HUSKER DU--LOW PROFILE AS ART FORM

Husker Du’s new album is called “Warehouse: Songs and Stories.”

Why Warehouse ?

“Big place, big place,” mused the trio’s Bob Mould. “You can put a lot of things in a warehouse.”

In this case, it’s a hefty complement of 20 songs, stretching the recently released collection into an example of that endangered species, the double album.

Even superstars don’t put out twin packs of original material these days. But here’s major-label Warner Bros. Records unleashing four sides of concussive post-punk from a band with its head barely above the underground.

Observed Mould: “In 1987, it’s not a common thing for a group that doesn’t sell millions of records to go to a record company and say, ‘We’ve got a double album worth of material, we feel real strongly about doing this,’ and expecting them to agree right away.

“I don’t think any of us expected them to go, ‘Oh, that’s good, why don’t you make it a triple?’ It was just a matter of them hearing the songs and seeing that we actually did have 20 good songs.”

In Husker Du’s private parlance, “the inspiration stick” hit them hard last May when they took an overdue break after years of near-constant touring.

Husker Du’s songs invariably fall into one of two categories. Singer-guitarist Mould is responsible for the rough-hewn, tough-minded songs: roaring, hurtling rockers that often serve as settings for his studies of souls locked in combat with wintry despair.

Balancing Mould’s overcast ruminations are the lighter, more whimsical contributions of the impish drummer and singer Hart, whose increasing role in the last few records has paralleled the expansion of Husker Du’s style into folk, pop and psychedelic areas.

“Grant tends to be a little more romantic in his writing approach,” analyzed Mould, looking across the Hollywood hotel room at his composing counterpart. “I think the topic matter is the same. Maybe I’m a little more pessimistic, or I scrutinize the situations differently than he does. . . .

“I tend to really sit down and think about things a lot and sometimes I abstract them too far on my ladder of abstraction. I think Grant may be a little more outgoing than I am, hence I think his songs have a wider appeal perhaps.”

Sitting down for an interview with Hart and bassist Greg Norton during a pre-release trip to town, vegetarian and teetotaler Mould cursed his one remaining vice as he pulled another cigarette from his pack and recalled the first stages of “Warehouse.”

“About three days into rehearsal we just knew that we had a lot of great songs,” he said. “And there were about eight or 10 songs that didn’t make it past practice. We focused right in and knew what we were going to do when we came into the studio. Everything up to the sequencing pretty much.

“Sonically, there’s a few things that are real different on this album. . . . Grant was doing a lot of different things with percussion, and I tried a lot of different things with guitar textures.

“You hear these pinging noises every once in a while coming in and out of the record, it’s the different guitars I picked up, different sounds I was trying to get, trying to realize what I’m hearing in my head. It’s an ongoing fight, to try to get the sounds in your mind to come out of your hands.”

“Look at this,” said Grant Hart, picking up a slick of the “Warehouse” record jacket. “Then look at ‘Land Speed Record.’ It’s the difference between cutting out a picture in a magazine and putting pictures in a magazine.”

Hart’s comparison of today’s graphics--a still life of dried vegetation amid classical temple columns, all rendered in throbbing Day-Glo glory--and the makeshift package of Husker Du’s first record in 1982 summarizes the band’s development: from naive amateurs out to make a mark in the anything-goes punk scene to no-nonsense professionals with a clear-eyed sense of purpose.

Husker Du (the Danish phrase, chosen for its enigmatic ambiguity, means “Do you remember?”) has kept its pace slow and steady rather than skyrocketing and mercurial--an appropriate strategy for a group that’s made an art form of the low profile.

Instead of cultivating any show-biz or rock ‘n’ roll image, Mould, Hart and Norton have kept it down to earth. Embodying a sleeves-rolled-up, nose-to-the-fuzztone work ethic, they’ve set a standard of moral leadership and remained a central force in America’s underground music scene--even after graduating to a major label.

They remain based in Minneapolis, where they work constantly with young bands, offering guidance in both musical and business affairs. And while they don’t come off as sociopolitical firebrands in their music, they have made substantial gestures.

The band has worked in behalf of Greenpeace in Europe, and recently Husker Du donated its royalties from a compilation album of underground artists to AIDS relief--and also challenged the other acts to match its move. Several participants, including Laurie Anderson, Philip Glass, William Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg, have followed suit.

Husker Du even still tours in the Dodge van they’ve been driving for years (their current trek is due to hit Southern California in April), though the acquisition of a separate truck for the equipment has made things a little more comfortable.

Recalled Hart: “In the earlier days, it was, ‘OK, I’ll stuff my leg in the floor tom, and somehow if I can like manage not to break any of the tubes in the amp, I’ll sleep this way, with my head between the wastepaper basket and the gear shift.’ That’s something we don’t miss. We’re still doing the things that we love and discarding the things that we hate.”

Husker Du’s heart may be in Minneapolis--they even recorded a roaring version of the “Mary Tyler Moore” theme song, a sort of Twin Cities anthem--but it was a couple of L.A.-area bands that ushered the trio into the national spotlight: the Minutemen, who released the first Husker Du recording on their New Alliance label, and Black Flag, whose SST Records issued the next three albums, including the critically acclaimed two-record set “Zen Arcade” in 1984.

That’s when the majors came knocking. But Husker Du wasn’t biting.

“We weren’t interested at all,” Mould said of Warner Bros. Records’ initial overtures. “We were satisfied with everything we were doing. ‘Zen Arcade’ we were very happy with, and we were selling what we thought was a lot of records. I don’t think we were ready for something like that. . . .

“There’s a real mad rush to get hold of all the bands and get them all signed immediately, and that’s not real good. . . . I think everybody should proceed with caution on things like that, and a lot of bands don’t seem to care. They just want to get signed right away. And it really doesn’t give them a chance to explore what they want to do musically. . . . They don’t have their feet planted on the ground. Some bands are being rushed, and I don’t think we’ll ever hear the best from some of these bands.

“(Eventually) it was a matter of realizing we had to make a move. SST is a great label, but I don’t know if they’re geared up to be able to sell 200,000 records. It was just a matter of business. We deliberated for over a year on the whole idea. . . . When we finally realized that that was what we had to do, we let (SST) know, and we said, ‘We’re starting to work on a record right now and you’ll get that one.”

That was “Flip Your Wig,” and it was followed last March by Husker Du’s Warners debut, “Candy Apple Grey.” With sales of 100,000, it far outsold any of the group’s SST albums.

How’s life with the Establishment? “It’s sort of like the independent level witha lot more people,” said bassist Norton, addressing the inevitable question of overground vs. underground.

“And all the horror stories you hear about the music business are usually not true, unless you want them to be,” elaborated Mould. “You know--the guys running around with big plates of white powder, and the art directors going, ‘Aw, isn’t this great?’ All the horror stories you hear about the business, I think they come true only if you wish them to come true.

“I think if you’re a free thinker and you have half a mind and you have a vision of what you’d like to see as the end result of all your work, then those things don’t happen too much. . . . People who create fantasy music want to live surrounded by fantasy. I think people who make real music can appreciate fantasy but are based in reality.”