Uptown Again: The Afghan Whigs

TS: Congratulations on Do to the Beast [ which you can read Dulli's track-by-track guide to here] – an album we didn’t even see coming until just a few months ago. The Afghan Whigs’ last LP [1965] had a celebratory tone that was hard to shake – even 16 years later, you're still left wondering whether a follow up would sound like the after party or the morning after.
GD: [Laughing] Well, I think [The Twilight Singers’ 2003 opus] Blackberry Belle was the morning after for me.

You’d managed to keep some secrecy around the project for so long, and then it was Bob Odenkirk [Aka Saul Goodman from Breaking Bad] who spilled the beans on Twitter. Were you even a wee bit mad?
No, because it happened in such an innocent way, and he’s such a charming guy. I was a fan of Breaking Bad and I was a fan of Mr Show – the TV programme he did with David Cross in the 90s. I was thrilled to meet him; as he began unveiling what he was gonna do I was mildly protesting. But after it was done, we all had a laugh.

John Curley referred to the prospect of getting back on the horse as “exhilarating and scary at the same time.” I imagine that’s how the guy throwing two fistfuls of cocaine in his face on the album artwork must feel. It’s like he’s just saying ‘Fuck it, let’s go.’
Yeah, I think that once we decided to do it, and once we decided to do it how we were going to do it – it was incredibly liberating. The sky was the limit at that point – it was a new thing. This album was incredibly gratifying, really fun… even when we swung at a pitch and missed, we were doing it together. As it began to build, the pieces started to fall into place; it became clear that we had something special.

Was it a task to pick the first single to represent the band after all this time away, or was Algiers intuitively the one?
Not up to me, no one ever asks me what I think. Someone else always picks the song. I’m always bad at that – I don’t think of things in that way. My favourite songs are rarely everybody else’s favourite songs. I understand the process behind picking a song, and there were four or five songs suggested as the first single. When they picked Algiers, I had nothing to do with it. And I never do, by the way. My brain doesn’t work that way. It’s like, here’s my songs, do your thing.

This is your first album without Rick McCollum – was that an obstacle to get past? Is it premature to ask whether he’s welcome back to the fold?
Rick has to work on Rick and has had to work on Rick for a long time. I think I haven’t known Rick for a long time now and if by some miracle he got it together and was able to work with people and respect himself and respect the people working and living and caring around him, then of course I would work with him again. But I’ve been waiting for that for a long time. I just kind of got tired of waiting.

Since the band’s resurrection in 2012, does the Afghan Whigs feel like a long-term proposition again?
Yeah, I think I’m going to play it out and see what happens. I’m also interested in recording with Mark Lanegan again. We want to do another Gutter Twins record and I’m relatively certain that will happen in the next couple of years. I think the Twilight Singers will probably become something like it was when it first started again. These are three different entities and I think I know what to do now with my time and my sounds. I’m feeling incredibly creative and looking forward to the future of all of these projects.