Interview // Mikey Erg! On The Ergs Return, working with Steve Albini & more!

I fell in love with Mikey Erg in 2005, and my life has been better for it ever since. 

The Ergs were touring through Southern Colorado with the “nerdcore” hip hop superstar, MC CHRIS. I went to the show that night, at the Black Sheep with the purpose of interviewing MC Chris for my then, Mostly Harmless Magazine! 

I liked Chris. He was goofy and weird and wrote rap songs about Star Wars, Robotussin and Blizzards! He even worked on two of my favorite cartoons, SEALAB 2021 and Aqua Teen Hunger Force! 

MC Chris was burnt out on interviews and we did not want to chat. Instead of letting it get me down, I took my tape recorder over to the merch table for The Ergs and introduced myself, asking if I could interview them after their set. Thankfully I had listened a little, and written a few notes. We gathered outside the Black Sheep and I fell in love with the three loveable boys that were Joe, Jeff and Mikey. It was also the start of a lifelong obsession with THE ERGS!

I’ve gotten to spend time with Mikey all over the country. Whether in Chicago, Gainesville, New York City or Colorado Springs… Anytime I see Mikey out on the road, he greets me with a hug. 

As I was gearing up to restart Mostly Harmless for a third or fourth time, I was having a crisis of confidence. I wanted to do this thing that I’ve loved since I was 16, but at 40 years old.. I’m too old right? But here was Mikey, still out there living his dreams. I had wanted to learn more about the Who and Why behind the man who has written so many of my favorite records, and inspired so many wonderful adventures! Thankfully Mikey was once again on board and we jumped on a late night zoom call,  sipped on a couple of delicious IPA’s and shot the shit and called it an interview.

I’m so god damned lucky to be able to call this Saint of a human being a friend of mine. He makes my life, and my music collection oh so much better by being a part of it. He inspires and encourages a number of my dumb ideas and my late night record purchases. I hope this chat teaches you a thing or two about songwriting, or what you can learn by working with a pro like Steve Albini. Maybe you’ll even decide to check out a SPARKS record or two, but we both agree, you should definitely check out SPARKS BROS, the killer documentary directed by Edgar Wright of Shaun of the Dead/Hot Fuzz fame. It’s streaming now on Netflix, and we both have the Blu ray on our Christmas list. 

If you would like to listen or read the original Ergs interview, conducted in 2005 outside the Black Sheep in Colorado Springs, you can read that interview here:
Or listen at: http://mostlyharmlesspodcast.com/flashback-episode-1-w-a-wilhelm-scream-the-ergs/

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Hey, buddy, what’s going on? So good to see your face!

It has been a very long time! What is it 18 years since I last was interviewed by you? What was that? That was the MC Chris tour, So, 2005!?

I was I was fortunate enough to see The Ergs twice in Colorado Springs of all fucking places. Once with MC Chris and another time with Hunchback at JJ Nobody’s Triple Nickel Tavern.

You were at the Triple Nickel! That was a night. There’s a famous among us- It’s not a famous photo or anything- There’s a famous photo of all of us cheersing Whiskey River, Willie Nelson’s whiskey at the Triple Nickel. We stayed at JJ’s that night. We got to see the infamous collection. I’ll say no more.

I mean, yeah, if you know, JJ, Nobody… then you know…. [Laughter]

The other day I was watching the Sparks documentary [The most excellent film directed by Shaun of The Dead/ Baby Driver director Edgar Wright] and I assume you are a Sparks fan?

Oh, not only am I a Sparks fan, but you probably know this about me: I am a consumer of music and also of rock documentaries of musicians that I love… And I think that the Sparks documentary is the best rock and roll documentary that I’ve ever seen!

They did it so right, where they didn’t skimp. It’s two and a half hours long. They don’t skip over even a millisecond of their career, but it’s concise enough where the average person can get into it. There’s been a lot of talk about GET BACK [the Peter Jackson directed, 9 hour long Beatles Documentary]… If you’re a casual Beatles fan. It’s probably not the movie for you. But as a massive Beatles fan, I’m so glad that they left all that shit in.

But no one wants that from the Sparks documentary. Even as a massive Sparks fan, there was stuff that could have been talked about, but this is the perfect documentary. It’s got everything and it’s got some stuff that maybe massive fans didn’t know.

Have you been a Sparks fan for a long time?

I got into them…not a long time ago. I was listening to a BBC Radio documentary on Todd Rundgren. There is a great BBC radio documentary called The Record Producers. They did a George Martin one and they did one on Pink Floyd. Basically they take all the multi-tracks and go through them and talk to the producers of the records. And they did one on Todd Rundgren.

