The Drawback to Living: Unwound on Grief, Gratitude, and Finding Yourself

Nearly 25 years ago, the group some called “the best band of the ‘90s” suddenly pulled the plug. Now they’ve returned, catalyzing crushing loss into joy. Here’s how they came back from the abyss.

Unwound playing in 2024; photograph by Christopher Ruhlen

Was Unwound really the best band of the ‘90s? I’ll say this: If you were at all interested in underground music at the turn of the millennium, you were at least aware of them. Haunted, jagged, wrenching and beautiful, they sounded like no one else. Then, in the midst of promoting their 2001 album Leaves Turn Inside You, widely hailed as an artistic breakthrough, they disbanded, leaving fans—and themselves—stunned.

All three members of the band—Sara Lund, Vern Rumsey, and Justin Trosper—pursued music with varying amounts of visibility. While rumors of a reformation surfaced from time to time, Rumsey’s 2020 death—aged 47, of complications from alcoholism—seemed to quell them for good.

Then, in the summer of 2022, the surviving members of Unwound announced they were reforming, joined by Scott Seckington on guitar and Jared Warren on bass. Since then, the band has toured nationally and internationally to rapturous acclaim.

How do artists so associated with a time and place—the Olympia, WA punk scene of the 1990s—reinvent themselves? How does loss—and its inverse, joy—change us? I recently sat down with Justin and Sara to explore the band’s current phase.

The Art of Reinvention

Seth: The Unwound I see now is not a reunion; it is a reinvention. What aspects of your reappearance are premeditated or conscious?

Justin: It's hard to say. I can't deny there was forethought, but we didn't have a formal plan or even thought experiments or anything exactly. I think it was like: It has to be good.

Sara: We cannot half-ass this. This has got to be all or nothing.

Justin: It has to be as good or better. We didn't care that much about quality control back then. When you're first starting out, a lot of it is just: I love doing this; this is so much fun. But there's all kinds of errors or sloppiness, and that’s totally acceptable, and sometimes also the focus is just pure energy. It's something that you have in your 20s. And you don't want to polish it so much that it doesn't look real anymore, or looks like…

Sara: …We used to say “airbrushing things.”

Justin: We don't airbrush things, right? But anybody can airbrush right now. I go into kind of research mode, analyze: What did bands do that got back together? What was good or bad about it? I've gone to reunions, and I definitely have a…I wouldn't say hang-up exactly, but maybe [I’m] more self-conscious about being older. Because when I was younger, I thought when people my age played in bands, they usually sucked. And you listen to the recordings they do, and they've gone down these terrible digital….

Seth: Give me some names.

Justin: Oh, like the ‘60s-type people like The Who and things like that. I mean, we're literally…we are older than some of those people were in the ‘90s. I think we were a little bit futuristic. Some of the songs really do feel attached to a ‘90s thing. But I think we were able to synthesize enough…

Sara: …We also weren't really listening to ‘90s music.

Justin: But I was a big music fan. I spent a lot of time researching—I wouldn't have called it that then. After our initial phase of being influenced by the limited amount of music we had and bands we saw, like Nirvana or the Melvins, these things that we wanted to imitate initially, that helped [create] the stuff we came up with.

It also is very distinctly that time, right? It's so easy now to artificially do music through technology. And there's a YouTube video for everything, like: How do you play this song? Or how do you get that pedal chain? Everything is available. So there's an authenticity I think, not just to us, but to people that were playing music before the 2000s.

And then reinventing. I mean, having another guitar player really changes things. We did that in the last tour (in 2001). We had extra musicians, and that was: We can see where this might go, you know? We are kind of reinventing it in a weird way, or just imitating the record better, because all the guitars were doubled, right? And so it does sound more like the records and a little bit less like our live shows.

That's how a lot of people relate to the band. Because unless you're our age, you didn't see the band. [After] a couple decades of filters, you're like: I don't really remember. I do kind of remember, because if I watch a video or something, I’m like: Oh yeah, that was crazy sounding.

We [recently] played a show in Australia, and it felt just like a ‘90s show, because it was so fucking crazy sounding. The sound on stage was, like, loud feedback. I was like: God, this is, like, the most ‘90s show! Also some of these clubs require audience barriers, which is so artificial feeling, and that show they were right up on the stage.

The Time Machine

Seth: Sara, yesterday we were talking about the infrastructure of music. How you're not getting your friends to go on tour with you to help carry stuff anymore; there's money people and insurance policies, all these things we didn't have to think about back then. And so I'm almost imagining a science-fiction story about time travel: A band from the ‘90s is entombed in ice and then pops back 30 years later, and they’re like: What is even happening now?

Sara: That was basically our experience two years ago! Like, “Encino Man”…

Seth: …But funnier?

Justin: I mean the obvious, big thing is: We existed before the internet was effectively what it is. I mean, I think Sara might have been the first person (I knew) who had email, because of college. To build on your analogy, [it’s] almost like you're digging through the internet versus reality. Like we were in this Paleozoic zone, and now we're in the Anthropocene of the internet.

