The fractured, 28-year history of Scottish indie-pop duo The Vaselines, in brief: In the mid-’80s, Eugene Kelly and Frances McKee were a couple in a band. They stopped being a couple and then stopped being a band, with only one full-length, 1989’s “Dum-Dum,” to show for it.
They reunited temporarily to open for Nirvana at their peak, because Kurt Cobain (famously) loved them. Because Nirvana would eventually cover three of their songs (including “Molly’s Lips” and “Jesus Doesn’t Want Me for a Sunbeam”) it was the kind of love that paid Kelly’s mortgage for years.
The Vaselines, who play the Empty Bottle on Wednesday, got back together for good (as far as Kelly knows, though as you’ll read, he isn’t really sure) in 2006, and have released two discs in what for them qualifies as rapid succession: “Sex With an X” (2010) and “V for Vaselines” (2014), the latter resembling a lively, grown-up Ramones record.
In a recent phone interview (meant for two: Frances never showed up), Kelly talked about life in the Vaselines. In short: It’s complicated.
The following is an edited transcript of that conversation.
Q: Are the Vaselines your primary focus, or just a nice outlet? How central are they to your life after all this time?
A: I think it’s just a part of our life. I think for me, I don’t really have anything else going on. I don’t have any real interests — I have things that I do, I watch films in the theater — but this is the only thing I’ve got for work. Frances teaches yoga and has a family, so it’s not as central to her.
Q: A Pitchfork review of your new album suggests that since the start of your career, you’ve been doomed by terrible timing. Do you look at it that way?
A: I think it worked out as it should, really. We both know that the best thing we did was split up many years ago, and also Nirvana recording our songs. Then we did nothing for 20 years. It (adds) mystery, and an audience, where 20 years ago there was no audience. If we’d kept together in the early ’90s, we’d have definitely split up and never got back together. … People have asked us why we didn’t get back together in ’91, when Nirvana recorded our songs, but we were doing different things. To go straight back into the Vaselines just because someone was recording our songs — we’re kind of happy with the way it worked out.
Q: Did you talk about getting back permanently at the time?
A: We never really talked about it. We enjoyed what we were doing. We saw The Vaselines as something that was in the beginning of our careers, and wasn’t really something to go back to. In 2006, we did some acoustic shows together, and made that connection again.
Q: When you broke up the first time, did you go out with a bang, or a whimper? Was it amicable?
A: It was a lot of different things. Frances and I were a couple, and we split. We talked about keeping the band together and continuing, but the distribution company went bankrupt and the outlet for releasing records had gone, and no one was really knocking on our door to put out a Vaselines record. The scene had changed, and had gone to Manchester and the Stone Roses. That was the new thing. We were kind of old hat by the time we’d split up. We’d had our moment.
Q: Your first few albums were synonymous with (the concerns of) frustrated teenagers. Now how comfortable do you feel channeling that?
A: When we wrote the lyrics for this album, we couldn’t really repeat what we did in the past. There are some songs even from the first record, like “Teenage Superstars,” that we just can’t play anymore, because I can’t sing that song onstage anymore. It’s from the perspective of a snotty 17-year-old having an argument with his mum. I can’t channel that. We tried it once, but I said, “I can’t do it, I can’t sing those lyrics. I can’t be that person.” On this album, it’s definitely from the perspective of people in their late 40s instead of teenagers.
Q: The last song on the last album, “Exit the Vaselines,” really did seem like an actual swan song. Did you mean it that way at the time?
A: We did think at the time that would be it. We didn’t really see ourselves making another record. When we were making this record we were annoyed — we wished we hadn’t used that title so we could’ve used it for an album title. … Every record we make, we don’t know what’s going to happen next, so the last two records have got a goodbye kind of vibe (on their last tracks), like, this is the last song on the record, and it might be the last song we ever make.
Q: Would you rather there be more certainty?
A: It’s kind of exciting, but I would love to know we had dates on the calendar up until November, and were going to tour and be successful and make some money doing it, enough to make another record. But we don’t know what’s gonna happen, and it’s kind of worrying. It’s not a good (position) to be in, not knowing what’s going to happen in a few months.
When
: 9 p.m. Wednesday
Where: Empty Bottle, 1035 N. Western Ave.
Tickets: $20 (21+); 773-276-3600 or Ticketweb.com
Twitter @chitribent
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