There was a segment about the first Sparks record, which he produced, and I was just like, “what the fuck is this?” He talks about how they were like huge anglophiles and he just thought they were so great. So it talks about the first Sparks album Half-Nelson. I was just like, “Fuck! This is up my shit!” Then you read up about them and you realize every record is completely different.

They had like the Disco phase with Giorgio Moroder. They made a record a year. They made 40 records or whatever and it’s all different and all quirky. And all I was just like, “Okay! This is the band for me!”

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I was watching that documentary, and maybe this is entirely coincidental… But I remember when you guys played at the Black Sheep in Colorado Springs. At the time they were selling Sparks energy drinks. Every single time I see a Sparks energy drink, it makes me think of you. And I’m sitting there enjoying the hell out of that documentary. I wondered if that’s why you were so excited about the Sparks energy drink?

No! The Black sheep is where we played with MC Chris, right? That was definitely around the time I started drinking. Sparks were just coming out in full force. “Oh, wait, you have energy and you can get drunk? Fuck yeah!”

That was definitely our shit at the moment and we were just like stoked whenever we came in contact with it. [Laughs]

While watching the Sparks documentary and thinking about Sparks energy drinks, I decided I need to sit down and talk to you again. Finally, after all these years! So in a manic haze, I just messaged you on Instagram. And here we are! We’re finally making it happen.

I’m glad you’re making it happen again.

I wonder if this is a midlife crisis. I just turned 40 years old. I just quit my restaurant manager job. I’m picking up a microphone to interview bands and writing again. I’m doing all the things I loved to do when I was younger. You have never stopped doing your stuff either. Hell, recently The Ergs have gotten back together.

Yeah, I didn’t realize how close we were in age. I’m 41. So we were essentially the same age when we met.

Is it weird to still be doing the same stuff that you’ve always loved? You’ve at least found some success with this stuff, compared to me.

Well, it’s funny you say that. Obviously, I know someone from Colorado that wants to talk to me. So that’s successful. But I also like, in my brain, I honestly feel like I’m stuck in a kind of weird midpoint where I’m in this kind of legacy band that I’m known for, but I’ve also made four albums as a solo person. I feel like I’m still starting from square one in that respect. So I feel like I’m in the midpoint of like has-been but also an up and comer.

I feel like I’m starting over-ish. I’m too old to start over. So I’m just going to fucking put some shit out and hope that people discover it at some point.

You were the drummer on the Chris Gethard talk show. I recently read his book Lose Well, and it really helped me connect with the idea that I’m just a weirdo. Why am I trying to be normal? Now I’m trying to lean into the weirdness of me. I find life so much more enjoyable and it seems like you’re somebody who embraces your own weirdness with what appeals to you and what you’re going to make.

No, absolutely. I have the honor of being Chris’s friend. I can hang out and talk to him. I do listen to his podcast, read his books and watch his HBO specials… And go, “Oh my God! I could never put that into those words, but that’s exactly how I’ve been feeling for my entire life,” or whatever. I feel like, “Fuck it!” I’m just gonna put some shit out there and you know, hopefully in 10 years, someone finds Waxbuilt Castles and feels like it changed their lives. That’s all I hope for.

I think it’s a killer record! I remember when you were putting out this new self-titled album, you were telling us, “I’m back to punk rock again!”

Which was me joking around about it. My whole thing is, I don’t ever want anything to sound the same as the last thing I did. We talked about Sparks, and Meat Puppets are another huge influence of mine. Not one record sounds like the last one.

That’s what I want. The record I just recorded, that’s not coming out until next year, is the first one where I went back to the same lineup that did Tentative Decisions. We recorded it with Steve Albini, so it sounds totally different, but it’s the same band. I’m just trying to make dreams come true at this point. [Laughs] And I’m not trying to make the same punk record every year. That just doesn’t interest me. If I have all these opportunities to play with different people and make things sound different and that gets me off. For lack of a better phrase…

Yeah, that’s some of the stuff I’m exploring now, just with my own ridiculous writing. I’m so much more open about my depression and issues. I’m just so much weirder And it does feel so much more cathartic, and it’s just kind of like, people tell me, “You shouldn’t be putting this information out on the internet!” but also at the same time, I get people who are like, “Oh my god. I’ve never heard anybody talk like that before.”

I think that that’s what makes our art…Art. Putting your personal experience… I mean, I do think that that’s the thing that isn’t super relatable about my songs. Every once in a while I get very personal about things. Or this one thing happened when I was walking down this one street or this one Avenue, and I fucking wrote about it, and no one knows what the fuck I’m talking about. But I kind of like that.

