'Hard Times' was a fanzine out of Maywood, New Jersey.

This interview shows Grant at his vintage best (ably assisted by Greg Norton).

Bob was probably hiding somewhere with his head buried in his hands.....

Hard Times. Issue 1 - August 1984

Grant: Can you answer me a question? How come the scarecrow had a heart? How come the tin man
had a brain?

Ron: I don't know. Do you fight with your mother?

Grant: No. I fight with my father though.

Ron: That's too bad.

Grant: Well, that's really bad because my dad just happens to be half of the world tag team
championship wrestlers.

Ron: Do you steal food to get along while you tour?

Grant: Fuck no!

Ron: What's your favorite color?

Grant: You wouldn't believe this man but I've always wanted someone to ask me what my favorite
color is. If you had asked me that about two months ago my answer would have been blue.

Ron: So what is it now?

Grant: Red! For a couple of reasons.. Someone gave me a red leather jacket, I started smoking
Marlboros, drinking Budweiser. I just kind of tailored my life to fit around red things. I became
a communist, a redneck, I got scarlet fever.

Ron: Why do you play the drums barefoot?

Grant: It started with the hardcore thing. I would do my soundcheck in the boots I always wear,
big engineer boots, and it is like the theory of warming up with a couple of bats and then batting
with one, Right? Then I would strip down and take the boots off.

Dianne: Who takes the garbage out?

Grant: I always do.

Ron: Oh that's right, you're from Minnesota. Who shovels the snow?

Grant: I made it through most of the winter with somebody else to do that.

Dianne: What's your mother's maiden name?

Grant: Augustine, which is a bastardization of D'Agostino. My ancestors were in the circus.

Ron: What's it like in Minnesota?

Grant: I walk into a club, they play a song off our album, I get uptight and leave.

Greg Norton: Can I borrow a pen?

Ron: Yeah. I guess. You wouldn't let me interview you before so I don't know if I should let you
use this. How'd you guys get started?

Grant: It's really funny. Me, Greg, and Bob were originally in a band called Three Guys with
Skinny Ties. Then I left, and then Bob left, then Greg left and each time a replacement guy would
come in, and then we found ourselves in Husker Du.

Dianne: Does the name mean anything?

Grant: Well, there was Greg, Bob and I, which was three guys part and we were into skinny ties.

Dianne: I'm talking about Husker Du!

Ron: It was a game, wasn't it?

Grant: Yeah. That's how we got it. Exactly.

Ron: The song "Diane" is pretty interesting. Just what are you trying to convey there?

Grant: That goes way back. That was written before "Land Speed Record".

Greg: Are you talking to me?

Ron: Were talking to anybody. We'll interview you too but we've got to get this preliminary shit
out of the way. What's your favorite color?

Greg: Really dark purple, almost black.

Dianne: Who shovels the snow?

Greg: I do.

Dianne Who takes the garbage out?

Greg: Whoever is handy.

Dianne: What's your mother's maiden name?

Greg: Guzman; is that it?

Dianne: These are just our basic questions.

Greg: Did you take a lot of photos? You were working for the band you know. (Since Dianne is underage,
Husker Du courteously lied to get her in by saying she was a photographer for the band.)

Dianne: I don't even know how to use the camera. That was our ploy to get in last time.

Ron: I shot a roll. Neither of us drink anyway. What did you think of the great crowd here tonight?
They didn't seem to be dancing too much. Is that discouraging to you?

Greg: No. Not really.

J.C.: It was a stupid crowd. Half of them didn't know what they were doing here.

Ron: Yeah. I thought so too.

Grant: Half of them went, "Husker Du, what's that?"

Greg: If they're just standing there, the chances are they're listening are better than if they're
jumping off the stage.

Grant: Yeah. But if they're dancing around, chances are that they've heard it before. Was that
an audience or a still life painting? That's all I want to know.

Ron to J.C.: Are you their manager?

J.C.: Yeah.

Grant: Nah. J.C.'s like our spiritual adviser, our guru.

Greg: Palmreader. (laughter) That's an inside joke.

Grant: Actually, he's our lover, all of our's. Why do you think he looks so old? He's really
only thirteen.

J.C.: I make 'em take me along or I fuck 'em, because I'm so bad.

Grant: J.C.'s father owns all the nightclubs in the twin cities and he said, "You take my boy
along or you'll never play in this town again."

Ron: Back to the song, back to "Diane". It was written before "Land Speed Record" and?

Grant: There was this girl, and what was done to her is what happens in the song. That's about
it. I hope people realize that it is DEFINATELY not a pro rape song. I've had people on this
tour ask me...

Ron: I din't think that at all. I just couldn't figure out what you were saying.

Grant: It's a very real song--

Ron: Taken in the right light.

Grant: It's kind of expressing-- I can sympathize with a need for love and I can take a step
farther to see through Joseph Tourrie's eyes, who's the guy that did all the nasty business.
It's just kind of a-- I hate to generate any sympathy for him whatsoever through that song, but
it's just like seeing through his eyes.

