Interview: Mark Gardener

In 1990, Jane’s Addiction told us that “The world is loaded / It’s lit to pop and nobody is gonna stop”, which in retrospect might be viewed as presaging the explosion of exciting music in the early 90’s. Grunge was launched in 1991 with Nirvana’s Nevermind and Pearl Jam’s Ten, a year that also saw the release of My Bloody Valentine’s Loveless and Slint’s Spiderland. Hot on the heels in 1992 were the amazing debut albums by Rage Against the Machine, PJ Harvey, and Liz Phair. One could go on and on.

An album that belongs in this rarefied company is Nowhere by the band Ride, released in 1990 and regularly hailed as one of the quintessential albums of the shoegaze genre typified by whooshing distorted guitars and hypnotic vocals. Ride went on to release several more albums before imploding in 1996. A key component of Ride’s sound was the guitar and vocals of Mark Gardener, who answered the following questions by email, received on 9/26/14. This served as the basis for a preview article for Gardener’s “solo acoustic loop show” at SOhO in Santa Barbara on 10/9/14.