced, one thing not fairly achieved, one thing unrelinquished. There’s one thing about that sound that could be very seductive. And I believe that individuals are lastly catching on to that, which is cool.”
1991, again when it was nonetheless referred to as Mayfield, was a extensively traded bootleg amongst a whole lot of your followers. Figuring out that many listeners could have already heard a few of the tracks or are conversant in them, what are you most hoping that listeners will take away from this album?
“Nicely, I hope that it satisfies them. It wasn’t simple for us to place this factor out. Once we first began to revisit it, we printed up some vinyl ourselves and offered them on the reveals we have been enjoying. We acquired a whole lot of backlash for that. Individuals have been saying, ‘You’ll be able to’t simply launch it and solely promote it at your reveals. What if I can not get to the present?’ However the issue is that there is a cash element right here. Printing up 5,000 albums and distributing them is just not one thing that I can simply whip out my pockets and pay for. It was by no means this band’s place to maintain this music from individuals, however you would be shocked on the form of anger that will get on the market. So the one factor I hope 1991 does is simply make individuals blissful. We admire the love, however we’re doing our greatest, and never every little thing is sort of really easy. We get requests to play in each metropolis, and we are able to solely play the place we are able to play.
Possibly it is as a result of I am just a little bit new to social media. I am delicate to studying something dangerous, ever, which is why I do not even have passwords to our socials. Steve, invariably, my associate on this, will find yourself sending me stuff, and I get upset. The overwhelming majority of every little thing has been very optimistic about us, however I do know that there was undoubtedly a factor about 1991 the place individuals have been upset once they thought that they weren’t going to have the ability to get it. Nicely, now they will.”
“As for the music itself, I get pleasure from listening to it now too. It sounds higher than it ever did. I bear in mind once I acquired the primary copy of it, I put it on the turntable, and I used to be like, ‘Fuck, this sounds nice.’ I do not know why that is a shock to me, however at any time when I get a product in my hand…generally I am dissatisfied. I used to be not with this. I assumed it sounded actually good. So I hope individuals get pleasure from it.”
After the band broke up, you have been very satisfied that you’d by no means make music once more. And after the discharge of White Costume and Nest, you stated that it is likely to be the very last thing the band would ever launch. Each of those statements turned out to be unfaithful, and now you make a brand new album. What else do you take into account for the long run? Are you again for good?
“We’re again for now. And…ultimately of this e-book that Tom Faix wrote about us, there have been two strains in there that form of simply summed up my emotions on the time. The primary one was considered one of Lana [Del Rey]‘s: ‘It was such a scene, and I felt seen.’ The second line was mine on the music ‘Nest,’ and it goes, ‘And for the love of God, terrible, I am so glad that I seemed again.’ There’s all the time the chance in something that that’ll be the very last thing you do. So I do not know if the band is again for good, however it’s again for now. Paula [Kelley] simply moved again East, which is form of thrilling to us as a result of she was in L.A. all these years. We’re trying ahead to writing and recording this subsequent album. We’re most likely going to play a number of festivals this yr.”
Do you assume there’s extra stability in making music now that you just’re older? Or much less so due to the suggestions from social media coming in from each route? Is there nonetheless some strain?
“There’s all the time strain, however it is not from outdoors. The strain is from inside. Writing music is not enjoyable for me, or recording it or something. Once in a while I’ve an okay time on stage, a second the place I am like, ‘Oh, that is form of cool,’ and I can get pleasure from it, however it’s not significantly enjoyable. What it’s is rewarding. I do not imply that in a financial sense, as a result of it is truly removed from that. However I do it as a result of it is a fulfilling factor to do with one’s life—to go and create one thing, to attempt to make one thing stunning. It is a luxurious, frankly, at the moment. That was true once I began, and it is true now. It is all the time a battle, however it’s price it.”
“Now that we’re again, it is grow to be a part of me once more. And I hope I am talking for the remainder of the band right here, too; there is a little bit of tumult that occurs while you depart one thing behind. Change is just not simple. In order tough as it’s, it is a part of me that I am not fairly able to abandon but. I do know that after we do put this down, it will be for good. I’ve had protestations earlier than, however we’re not going to attend one other 20 years to return again. That is the second run, and after we’re accomplished, that shall be it.”
I learn in a previous interview that coming again to the band and to music after so lengthy has felt virtually dreamlike. Do you’re feeling such as you’ve woken up but?
“I really feel sleepy is what I really feel [laughs]. Yeah. Nonetheless a bit within the stupor. It is like a previous life, or like waking up and remembering a dream. And the unusual factor now’s that once I get up from goals, I generally nonetheless must remind myself that I am doing this. Like, ‘Oh, we have got a present tonight. I’ve acquired to get to the studio.’ I nonetheless get up within the state of all these years the place this was not a part of my life, so I’ve to remind myself that it is not a dream, that I’ve truly acquired someplace to be. I’ve acquired a observe to put down. I’ve acquired a sound test at 3 PM. All this stuff are my life now. Now, I am beginning to dream about my life earlier than I got here again.”
To buy 1991, go to Wharf Cat data.