Well, because then the listener can put themselves into that situation.

Right, but I’m never going to write the “I saw you at the Burger King” song. I don’t think I’ll ever write relatable songs.

I don’t know! I relate to a lot of them!

The Ergs songs, I feel like they were relatable because I was a fucking twenty-year-old. The end of the world was the fact that this person didn’t like me. So I wrote those songs and I don’t write those songs anymore. I realized it’s not the end of the world anymore.

So where do the songs come from now? What are you writing about other than just walking down the street?

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I’m writing about the same shit, but I have better focus now as to what it means to me. A lot of the shit isn’t as autobiographical anymore. One of my favorite songs that I’ve ever written is called “Hopland Superette.” It’s on Waxbuilt Castles and it was a convenience store that I passed in Northern California. I thought Hopland Superette just sounded like a good song title to me and I wrote it down. And then I wrote this fantasy song about living in a small town. I just wrote this weird song that is not autobiographical. I just wanted to write about this convenience store that I passed on tour, you know, doing that kind of shit. Every Ergs song is completely autobiographical, which might be why people can relate to them. I just don’t write like that, and I don’t want to write like that anymore.

If I say Hopland Superette and that means something else to you than it does to me, then I like that. But I don’t want to give that much of myself away anymore, either. 

You got to work with fucking Steve Albini! How was that? 

I fucking did. It was, it was incredible. He is the smartest engineer ever. He was no bullshit. We walked in and set up. He said, “fuck off for an hour.” Literally said, fuck off for an hour. We went and got coffee. He had everything mic’d up when we got back. We sound checked quote unquote, for 5 to 10 minutes. And then we were tracking within 20 minutes. 

We got the whole record done, recorded and mixed in five days. And he was basically, like, “if you don’t do it in five days, you’re fucking up.” The band was all over the country at this point, with the four people that made the record. So we were sending demos back and forth and making sure that we all have the parts down. It was great, like it was- is perfect. 

I’m sorry. It sounds like [Nirvana’s] In Utero. It sounds like a worse band recording In Utero. The sound is exactly what I thought it was going to sound like and I’m so fucking excited about it. 

What do you learn working with a guy like Steve Albini? Do you just sit there and watch his every move like trying to soak it all in? 

Absolutely. One of the main reasons. I wanted it to be that initial first album band. I knew that everybody was a Steve Albini fan. One of [the members] Jeff Rosenstock and one of them was Alex Clute. They both produced my first two records and I thought it would be cool to have them hang out with Steve Albini. They were both just like, “Oh, what compression are you using on this?” 

They were picking up pointers. It was fucking sweet. It was awesome. There was no bullshit. We’d fuck around and hang out and it was fun. We made an entire record, recording and mixing in five days. So there was no real fucking around. It was perfect. 

I thought it was very funny to do a pop punk record with Steve Albini and it happened. I can’t wait for people to hear it. 

I have a little bit of imposter syndrome, but here you are hanging out with the guy who recorded, you know, In Utero! 

I definitely, definitely felt the same way. I was joking with the band as we were driving and flying out. I joked that he’s gonna burn the studio down once he hears my stupid fucking pop-punk bullshit, but then you find out he’s a Material Issue fan. No, he’s used to stupid pop punk bullshit. It was the perfect mix of not the right fit but a really good fit. It really does sound like a cool record. I can’t wait for people to hear it.  It’s me, but it sounds like a professional Steve Albini album. It sounds like In Utero. Which is what I wanted.

I sat down and listened to all your solo records today. And one thing that sticks out is that you’re always Mikey Erg on every record. Even if the songs are a little more Beatles-esque. How do you keep the through line of this? 

I mean, it’s my songwriting, but it’s also my voice. For better or worse, if you’re listening to a Mikey Erg record, you’re going to hear my voice. There was a review of Waxbuilt Castles that was like, “Oh, it’s more of a singer songwriter record and he’s not a singer!” I’ve been a singer for my entire Quote, unquote, career!

No quotes! You’ve had a career!

But in this reviewer’s opinion. I made the mistake of not hiding it behind a bunch of distortion. But that’s what I wanted to do. I wanted to make a Beatles-esque 70s pop record! That’s what I want to do. 

So that’s the way I’ve been conducting my solo career. I want to do a 70s record with no distortion on it whatsoever? Cool. Let’s do that! And then the next one, you’ll get a punk record. It’ll be fine. Don’t worry about it. I love it all.

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Maybe it’s because we have a personal connection that I really do absolutely love it all. There are not many artists that I try to collect everything they put out there, The Descendents, your stuff, and the rest of the Ergs stuff. 