Ron: I forget what I was going to ask you.

Grant: What am I going to do when I rule the world. First off, there ain't going to be no
paper cups, and there ain't going to be no plastic cups. Everything, EVERYTHING that you buy is
going to come in a six inch stainless cylinder that screws together and has a wax seal within
the screw part, right? Soup, everything.

Ron: Insulated?

Grant: No.

Dianne: So you get cold soup.

Grant: You get soup that you can cook, but the fact of the matter is you're going to save all
your containers that all your food came in and bring it back down to the grocery store and that
will pay for the packaging right there. How many times have you bought three screws at the hardware
store in a little package and it's 98 cents and you know damn well that it took a lot longer to
package those screws than it did to make them.

Ron: Like those plastic things with the cardboard that you can never open up. They really
piss me off.

Grant: You've gotta punch them through the back but yeah, I'm really bothered with packaging
right now. Let's see, another thing that really ticks me off that I would definitely change,
um- you know, I think that a lot of us have that desire to be a fascist dictator, mafioso type,
but the thing is that I would really love the people that I dominated. What's the point of being
a leader if you don't think you could do people good? Certainly I wouldn't do it for my own good
because I'm living on top of the world right now. I have nothing to gain by being emperor of the
universe.

Ron: You probably won't make it that far, maybe president though. Reagan got it so you never
know. In twenty years you could cut your hair and people will remember you from Husker Du.
They'll say "He was a B singer. I remember him."

Grant: "He was an A singer", they'll say. No I'm not doing this to get better, to get-- let's
put it this way. All of my life I've taken care of my music. If I were to tell you that I am
not concerned with monetary goals, I would be lying to you. If I was telling you it's like,
"Oh, I'm bringing my music to the people"-- of course I get up on the stage for my ego but,
bread is your only friend.

Ron: Is it possible to support yourself playing?

Grant: I haven't held a job in four years. I live like a pauper, but such living makes me
do things for entertainment like jam, write songs, poetry. It keeps me closer to my craft
by keeping me away from a working environment. Every job that I have had since I've been
in the band, they've really gotten uptight because I've had something else to dedicate myself
to. I really wonder if you get that same type of pressure on the job if you have a wife? I'm
sure you do.I would hope if I ever get married that I would love that person more than my music,
but I've come to the conclusion it's impossible. I've chosen music over particular people
numbers of times.

Ron: Where do you plan on taking Husker Du from here? You've been around for what-- four years?

Grant: Five years on Friday. We're having a big gig in Minneapolis getting our picture on the
front page of the paper. It's happening. I mean, name one punk rock band that's lasted five
years with the original members. Can you think of one?

Ron: No. I've never really gotten into who's in what band. How long do you think you can do
hardcore and make money, being that you said that you were concerned with making money?

Grant: I stopped writing songs for people with mohawks two and a half years ago.
I started writing songs for myself.

Ron: But they're still your audience.

Grant: Yeah, but it's getting to be different than that, which will be proven even more so
when Zen Arcade comes out, sometime in June hopefully.

Ron: Have you ever thought about doing other types of music?

Grant: Yeah. Definitely. Last night before Husker Du played I got up and did a version of Data
Control with a violinist and an acoustic guitar player. I'm always thinking about doing other
music and I try to get myself into every musical sense possible. As well as playing drums--
it's obvious that I write for the band and it's hard to write songs on drums. I play a whole
mess of instruments: piano, drums, organ, not at the same time though. Just banjo and drums
at the same time.

Ron: Really?

Grant: No, not really.

Ron: I play bass and stand up at the same time.

Grant: Stand up bass?

Ron: Yeah, you stole my joke. What other types of music do you listen to?

Grant: The person who used to shovel the snow and takeout the garbage also took the stereo
so I've been looking at a lot of records, which is good. In my home, I have no telephone
and to tell you the truth, I find a lot of music to be distracting to my evolution because
naturally the stuff I will hear without seeking out will be something that's already popular
and that's beating a dead horse to start getting into something that's popular because by the
time your proficient at it, it's unpopular or at least passé. I had a really bizarre musical
upbringing because I didn't hear any rock music in between the ages of 10 and 16.
You want to hear about a really scary experience I had? Have you ever done LSD? When I was
really into doing LSD in junior high school and early highs school, I'd be lying in bed tripping,
trying to fall asleep and the most time consuming thing that I could do was to masturbate.
Now, one time I was really buzzed and I thought, "I'm going to masturbate myself to sleep
tonight, I'm going to think the whole thing through without any manual stimulation whatsoever,
I'm going to completely fantasize sex and cum without touching myself." Now this was some
really fucking good acid, right?

Dianne: It would have to be.

Grant: I attempted this and I did it. You know how after you cum a little while later
you feel chilly because of the endorphin that's released in your body? All of a sudden
I'm shivering, and I'm thinking, "oh my God, if I can make myself cum, I can make myself
freeze to death." So I bundled up completely. I wasn't going to mess around with that one.

