Before Wilmington show, Mountain Goats singer talks old gigs at The Soapbox, vengeance

"I'm doing this for revenge!"

So proclaims John Darnielle, the lead singer of veteran North Carolina indie rock act The Mountain Goats, on new song "Training Montage." Which seems appropriate, considering that the upcoming album of which "Training Montage" is a part is billed (via press release) as "a song cycle about the allure — and futility — of vengeance."

It's also very on-brand, a continuation of the culturally astute, emotionally intense and tuneful rock 'n' roll that that has earned The Mountain Goats and Darnielle a loyal following over the past quarter-century and 20-plus albums.

On Friday, Aug. 19, The Mountain Goats — Darnielle, along with bandmates Peter Hughes, Matt Douglas and Jon Wurster  — return to Wilmington to play a concert at the Brooklyn Arts Center. It's the first show on a tour in support of new album "Bleed Out," which will also be released Friday, on acclaimed Durham-based label Merge Records.

Darnielle is a four-time novelist as a well as a songwriter, and has a particular fascination with the primal (and sometimes dark and destructive) urges that can drive human thoughts and behavior.

During a phone interview last week, Darnielle talked about the emotion-evoking tenor of his songs, what it was like to have an unexpected viral hit with the 20-year-old tune "No Children" last year and his memories of playing the late, lamented Wilmington music venue The Soapbox, which closed in 2013.

StarNews: Do you  have any memories of past Wilmington shows? I seem to recall the Mountain Goats playing the old Soapbox music venue back in the day.

John Darnielle: We played The Soapbox a number of times. Wilmington's a great place. We're starting our touring there this year, but it's always nice to conclude a tour at a beach town, and playing at The Soapbox was super-cool. I remember a long load-out (there). You know Jackson Browne's song called "The Load Out"? The end of the night for musicians is different from other people's day jobs. You spend all day getting to where you're going to play. You do sound check. You play, and at the end of the night it drags out a long time as you break everything back down. Any of the Soapbox shows had special (moments). I especially remember the AC was really good, once there weren't too many people left in the room.

SN: In terms of the new album, "Bleed Out," where are you with streaming and the way that music is consumed now? Is listening to music today a fundamentally different experience than it was, you know, 20 or 40 years ago?

JD: It can be. That's what the beauty of music is, I think. People do it all kinds of ways and always have. There's more availability and more stuff (now), although I think it's a canard to say that means that everything's available to everybody. That never really happened. There's more stuff on YouTube, I think, but the (streaming) services are actually fairly narrow in terms of what all is available. You still do have to go dig in the crates to find everything. It's undeniable that people do have more individual song lists and do more curation of their daily music stream, but I think also people probably have more music in their lives on a daily basis than they used to. It's more omnipresent now.

SN: You guys had a bit of a moment a year or so ago when your song "No Children" went viral on TikTok almost 20 years after you first recorded it. Did you see that coming? And how did it affect you and the band?

JD: It was completely organic and nothing to do with us, in a way. I didn't really catch wind of it until it was going on for a little while. And then people started tagging me on Twitter (laughs). I mean, we're all men in middle age. And I think it would have been unseemly to sort of, like, show up — people were happy, enjoying the music — like a dad at the party trying to be cool. We didn't really do anything in response.

SN: Well, I guess you guys did it before Kate Bush went viral with "Running Up That Hill" on "Stranger Things." It's a similar thing, but it's cool that people are rediscovering the old stuff.

JD: That's another great thing about streaming. There's almost no such thing as old stuff online, right? People are hyped for new stuff. But all the old stuff is right there, waiting for somebody to go, "Hey, it's cool." It's a banquet.

SN: I often hear, and I'm sure you've heard, fans of your band describe your music or your songs as cathartic. I've got a friend who told me that your song "This Year" was basically the theme song for one of the worst years of her life. Knowing that people experience your music that way, how does it affect you as an artist?

JD: It's very humbling and it makes me very grateful. It's beautiful, you know, because that's what music that I love is for me. That's one of the beautiful things about music. Sometimes it can save your life. Sometimes it just eases your path a little bit. Sometimes it's a distraction. It's like a universally applicable drug for any need. My thing is, I hope to make stuff that is useful. And (connecting with fans) makes me feel like I'm succeeding and then it makes me feel great.

SN: Your new song "Training Montage" is wonderful. It's got the line "I'm doing this for revenge," and the theme of the album is, you know, we all have the urge to take revenge but we can't because then we'd be monsters. But we still want to. Why is the idea still so appealing?

JD: What's appealing about it is also what makes it wrong. Many of these primal urges are ones we have to mitigate in the real world, because of the way our brains evolved. You know, cats don't generally mitigate their primal impulses. They see something, they kill it. Although, they learn, because they're a domesticated animal, which is basically what we are. I don't think it's possible to not have experiences and then want to pay somebody back for some wrong. Everyone's going to be wrong. You never outgrow your primal urges. They're always going to be there.

SN: It often feels like there's a violence to your music, an emotional violence whether it's being experienced or meted out. How does that edge find its way in there and why do you keep exploring it?

JD: It's sort of just there. It's how I express. I'm not actually a physically violent person, but I always (had) violence in my heart. I watch gore movies or action movies for this. I also can enjoy more measured stuff, you know, but I'm reading a novel called "Hurricane Season" (by Fernanda Melchor) and that thing is absolutely, you know, just an extremely physical book. Some of us are built for knocks, right?

Contact John Staton at 910-343-2343 or John.Staton@StarNewsOnline.com. 

WANT TO GO?

Who: The Mountain Goats, with MJ Lenderman

When: 7 p.m. Friday, Aug. 19

Where: Brooklyn Arts Center, 516 N. Fourth St., Wilmington

Info: Tickets are $40, plus taxes and fees. 

Details: 910-859-4615 or BrooklynArtsNC.com

This article originally appeared on Wilmington StarNews: Mountain Goats' John Darnielle talks album Bleed Out, plays Wilmington