Mac McCaughan and his band Superchunk helped define indie cool at a time when millions of teens and college kids began to reject radio pop and search for something, anything different and authentic. The band's 1990 single, "Slack Motherfucker," (with its brilliant catchphrase: I'm working/but I'm not working for you) was an underground anthem before the term "slacker" ever took hold. And Superchunk's unpolished,  unaffected style – backed by a big, raucously melodic sound completely devoid of the sulky pretentiousness of the emerging grunge sound – became the goal for many a thoughtful kid eager to express himself beyond his Chuck Taylors.

Merge Records, the music label co-founded by McCaughan and Superchunk bassist Laura Balance to put out their music, took root in those days and grew to have a truly remarkable impact on American music. With virtually no money and only seat-of-the-pants industry experience, Merge has become a heart-warming success story in a cultural climate defined by dumbing down and aiming low. It's flourished as a trustworthy imprint known for its unerring quality – with acts like Arcade Fire, the Magnetic Fields, Lambchop and Spoon – and its strong appeal to passionate music lovers (and critics).

A new book, "Our Noise: The Story of Merge Records, the Indie Label That Got Big and Stayed Small,"  written by John Cook, McCaughan and Ballance,  chronicles Merge's fascinating first 20 years.
 
McCaughan spoke with Kerry Lauerman  via Skype about the little label that did, and what launching a band would be like now. (A transcript of the interview follows the video.)
 

 
Do the changes in the music industry in the last 20 years help a label like Merge or make it harder?
 
The stuff I feel like that has changed for the positive is in the realm of distribution. In other words, when we first started Merge we were only putting out cassettes and 7-inches. At a certain point when we started putting out albums and when we did the first Superchunk album with Merge, that record sold more than 20,000 copies, which was a lot of records for us. As the 90s went on and bands like Nirvana got so big, avenues of distribution opened that used to be unavailable to make your labels, and in fact when a band like The Replacements or Husker Du signed to Warner Brothers, or whoever they would sign to, I feel like the real thing that indies could not provide for them at the time was distribution and having your records kind of everywhere. But that ability came to labels during the 90s, I feel like.

So the last thing that majors could offer other than cash -- which they could still offer I suppose -- that last thing was no longer just the property of major labels. It allowed us to really get our records to a lot of places we never could have gotten them when we first started.

You know about halfway through that time period, the Internet became a real part of everyone’s lives, including ours, and then sharing music on the internet became a part of everyone’s lives. I feel like for a label like Merge, even that was a real upside for us. I feel like we’ve tried to see big opportunities in file sharing and people trading music on the Internet, certainly talking about music on the Internet.

Merge has always been a label propelled by word of mouth, too. . .

Exactly, exactly. Because I mean we could never afford to take out ads in the biggest magazines, you know. And now there just aren’t that many magazines period. We really rely, like you said, on word of mouth and the Internet to spread the word about artists on Merge. Again, I always feel like the people we are appealing to on Merge are serious music fans and the best way I think to get them to buy a record is for them to hear it because if they like it, that’s why they’re looking for stuff. Certainly, I feel our biggest records, like an Arcade Fire record or a Spoon album or even a She & Him record, we’re definitely losing sales to people who are just hearing about that band and going online and finding people’s files for free. But again, I feel like those are casual music listeners, and certain bands get big enough that casual music listeners hear something and go see them play concerts and that kind of thing. But I feel like, in general, our core audience that really supports Merge is smaller than the largest audience that’s buying, you know the 400,000 people buying the Arcade Fire record. I feel like we can’t lose too much sleep over, you know, people that are finding that record for free. Now, if we’re putting out a Rosebuds record and half of those people start trying to get that record for free, then that’s a different thing. But I don’t feel like Rosebuds fans want to do that.

If you were launching Superchunk today, what would you have to do differently? Would it make it easier for you to find an audience or harder?
 
You know, in some ways I think it is harder today because I feel like when we started, you could put out a seven-inch, I mean you know [holds up record] this is our first Chunk single when we were still called Chunk…you could pay for 500 copies of something like that and have them in a few important record stores around the country and send a few copies out for review, and people would hear about it. We could play shows on the East Coast having essentially one single out – it’s a lot like (inaudible) in Boston – and I feel like there were just fewer bands and fewer things for people to pay attention to. I feel like it was easier to get people’s attention.

 

Now again, it’s kind of a double-edged sword with the Internet now where you don’t have to put out a record. You can just put some songs up online and reach an audience online without having to go anywhere. In some ways I feel like what we did is kind of still an important part of what artists do, at least artists on Merge, which is tour. It’s the oldest thing in terms of promoting yourself. But I think it is still really one of the things that works the best because I feel if people hear a song, even if they love it, are they going to remember that song, will they remember what it was on a CD? But I think if you see a great show, that can be really moving and that can really stay with you in a way that hearing a song streaming from a site really doesn’t stay with you.