Dianne: It probably didn't put you to sleep.

Grant: No! I just laid awake thinking, "I'm going to die."

Ron: Do you still do drugs?

Grant: No.

Greg: This is going to be a real good interview isn't it?

Ron: Did he just make that story up? Could you verify all this?

Greg: Let's see you do that again, Grant.

Ron: Do you want me to print any of this stuff that Grant is saying? Is it OK?

Grant: I think it would make an amusing anecdote. What time is it anyway?

Ron: It's only 2:19.

Dianne: We have a class at 10:00 tomorrow!

Ron: We can't leave yet; we haven't gotten anything useful out of these guys yet, and
we've been sitting here for so long.

Grant: You got a good story, what do you mean? I sent that into Readers' Digest as an
amusing anecdote. They sent me $200 but they never printed it. Life in these United States--
"Yeah, one time I was tripping my brains out and..."

Ron: You don't really expect us to believe that they sent you $200. Where's Bob (the guitarist)?

Grant: Over at the bar.

Ron: Is it true that you're throwing him out of the band?

Grant: No, that was another band.

Ron: I'm going to fuck everybody up and mix up quotes.

Greg: Just remember that I'm the guy that said, "you have nothing to fear but fear itself."

Ron: I've heard that before; you must be pretty famous.

Greg: What kind of sport are those for?

Ron: The boots? They're riding boots. I tried to get them without the spikes.

Grant: It's the jacket I'm admiring.

Ron: I painted it myself. I just did it the other night.

Grant: I meant before you messed it up. So how long have you studied finger painting?

Dianne: Why is the door open? It's freezing.

Grant: We're from Minnesota; it makes us feel at home.

Dianne: Are you guys into hockey? There is always ice up there.

Greg: When I get up in the morning I have to make sure there's no ice in the toilet.

Grant: You know what's really bad? If you lick the pump handle, your tongue gets stuck and
you have to tear all the skin off your tongue to extricate yourself.

Greg: It's really hard to take a piss outside when it's thirty below.

Grant: You know what happens? Now this only happens to guys, but when you pee, you get
this very long icicle.

J.C.: Except for Grant's.

Grant: Yeah, mine's real little. Actually, I get two streams because when I was a young
child I shoved a clothespin into my penis.

Dianne: And they never took it out?

J.C.: Now he hangs his clothes in there.

Dianne: These are really good stories!

Grant: Do you remember the original Bozo the clown?

Ron: Yeah, he's running for President.

Greg: I thought he won.

Grant: But the original Bozo, the dead Bozo. I saw it on t.v. He jumped off a platform
with a lit book of matches into a full tank of gasoline and committed suicide.

Ron: Now you definitely just made that up. There was a picture of him in the paper
announcing his candidacy saying, "Let's get a real Bozo in the White House."

Grant: Yeah, a vote for Bozo is a vote for Reagan; I definitely wouldn't support
Bozo because Walter Mondale lives next to my parents. The other day I was driving down
I-94 and we encountered the Mondale motorcade.

Greg: We followed the Mondale motorcade all the way from Minneapolis to St. Paul.

Ron: In your Huske-Vana?

Grant: Like a chainsaw? I get it.

Ron: That was the pun of my life, I'm glad somebody got it. (Husqvarna is a Swedish chainsaw
and motorcycle manufacturer) I thought it was pretty witty. Besides, when will I ever get
the opportunity to use that pun again?

Greg: I don't know. Probably in about five minutes.

Dianne: We're gonna walk outside and he's goiung to say that again.

Grant: You know why it's easy to catch elephants in Alabama? Cause the Tuscaloosa.

Ron: We know so many bad pun jokes.

Dianne: What do you call a fat person who starts fires?--- Arson Wells.

Grant: That's enough.

Dianne: What do you call a black woman who urinates while she sings?

Grant: Mom.

Dianne: No, but I can't top that punch line. That's the new punch line for that joke.

Grant: What do you get when you cross red wine with sliced prunes? Madra, Madria, diarrhoea.

Dianne: You're just pushing these jokes too far.

Grant: I'd just like to stop a lot of rumours that've been going around about me and Ethel Kennedy.

Dianne: My mom mentioned that to me and I didn't believe it.

Ron: I got into an argument with a guy in a bar about it and I said that Ethel would never do a
thing like that.

Grant: Greg got his dick shot off in Nam and now he pees in a bag.

Greg: Wanna see it?

Dianne: No, that's okay.

Voice from the bar: HEY, GET OUT OF HERE. WE WANNA GO HOME!

Grant: Guess we better go.

(Walking out to the parking lot)

Ron: Hey, that's my car you just slammed into with your Husker-Vana door!

Greg: What did I say? He said it again, and he's still got the tape running too.

Dianne: He's so proud of that joke.

Greg: Let me ask him a question. What's your favorite color?

Ron: Do you guys know how to get out of here? We don't.

Greg: Wonderful interview. We'll have to do it again sometime.