Well, that’s cool. That’s what I love about it. Joe went to Night Birds which doesn’t sound anything like the Ergs. Jeff’s stuff is all over the map, like the Black Wine. Jeff’s new stuff is incredible. And that’s what the Ergs were too.  Wel just took influences from everybody and just put it together. 

That’s one thing  I’ve always admired about you in particular. Especially on your Instagram feed. I watch it pretty regularly and your taste in music is so everywhere! Is there anything you just straight up don’t like? Or can you find things to like in everything? I’m sure their songs you don’t like, but what about genres?

People have asked me that and my go-to is nu-metal. I’ve never been a new metal fan, but that’s not true! Because I really do love the first two Korn records and the first Limp Biscuit record. I don’t like Stained or I don’t like Drowning Pool or whatever. I cannot say that there’s a genre that I don’t like. 

Which is what I admire about you, especially growing up and there was a time in the punk rock scene where all I listened to was Fat records and Epitaph bands.

When I got into that stuff, I certainly sold my Yes and Led Zeppelin and whatever records but then I bought them back immediately because I was just like, “No. Fuck that. I don’t need to only listen to punk.”

Have you always been so open to different kinds of music? Or do you find something you like and start pulling the thread to see where it came from?

 Well, I mean, yeah, like I’ve always been super open. Before I knew what to do, I was listening to Michael Jackson and Bruce Springsteen in the early 80s. I have been listening to music from birth. Literally. 

Michael Jackson, Prince, Bruce Springsteen… I was buying those records. I was pointing to those records in the grocery store. My mom would buy them for me!

In the middle of my life,  I was listening to Def Leppard, Exposé and Debbie Gibson, but also Led Zeppelin. I was buying all the things of the day, but also discovering all this old music. Once the late 80s and early 90s kicked in and I got into Megadeth and Metallica, but then Nirvana changed my life. Then punk rock comes in and then that just fucking completely opens an entire world that I didn’t know existed. It just became like a huge thing. 

Why would I ever deny myself music? It’s such a wonderful thing. I Just Like Music. 

There’s a lot of good stuff coming out and a lot of my older friends sort of like sticking their noses up to it because it’s not what they grew up on…

Whatever. I’m digging on fucking Billy Eilish and trying to get into the Olivia Rodrigo record. I’ve been told that that’s the shit. So honestly, that’s the shit I’ve been getting into. I loved when Lady Gaga was first on Howard Stern. It was just her and a fucking grand piano. Just playing Edge of Glory. I was just like, “Oh, okay! This is an actual song that is obscured by this crazy pop production.”

I just didn’t realize how beautiful of a song it was, but when you’re playing it just you and a grand piano… It sounds fucking incredible! That turned my mind around to getting more into current pop music. 

I learned a lot about music, just by watching your instagram feeds. You get me into stuff I’m not already familiar with. 

I’m glad you say that because that’s the reason I do that! If two people get into a record that I’m listening to, That’s cool. 

I remember posting about the Thelonious Monk record, that lost live record he just put out, and you wrote me back, “Oh my god. This is my favorite record of the year!” 

Yeah, I love it. I’m crazy. And I bought the custodian mix too, which is the recording before they sweeten it up. It’s pretty fucking sweet. That came out for Record Store Day. Yeah, and it’s just the unedited, un-fucked with, actual tape pressed to vinyl. It doesn’t sound as good but you get to hear both versions. 

I might have to pick that up. My girlfriend and I are getting ready to move and I promised her I wasn’t going to buy any more records…

Oh, believe me, The podcast can’t see this.  We live in a basement apartment, It’s filled to the brim. There’s no other shelves that could be moved into here. I’m not allowed to buy anymore.

How many records do you get a week? I guess none anymore?
Well….. I still do, but I kind of hide them behind the couch. [Laughter]

That’s what I do too! Here’s my thing with my lady:”I thought you said, you weren’t gonna buy any more records?” ”Oh don’t worry. I pre-ordered this one, months ago!” 

Well, and that’s what actually happens! If I do pre-order them and then I’ll bring a record in… She asks, “Where’d you get a record?” “I literally pre-ordered this four months ago!” That’s actually what’s been happening now! 

Little does my lady know… I pre-ordered the new Ergs 7-inch the moment it went on sale! Even though I said that I’m not buying any more records. I’m still pre-ordering records every week. That’s my loophole around it. 

[Laughter]

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How exciting is it? You guys have played a couple more shows as The Ergs. You guys recorded a new 7-inch. How’s it going back to the well with this thing?

