Hypnolovewheel once put up a drummer ad listing Moe Tucker, Chris Partridge, Micky Dolenz, Charlie Watts, Jughead and “Simon (Alvin’s Brother)” as reference points. Peter Walsh was the only person who answered. He initially thought they might be looking for several drummers, perhaps some kind of drum corps. Instead, he joined the band.

That was New York in 1986. Dave Ramirez, Stephen Hunking and Dan Cuddy already knew each other from Plastic Device, and with Walsh they became Hypnolovewheel. Soon they were playing CBGB and the Lismar Lounge, putting out their own 7-inch on Snatch-O-Matic and making records that accumulated a small army of devoted listeners without ever becoming particularly easy to classify.

There were five albums between 1988 and 1993: ‘Turn! Turn! Burn!’, ‘Candy Mantra’, ‘Space Mountain’, ‘Angel Food’ and ‘Altered States’. Four people wrote and sang. Pop songs sat next to noise, psychedelia, garage rock and whatever else happened to interest them that week. “We loved noise; we were a very loud band, but deep down we all loved harmonies and a good pop hook,” Ramirez says below. That sounds about right.

They also had an unusually good time wandering through the American underground. Hypnolovewheel played with the Fleshtones, the Jesus Lizard, fIREHOSE, King Missile, the Posies and Kitchens Of Distinction. Steve Albini once came up after a show to inspect their pedals. Thanks to Cuddy’s job at Marvel, the band even turned up in Spider-Man comics.

Now the records are coming back. ‘Parallel Universe’ begins a reissue of the catalogue, with James McNew of Yo La Tengo choosing 15 tracks and another seven rarities added to the collection.

We talked about all of it.

“We loved noise”

James McNew picked the 15 main tracks on ‘Parallel Universe’. When you first saw his choices, did you think they gave a fair picture of the band? Were there any selections that surprised you?

Dave Ramirez: James is certainly one of the top Hypnolovewheel scholars of the 21st century, and I think it’s a great portrait of the band with a few twists. A little light on ‘Altered States’, perhaps, but maybe that’s saying something. We were definitely pleased to see a few “leftfield” picks from the canon like ‘Bronze Bug’ and ‘Call My Hotline’. I’m glad ‘Secret Star’ made it onto the expanded lineup, as it’s one of my faves.

The title ‘Parallel Universe’ seems very fitting for Hypnolovewheel. You were part of the late ’80s and early ’90s American indie scene, but never seemed to fit neatly into it. Did you feel part of a particular scene at the time?

The name ‘Parallel Universe’ had been nailed down as a title for a compilation long before the project actually happened (it’s also a track on our ‘Space Mountain’ LP). So yeah, I guess we always felt like we were a bit of an outsider in that indie rock world. At home in NYC, though, we certainly felt like part of the “scene” on a social level – we were friends with plenty of other bands: Yo La Tengo, Sleepyhead, Antietam, King Missile, Das Damen, etc. — we all went to the same shows together; both each other’s and the multitude of bands who passed through town.

<a href="https://hypnolovewheel1.bandcamp.com/album/parallel-universe">Parallel Universe by Hypnolovewheel</a>

Hypnolovewheel had four writers and four singers. How important was that to the character of the band?

By compressing the band’s name into a fourteen-letter compound, we had definitely already made it difficult to explain quickly! Why not make things even more challenging with four writers and singers!? But yes, it was one of our great strengths and something we were always proud of.

There was always a strong pop side to your songs, but also a lot of noise and unusual guitar sounds. Was that contrast something you thought about, or did it simply come from the way the four of you played together?

I think a lot of it was just that we were all into so many different types of sounds. We were lucky enough to live in a city where you could see a New Zealand pop band like The Chills one night and then get bludgeoned by something like Borbetomagus the next. We loved noise; we were a very loud band, but deep down we all loved harmonies and a good pop hook.

The band grew out of Plastic Device, and then Peter Walsh joined after answering your drummer ad. What do you remember about those early days and the first shows at places like CBGB and Lismar Lounge?

Yeah, we were just being ourselves – the “drummers wanted” flyer made perfect sense at the time, and the second we met Peter, we knew he was on the same wavelength. I think we probably worked harder “not” to be an overtly “funny” band.

Critics described Hypnolovewheel in many different ways, including ’60s pop, garage rock, post-punk and psychedelia. Did any of those descriptions make sense to you at the time?

It’s hard not to want to categorize things. I guess those descriptions are accurate, but we were just trying to make our music based on what we were into and, again, just being ourselves. We definitely weren’t trying to work within any kind of predefined genre.

Dan has described the group as having a “semi coherent collective identity”. With four different writers and singers, what made a song sound like Hypnolovewheel?

