It was really while I was interviewing Mogwai that it all became clear. Dominic and Stuart were leafing through Weedbus 13 and commented on how overlooked the Archers of Loaf were. "The most unfashionable band in the world" said Dominic. "No that's Superchunk now!" quipped Stuart. He hit the nail on the head. Superchunk, like their Chapel Hill, North Carolina neighbours the Archers of Loaf, have fallen on hard times with the UK press, yet they were once lauded as the possible post-grunge successors to Nirvana. Unfortunately, in the UK no press support means no radio play, and consequently fans who were curious about the 'chunk circa 1991's debut album 'No Pocky For Kitty' have had precious little chance to hear the subsequent releases.

Despite all this Superchunk persevere by running their own label - Merge records - (via City Slang in Europe) and releasing fine records like last year's 'Indoor Living'. I met Jim the band's guitarist and asked him about their new material.

People have said that 'Indoor Living' is different to your older records - that there are more pop arrangements, the vocals are higher in the mix. Is it a change in direction then?

"Not really! We just mixed it differently. There have always been keyboards on the records - OK, maybe not on the first two - although sometimes you couldn't hear them. The way they were mixed meant that they were almost a subliminal element. So it wasn't just two guitars, bass and drums - there would be a certain mushy quality to it! When you start spending more money on the recording you can take more time with them and get things how you want. As far as the singing goes, in the past we have always buried the vocal. Mac can be quite insecure about his vocals, and sometimes he writes the words as he's singing them. We work out the music beforehand and a lot of times there are no vocals at that stage, and when it comes time for him to start singing in the studio, he's always like "could you guys go and take a walk or something!" So when it came time to mix he always wants to knock the words down a little. This time we spent a lot more time recording the vocals, I sat through every single vocal take and critiqued it all. We just had more time to do that, but I mean the spirit was always the same. And as for the accusations of being 'poppy', well I think that was always our intention. We don't sit down and have discussions about what we're going to do. If it's a progression, then it is a natural one."

I thought that it was maybe a deliberate intention, because there's a line on a song on the album called 'The Popular Music' which says, "I'm coming back from my time underground". You mean we're not supposed to read something into that!?

"You could if you wanted, but Mac writes the lyrics very spontaneously and his usual response when people ask about what a certain line means, is to reply "it means whatever you want it to mean." He doesn't analyse it. I think he writes good lyrics, but the vocals are another instrument and it's not a way of getting a message across."

Why did you return to your own label Merge after a few years on Matador?

"Originally Merge was just a singles label, they didn't have enough money to put out a full length, what with all the production and distribution involved. So we got a one-record contract with Matador and we ended up doing two more for them. After we did three we'd got to a point where we were selling enough records, and what happened was that Merge did a deal with Touch and Go - so they put up the money and they get a percentage but it's on Merge. There was no animosity with Matador and we're friends with them still, but while we were with them we had put out a compilation of early singles ('Tossing Seeds') on Merge and that had sold more! So with Touch and Go giving us the distribution that we need it made business sense to go back to Merge."

Both 'Tossing Seeds' and 'Incidental Music' were two full-length compilations of your scattered releases. Do one-off releases still happen?

"Yes, songs continue to show up in weird places. We have about four or five songs from the last record that didn't end up on anything so they could appear somewhere! I vaguely remember donating 'Hyper Enough' to the Irish compilation (he means 'Laugh Hard At The Absurdly Evil') but we never got a copy so I can't comment on any of the bands."

What about your influences. You've covered material by acts as diverse as the Chills and Motorhead!

"Influences is an odd way to put it. I mean, how do you get 'influenced' by Motorhead and the Chills. There is a sensibility to both bands that we share but we don't copy them or sound like them."

How does the band keep itself fresh after seven years?

'Luck, I think! There's no masterplan we just sort of get along, and we don't take ourselves very seriously. It's going to end sometime and then the question is going to be - 'why do you think it ended?' The answer would be the same reason it lasted so long, we were interested for a while and then they weren't!"

And the North Carolina scene which was again hyped up by the press, what happened to it?

"Well it disappeared from the press, but it wasn't a case of it dwindling or anything, it was more a case of the British press deciding that it wasn't something that was selling their papers. I have a real... I wouldn't say love/ hate relationship cos there is no love involved. I find rock journalism - by that I mean mainstream publications like NME or Rolling Stone - totally uninteresting. It has nothing to do with me except that it helps sell records. I never look at it and think please say something nice about me. Writing about rock n roll is a different art form to playing it, and it's a valid art form. The sad thing is that they do have the power to make or break certain people. If something is good it should be good whether it is written about or not. If there were no rock magazines there would still be rock n roll. Like I said, they are both valid artforms but good rock journalism is harder to come by. A good writer could write an interesting piece about the Spice Girls. I don't care about them, but if it's a good piece I want to read it. Whereas so much of rock journalism is about personalities. Put Oasis on the cover, it doesn't matter what they write, people are going to buy it."

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