These days, the phrase "seminal artist" pops up in music journalism almost as often as "improper relationship" appears in political articles, but Bob Mould is one of the few musicians actually deserving of the title. Not only did his Eighties-era band Husker Du set the stage for the explosion of alternative rock in the early Nineties (the ultra-DIY band signed to Warner Bros. in '84), he has managed to maintain critical and commercial clout throughout his two-decade career as indie icon -- with or without a major label. As a solo artist and with Sugar, the band he commanded from '92 to '95, Mould has churned out his patented guitar squall atop songs that are as energetic as they are catchy. Next week, he releases his fourth solo album, The Last Dog and Pony Show, and prepares to kick off his final full-on rock-with-a-capital-R tour.

What's with calling this "The Last Dog and Pony Show"?

It's the last electric tour with a full band. That's about the only thing I know for sure. I've been doing the band thing for a long time. I mean, I've interspersed the acoustic stuff the past few years. But a lot of it is the logistics of putting a band together and keeping it on the road for three, four months at a time without a break. It's pretty invasive into your life.

So you might still make electric, rocking records?

Yeah. Records, anything can happen. I'm putting the punk rock together for this year and that's it. And then after that, there's plenty of stuff I can do as far as performing. But it won't involve the familiar, the Bob as he looked in history, the Bob as he looked in Sugar, the Bob as he looks this year.

In your press materials you speak a lot about aging gracefully. Do you think rockers have a responsibility to say, "all right, that's it," before things get ugly?

I feel like I do. There's obviously people who don't. Some people can pull it off, some people just don't cross over the bridge as gracefully as they think they do. I just don't want to. It's a scary thought trying to be up there and be, like, flinging all this anger and exuberance around. I don't know ... I still have those emotions, but they're focused in different ways.

I don't write songs anymore because I'm upset. Like, "Oh, the bus didn't show up on time. I'm gonna write a song about how the bus sucks. And I'm gonna be in a punk rock band, and I'm gonna scream it really loud." That's great, when I'm twenty. Then [there's] Buddy Guy, or any number of blues legendary guys, or great jazz players. You can channel it in different ways. I just don't want to do the punk rock after this year. And I used the term "the punk rock" as my catch-all for whenever loud guitar pops up.

Have your well-documented hearing issues have anything to do with hanging up the punk rock?

No. My hearing is fine.

You had tinnitus though, right?

No. This is great, because sometime in the mid- or late-Eighties, like when the Huskers were touring, and it was getting really loud and really constant touring, my head was ringing a lot. I don't know if it was tinnitis, I don't know if it was just the after-effect of playing almost every night for years. But when I get off the road, everything's fine. There's no loss. And it's like an urban legend that sort of spun out of control, and I noticed it as it was doing it. I was like, this is cool, I don't have talk about other stuff. This is like this thing, this angle, this little schmutz I can throw in there that everybody's gonna focus on.

If you would, pontificate a little bit about alternative today and what it means.

It doesn't mean much to me. The electronic stuff is the only thing that's close to that right now in spirit. Because here in town, you go to those things, the only ways you really find out about the ones that are coming up is if you're there at one o'clock when the kids start handing out the little cards for the next one. And that reminds me of punk rock. You know, when Huskers were starting, it was more of that do-it-yourself approach. [That's] not so much [the case] with Rancid, I don't think. To me, it's not about the content sounding familiar. It's sort of the whole spirit of how the music and the sound is made and how you get it to people.

So, to clarify, your opinion on Rancid is that they're not punk rock?

Well, they sound punk rock, but I don't know if they are. I don't dwell on them as much as it seems like they work with the same promoters I work with -- the big tours, and to me that's not punk rock. They're not playing the VFWs.

It has to do with method, not necessarily the sound.

Yeah. It's like, anybody can sound punk rock. Shit. There's karoake machines that do that. It's more about the dissemination of the information than of the content. Just how you choose to take it to people. I think that's where the electronic stuff is ahead right now. Because they're making their own scene.

Looking back on all the touring is there one show that stands out in any way?

Well, I think the one that seemed the most absurd was when Sugar went over to Europe when the Beaster record came out in '93 and we were doing one of those festivals. I had done Glastonbury with Husker, so I knew big, but there was just something funny about the three of us walking out at like 12:15 in the afternoon and the bright sun in this field in Belgium in front of 65,000 people who were waiting for Metallica.

So Metallica came on right after you?

Yeah. Metallica had washers and dryers in flight cases. These things all add up to why I need to stop sometimes. Like, do I want to be doing my laundry in a road case?

So they just like, plug them in when they get to a location or something?

Yeah. It's just like, fuck, man. It's awesome, but it's frightening.

That's one of the pivotal moments for you?

Oh, boy, it answered a lot of questions.

JOE ROSENTHAL