1991 could already be acquainted to die laborious followers, however on February 7, 2025, will probably be formally out there 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 in the present day.
Let’s bounce proper into 1991. What was the method like unearthing this time capsule of an album?
“Properly…I am beginning to simply take into account it an album, only recently. It was not an album ever. These have been a group 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.”
“After we recorded the primary demo, we did not know precisely what we have been going to do with it. I wasn’t actually attempting to get us reveals as a result of I did not even know the best way to ship it to a membership. I used to be actually younger, 18, 19 years outdated, and I did not have an actual sense of the Boston golf equipment or the reside scene. However what I did have have been data, and on the again of these data have been document firm names. They have been largely in England: Creation Data, 4AD, Manufacturing facility Data. I simply put these cassettes within the mail and despatched them over to London. I did not actually anticipate a lot again, however inside per week or so, we have been getting calls from these labels. And subsequently what occurred was that someone—her title was Colleen Maloney at 4AD—she despatched a type of cassettes to Melody Maker and NME. They have been the equal of, I suppose, Pitchfork or Rolling Stone now. Folks lived and died by them.”
“A pair weeks after, I received a name from our lawyer and he mentioned, ‘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 document deal. We did not have an album. We had nothing. However Colleen Maloney had despatched that to the press, and the press received a maintain of it and actually thought plenty of it. They needed to make up a label title, as a result of they weren’t purported to evaluate demos. I feel it mentioned Pentatonic Data or one thing.”
“Whereas we have been determining who to signal to, we determined to go forward and make one other demo. The primary tune on that demo was ‘Daymom,’ and after we lastly signed our document deal, a couple of 12 months had passed by. Once you’re that age, you are—we have been anyway—shifting ahead and consistently evolving day-after-day. So after we had this document deal, we have been purported to document our first album. I went to the band and mentioned, ‘Let’s simply write a brand new album. Let’s depart these things behind us.’ It wasn’t that the fabric wasn’t good, it is simply that we have been already in a unique 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 keep 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 received some consideration. We received 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 so much to remix if you’re speaking about eight tracks. However we labored with a superb buddy of the band’s known as Max Rose, a superb man from Seattle that was with us within the early ’90s. After we got here again, lots of people got here out from the woodwork. Folks have been keen on serving to us out in the best way they might. Max labored laborious on these to get the constancy to a stage that the band was extra comfy with releasing, and our label, Wharf Cat, was very from the very starting to launch these things. However as soon as I began accepting that we have been going to do it, it was higher. Being from up to now up to now, it did not seem to be a precedence to me. However we have now a fan base, and other people need what they need, so we’re glad to be lastly placing it on the market in some sort of type 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 similar to 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 sort of symmetry.”
That is wonderful. 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. Folks 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 preferred 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 manner. Nobody ever had ADATs or something.”
Do you keep in mind any of your artistic inspirations for 1991? Which of these nonetheless maintain true in the present day, and what has been inspiring you latterly that did not earlier than?
“In these days, I feel there have been two albums—two bands particularly that I keep in mind. One among them was My Bloody Valentine Is not Something. Maybe that is apparent. For those who hearken to our music, it is actually by-product 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 sort of an in depth third. I used to be additionally a giant Cocteau Twins fan rising up.”
“I used to be speaking to Neil [Halstead] from Slowdive. I keep 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 gave the impression of 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 totally different sides of the Atlantic. It was sort of humorous revisiting that with him. Slowdive, to their credit score, largely caught by their sound, whereas my band sort of developed 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 replicate our shoegaziest interval. It was actually new to us, determining the best way to sound like that. It was an thrilling time to be discovering the best way to make these sorts of sounds.”
“However in Delaware, we moved barely away from that. It is a bit of bit much less blown out, rather less ethereal. It nonetheless has what we name ‘the feels,’ but it surely was sort of a step away from shoegaze, although 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 trendy shoegaze scene, significantly in America, that I am nonetheless studying about after over a 12 months of being again.”
“Every kind of issues transfer me now. I like the band Deerhunter. I feel they’re actually good. There is a band known as Spoon that I feel is perhaps the most effective band on the earth; I’ve studied all the pieces they do. I am a giant fan of LCD Soundsystem and Automobile Seat Headrest. These are the bands that I hearken to so much. 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 a long time later. There’s additionally been an enormous resurgence within the fanbases of those ’90s bands as a result of TikTok. What are your opinions on these sorts of rebirths in music? How do you view your band’s position within the scene?
“Properly, it is solely been a service to us. After we determined to return again, I wasn’t even fairly conscious of this fan base. I am kind 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 might 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 in fact it makes a distinction.”
“I wasn’t conscious of some issues. I did not know if we might be capable of document and determine issues out and play reside. 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 reside, 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 can 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 observed that the guitar sound in shoegaze has grow to be sort of ubiquitous. It is in nearly all the pieces; it is in pop music, it is in hip-hop—I imply, hearken to Earl Sweatshirt. I name it “woozy guitars.” I keep 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 sort of a romantic instrument 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 may be very seductive. And I feel that individuals are lastly catching on to that, which is cool.”
1991, again when it was nonetheless referred to as Mayfield, was a broadly traded bootleg amongst plenty of your followers. Figuring out that many listeners could have already heard a number of the tracks or are acquainted with them, what are you most hoping that listeners will take away from this album?
“Properly, I hope that it satisfies them. It wasn’t straightforward for us to place this factor out. After we first began to revisit it, we printed up some vinyl ourselves and bought them on the reveals we have been taking part in. We received plenty of backlash for that. Folks have been saying, ‘You’ll be able to’t simply launch it and solely promote it at your reveals. What if I am unable to get to the present?’ However the issue is that there is a cash element right here. Printing up 5,000 albums and distributing them shouldn’t be 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 sort of anger that will get on the market. So the one factor I hope 1991 does is simply make individuals completely satisfied. We respect the love, however we’re doing our greatest, and never all the pieces is kind 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 a bit of bit new to social media. I am delicate to studying something unhealthy, ever, which is why I do not even have passwords to our socials. Steve, invariably, my companion on this, will find yourself sending me stuff, and I get upset. The overwhelming majority of all the pieces 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. Properly, now they’ll.”
“As for the music itself, I get pleasure from listening to it now too. It sounds higher than it ever did. I keep in mind once I received 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 disenchanted. 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 mentioned that it is perhaps 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 bear in mind for the longer term? 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 traces in there that sort of simply summed up my emotions on the time. The primary one was one among Lana [Del Rey]‘s: ‘It was such a scene, and I felt seen.’ The second line was mine on the tune ‘Nest,’ and it goes, ‘And for the love of God, terrible, I am so glad that I appeared 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, but it surely’s again for now. Paula [Kelley] simply moved again East, which is sort 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 in all probability going to play a number of festivals this 12 months.”
Do you suppose 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 course? Is there nonetheless some strain?
“There’s all the time strain, but it surely 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 sort of cool,’ and I can get pleasure from it, but it surely’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 lovely. It is a luxurious, frankly, at the present time. That was true once I began, and it is true now. It is all the time a battle, but it surely’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 if you depart one thing behind. Change shouldn’t be straightforward. 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 carried out, that can 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 are 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 should remind myself that I am doing this. Like, ‘Oh, we have a present tonight. I’ve received 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 received someplace to be. I’ve received a observe to put down. I’ve received a sound examine at 3 PM. All these items 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.