It’s been fun! The shows are always fun. We literally don’t even have to think about it. We just kind of book practices before shows and then it literally all just falls into place. We’ve been playing together since we were teenagers, so it just doesn’t ever go away, and these seven inches were these cool little things…

Over quarantine I got sent a copy demo that I made for a drummer that we tried out during the first year of the band. I just sent him a demo of just me playing guitar and singing, so that he could be familiar with the songs for practice the next week. He wrote to me during quarantine, “Hey, what’s your address? I’ve got something to send you!” 

He sent me this demo tape of two songs that I just didn’t remember even writing. Or, you know that we never [recorded]. I was like, “Oh these are good!” And so that was like the one of the impetus of us getting back together and recording these seven inches. 

We had these old songs and then there were a couple of old country songs that we wrote around the time of “Stinking of Whiskey Blues,” but we only recorded “Stinking of Whiskey Blues.” We didn’t do the other two. 

So we did a whole recording session. A couple of covers, a couple of old songs, and a couple of new songs. Then we just split them up over these two 7-inches. We were hoping to have them before these shows. We had one of them before the show, but who knows whether this last show in New York is going to happen. 

As we as we’re taping this, Omicron is fucking running rampant in New York and everything’s being canceled. Who knows what the fuck’s in happening, but we got these two seven inches out and the singles collection. 

The singles collection, Hindsight is 20​/​20, My Friend Vol. 2: OK, Enough Reminiscing is out. The Dirtnap 7-inch, Time and the Season is out, and there’s one, Renovations on Wallride Records, which is Derek from Nightbirds’s Label. That’s coming out in January. 

So in the next month, there will be three new Ergs records for people to enjoy, if they want to enjoy them. 

Did you ever think, especially when the band ended? Did you ever think you would, as sporadically as it is… Did you ever think you would keep doing these things? 

I didn’t think so. Jeff is pretty adamant about not doing it anymore, when he left the band. That was probably what needed to happen for him at the time. Joe and I still both kind of wanted to do it, but we didn’t want to do without him. So we just went our separate ways. We got back together in 2010 as a benefit for a friend and that was fun. 

Practicing for that was really funny. The wounds were still wide open, but we just got into the room and we didn’t… I kind of remember it as, we didn’t even speak to each other. We got into the room plugged in and said nothing. Then went.. [mimics the opening to “First Song, Side One” from DorkRockCorkRod.] We just went into the set as if we never stopped for two years. 

So we can just do that. And literally now, like yesterday we get into a rehearsal space and out of nowhere just know the songs. It’s this weird thing… We need to practice a couple times, but we don’t need to fully rehearse to do a show at the moment. Which is kind of rad. So never say never. I think at this point we’ll just do whatever seems right, fun and cool, but post 2010. I didn’t think it was ever going to happen. 

Well, I’m glad I did, I flew all the way out to Jersey to see you guys open for The Descendents and then the next night went down to House of Independence and saw you guys on your home turf.

That was amazing. That weekend was great. That was the first time we did it since 2010. It felt like such a big deal and it was and the main reason we did it was because we got offered this Descendents show. Like we have to do that. We have to do it. 

Who is the guy in The Descendents [doing a really bad Bill Stevenson impression..] “Come on! Come play this show!” 

The funny story about that is I went to see FLAG [former Black Flag members playing Black Flag songs without founder Greg Ginn], War on Women and Dirty Nil in New York. 

I just came home from a tour and had one night off, and I was about to leave for another tour. I told my girlfriend, now my wife. I was like, “I’m just gonna go see the show. I’ll be right home. I know we only have one night together.”

 I end up backstage, drinking a bottle of Scotch with Bill Stevenson and we end up talking about Ornette Coleman for hours. He’s like, “We have to play together!” 

“Yes, we do name the time and the place and we’ll be there!” and then all of a sudden we got this offer to play with The Descendents in our hometown of Sayreville, New Jersey. We’re like, “Okay, we got to do that. Let’s get back together and do that!” 

That sold out pretty quickly, so we just booked the House of Independence right after that. It was an amazing weekend! It was great!

I had tickets to see ya’ll at House of Independence in December of 2019, but it was my girlfriend’s Dad’s 60th birthday. She said it would mean a lot to her if I went. So there I was at Her dad’s 60th birthday “First Song, Side One” pops in my head, “I’m in love. I’m in trouble…” and then it just kind of all coalesced and I realized, “Oh, I’m committed to this person.” I never fathomed skipping a show like that for someone else. 

Absolutely. You realize that the show, or playing the show.. or being at the show is not the fucking most important thing in the world. I guess this is growing up.