Just the way we wrote our songs—one of us would come in with a basic idea and we would bounce it around and around until it became a Hypnolovewheel song. Sometimes it would come together fast, sometimes it would take weeks. So despite the different singing voices, I think there was usually no question it was Hypnolovewheel.

When you hear songs like ‘I Dream Of Jeannie’, ‘Bridget Because’, ‘Peace Of Mind’, ‘Call My Hotline’, ‘Black Hole Of Love’ and ‘Secret Star’ together on ‘Parallel Universe’, do you hear the band differently than you did when they were spread across different records?

If anything, I think it amplifies the story that we were a band with a LOT of different angles and multiple personalities.

You played with bands as different as the Fleshtones, the Jesus Lizard, fIREHOSE, Widespread Panic, King Missile, Kitchens Of Distinction and the Posies. Were there any shows where you felt particularly out of place, or where the audience surprised you?

It was pretty much the story of our life! I think the Jesus Lizard show was both the biggest challenge and the most rewarding set — we were most definitely the odd band out on the bill, but we brought the noise in a big way and wound up being received really well. And Steve Albini, who was running sound for Jesus Lizard, came up to the stage to check out our pedals after our set, so I’d say it was a success.

Comics, cartoons and humour seem to have been part of the band’s world from early on. How important were they to Hypnolovewheel outside the music itself?

Dan and Steve were the two big comic book fans, but we were all pretty obsessed with cartoons and TV commercials. We had a sketch book that lived in our tour van that we all constantly doodled in, and some of those doodles probably wound up becoming song ideas eventually. So I would say yes!

Peter Walsh seems to have brought a lot to Hypnolovewheel. What was distinctive about him as a drummer, songwriter, singer and personality within the band?

He really was our not-so-secret weapon in so many ways. Lots of our highlights originated from the brain of Peter Walsh — the serial-killer-inspired nightmare of ‘Cows’, the pristine and heavenly pop of ‘Bridget Because’, the channelling of Mark E. Smith on ‘Candyman’ – the list is endless.

Dan has said that he wishes the band had taken another six months on ‘Altered States’. Looking back, do you agree with him? Is there anything you would have done differently with that album?

I’d never really considered that until Dan said it recently, and I’m really glad he did, because I think he’s absolutely right. The three albums we did for Alias seem like a blur – one right after the other. The songs were coming fast and furious, and maybe there was a bit of desperation to keep recording, keep touring, keep putting ourselves out there. Maybe taking things slower would’ve been better in hindsight. Lou Giordano was a fantastic match for us as a producer/engineer, but it could’ve been fun and interesting to work with different people. We really did come up with a lot of excellent songs right after ‘Altered States’, ‘Secret Star’ being one, which may have benefited from more attention in the studio.

You now have the rights to the catalogue back. After the records were difficult to find for so long, what does it mean to have the music available again?

We were really excited to get all this music back into our hands, and we will slowly but surely be working to get it all back up and available for everyone. Of course there’s a certain mystique to being some kind of legendary “forgotten” band, but I’ll take having the music available anytime.

When younger listeners discover Hypnolovewheel through ‘Parallel Universe’, what do you hope they understand about the band?

I don’t know what I can add to that! I’m glad the three of us are still good friends, keep in touch and can still work together after all these years.

Would you like to tell us a little about your upbringing? Where did you all grow up, and what were your teenage years like?

Steve and I met when we both wound up in Huntington, Long Island, when we were like 11 or 12 years old, having moved from New York City. Dan moved to town several years later from Buffalo, NY, and we immediately gravitated toward each other. We would meet Peter a few years after that; he grew up in Connecticut and went to college with Dan in NYC.

Daily life in Huntington mostly consisted of seeking out new and weird music as best we could in those pre-internet days. There was a record store in town run by an older head who turned us on to everything from obscure ’60s Japanese garage rock to Devo, the Residents and hardcore punk. That store was pretty much our home away from home.

Was there a particular music scene you felt part of when you were younger?

As mentioned above, there were amazing bands playing in town just about every weekend, and we were constantly shuttling back and forth from CBGB or the Knitting Factory in NYC, out to Maxwell’s in Hoboken and back. It was a really fun and inspiring time.

If we walked into your teenage bedroom, what records, magazines, fanzines or posters would we have found there?

Definitely a large pile of well-worn Creem and Trouser Press magazines. Later on there would be Conflict and Forced Exposure zines in the mix. Mostly gig flyers on the wall. Records strewn all over the place — we were all constantly lending each other things to tape in those days.

And today, what’s currently playing on your turntable?

According to my calculations, my two most played bands in the last year were Autechre and Thee Oh Sees. Two parallel universes, if I do say so myself! And pretty much everything in between.

Klemen Breznikar

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