Malcolm Travis

[guitar music] From the white-knuckle fury of Hüsker Dü, to his landmark solo work, Mould has always operated at the intersection of raw power and melodic genius.

But when he joined forces with bassist David Barbe and drummer Malcolm Travis to form Sugar in late 1991, something truly special was unleashed.

Their debut at Athens, Georgia's legendary 40 Watt Club signaled the arrival of a band that would quickly rewrite the rules of alternative rock.

When Sugar went their separate ways after a Japanese tour in 1995, they left behind one of the most celebrated catalogs in rock history, a body of work that has only grown in stature with each passing decade.

And now, 30 years later, the band is back.

Bob Mould, David Barbe, and Malcolm Travis reconvened in June 2025 to record House of Dead Memories, their first new Sugar song in over 30 years.

Today, we're gonna walk down memory lane with the one and only Bob Mould, to talk about the Sugar journey then and now.

Coming up next on Taking a Walk.

Mould came crashing out of the gate with his band Husker Du in the late 1970s, pioneering the sort of furious yet melodic punk that would define its era and whose sound reverberates to this day.

After Husker Du split in the late 80s, Mould embarked on a more contemplative solo period, pioneering the punk goes acoustic thing, before, in 1992, forming a trio called Sugar with David Barbie and Malcolm Travis.

Sugar was the biggest commercial success of Mould's career, and for good reason.

The band's two albums distilled his greatest strengths.

yep

been doing this for a long time we have built uh tolerance and a stamina for this brand of planes and trains and automobiles how did your bandmates deal with what i must assume was the first amount of real touring they've done in some years unless i'm mistaken

Yeah, so Malcolm Travis, the drummer in Sugar, I do not think Malcolm did any serious touring after January 95 in Japan.

So he had to adapt pretty quickly.