Back in 2024 Shudder To Think — currently Craig Wedren (vocals), Nathan Larson (guitar), Clint Walsh (guitar), Jherek Bischoff (bass) and Adam Wade (drums) — celebrated the 30th anniversary of their groundbreaking 1994 effort, Pony Express Record, their Epic Records debut, which followed several releases on Dischord Records.
After the initial release of Pony Express Record, the band dove into the world of scoring films and creating music for soundtracks with the 1998 releases of Jesse Peretz’s First Love, Last Rites, Lisa Cholodenko’s High Art and Todd Haynes’ Velvet Goldmine. Shudder to Think’s Wedren and Larson have gone to be prolific film and television with Wedren working on YELLOWJACKETS, Wet Hot American Summer, School of Rock, Laurel Canyon and more; and Larson working on Our Idiot Brother, The Skeleton Twins, Juliet, Naked, the High Fidelity TV series and a list of others.
Last year, the band made their first live performances in over a decade and released the “Thirst Walk”/”Playback” 7 inch, which drew on the band’s classic, beloved sound — melodic, unpredictable and unmistakably their own. The 7 inch vinyl sold out quickly and has been repressed and will be available for their upcoming live shows in Philadelphia, NYC, Los Angeles and at select record stories. As always, tour dates are below, y’all.
Along with the tour, Shudder to Think will be releasing the three-song Who Sent You EP on Friday through Dischord Records. The EP is the first new project from the band from in almost 30 years. The EP will include the previously released, fairly autobiographical EP title track “Who Sent You” and their cover of Depeche Mode’s “Something To Do” off 1984’s Some Great Reward.
The original version of “Something To Do” was built with plinking synths and early 1980s industrial clang and clatter beneath Dave Gahan’s youthfully earnest and yearning vocal expressing boredom, pent-up frustration, horniness from the perspective of a suburban teenager. The Shudder To Think Take digs deep into nostalgia and taps into that same boredom, frustration, horniness of their own youth and of their love of Depeche Mode while pairing it with a snarling punk rock arrangement. Their take adds a bit more danger while reminding the listener of what it felt like as a bored teenager trying to make your own fun — before the weight of consequences got too big.
The band says this about their cover: “For some of us, the album Some Great Reward by Depeche Mode represents the pinnacle of their brilliance and creativity,
“Not that they didn’t make insanely wonderful music – singles and albums both – after that, but SGR was the crescendo of their first phase, where indelible pop hooks collided with kid-in-candy-store synth experiments, and impossible yearning fumbled with the bra clasps of the blackest bedroom malaise. After that, their albums became more mature and refined, less messy.
“There’s a garish audacity to Some Great Reward that perfectly soundtracked a kind of suburban teenager, wild on the inside, about to burst, misunderstood, romantic as fuck.
“The song ‘Something To Do’ kicks off the album, and it’s a semi-forgotten (relative to other DM singles), under-appreciated banger about being young, angsty, bored, and horny (“put your leather boots on”) in an old, run down industrial town. It’s about being miserable and making your own fun – dangerous and thrilling, but in that young way where consequences haven’t yet revealed themselves (those would come on later DM records).
When we were making the new Shudder album, “Something To Do” came on the (satellite) radio and jogged Craig’s sense-memory back to sixteen, on a family trip to Israel, in love and hate with everyone and everything, candy-flipping the cassette in his Walkman from Some Great Reward to XTC’s English Settlement and the great Dukes Of Stratosphere.[SIC] A girl named Robin and a girl named Julie..
“Anyway, we HAD to cover it.
So, minutes after finishing basic tracks for the final song on the album, we quickly learned its structure and let it rip, maybe three takes, no corrections.
Our pal (and Craig’s brother-in-law), the great Thomas Lennon, happened to be visiting and stood in a circle with us while we threw it down. Tom’s a big Depeche Mode fan and a big Shudder To Think fan, so his energy and enthusiasm completed the circuit and gave us just the energy we needed. “
“Often at the end of a project there’s magic gunk left at the bottom of the fuel tank, like potent resin at the bottom of the bowl. This was that.”