So the archeologists that found us, or found the artifact, you know…it’s like biotech companies bringing back extinct species. They're talking about this wolf, the dire wolf that came back, and they're like: Oh, you know, it's just going to live in this artificial, 200-acre compound and won't ever be released into the wild.

How does this thing that basically went extinct before…if you just pluck it out and throw it into this new world, what is it? Does it acclimate? Does it do the same thing it did in a new context?

Sara: Seeing the kids [at shows], in the beginning of 2023 it was still really people just emerging from lockdown. I did feel like I was watching this sort of LARPing situation, where these kids were like: This is how they did it on YouTube, you know? Oh, this is slam dancing, and this is stage diving.

Which was silly, but ultimately it was with such joy behind it. Looking out over this sea of young people with huge smiles on their faces. I don't think there was really a place in the room for joy in the ‘90s, you know? I don't ever remember looking out and seeing anyone smile. Not that they weren't enjoying themselves, but it just wasn’t….

Seth: …But enfolded in that joy there’s also poignance. I can't speak for the rest of the audience, but when I feel the energy in these rooms, it's not: Oh, it was so good in 1994. Because a lot of things were shitty in 1994. What I feel is: Thank you. And I don't think I'm the only one.

Sara: It’s important to bring in gratitude. I don't think when we were in it we knew what we had, because we were too busy being in it. To be able to revisit it and recognize its value, making it a thing that's bigger than the parts….

I think gratitude is a thing that comes with age. It's something that we try to force our children to understand all the time by making them say “thank you,” but that's not actually teaching them gratitude; that’s something you have to learn through experience. You have to learn the experience of loss and of connection to be grateful for the things that you have.

I am, like, unbelievably grateful for this music. That I have the opportunity. I'm so lucky that I ended up in that room with those two guys—especially as a drummer, I could have ended up in all kinds of shitty bands. I would have honed my craft in a different way, because the three of us became the players that we were by playing together.

The music that we made has taken on…maybe it's just a nostalgia thing that's fueling it right now, but I'd like to think it has a little bit of a timeless element. It's not totally nailed to that ‘90s scene in a way that a lot of music from that time really is.

And to be able to come back and play it now, and to be physically able to play it, my body is so excited to be moving in those ways, to be sitting at the drums and playing those drum beats, my body's just like: Oh my God, I know!

On Finding Meaning in Loss

Seth: For me, one thing that's in the room [now] is loss. Sara, you were talking about a cancer support group (in September, 2024, Lund announced a breast cancer diagnosis; she’s currently in remission). And earlier I invoked Vern’s name….

Sara: I mean, that's the biggest, most obvious kind of dramatic change. What if you had really pulled the DNA out of the ice and it included Vern? What would that be?

And there's different strands that have been added. You know, having Scott and Jared, it's just different, I mean…there’s so many what-ifs when it comes to thinking about Vern, but just for a minute, to try and pretend like everything went well for him, and he was still….

If we took 25-year-old Vern, and then aged him in a healthy way to now, he would have been way more on top of this new world. He was the one who would make sure the van was running, and he was the one who would have a conversation with a lawyer. He would talk to the booking agent, he would talk to the promoter, he would settle up, he would count the money. He would do all that stuff. And as he sort of started losing his ability to do that, that's when it became more obvious to us, like: Oh wait, if he's not doing it, who is? But I try and imagine the 2020s version of Unwound with the extrapolated 25-year-old Vern in there. I don't know. I can’t…I can't do it.

Seth: So there’s a weird crux in there. I think about a time when punk really was a haven for truly marginal people, for people who literally could not fit anywhere else in the world. And I'm not saying that was Vern—I mean, he was super-functional in some ways. But there's a poignancy in there too. This was the world in which you guys formed, and then this is the world in which you find yourself now. And not all of you made that leap.

Sara: Someone said to me recently: It's a shame that you couldn't have somehow made things right with Vern before he passed. And my response was: I feel like that's what we're doing now. I mean, especially in that first tour two years ago. That felt like we were healing the Vern wound. You know, he was there; he was in the room with us in the only way that he could be….

Justin: Yeah, that's a good way to think about it. I mean, there's just the whole thing of figuring out how to grieve, right? For me, when he died, it was sort of…it wasn't shocking. It was a surprise, but not a shock. Vern was…you know, I didn't cut him out of my life ever. He was always welcome, you know, but in my own way I'm pretty good at compartmentalizing. And so when he died…initially, it was very sad and put me kind of into a tailspin for a while. But I was already ready for it, in a way.

Like Sara was saying, the tour has really helped kind of sew up that thing that we couldn't quite do with him, you know? And we were able to experience a good kind of positive grieving-type activity, or ritualize through the music in an honoring type of way. We don't have a mission statement, but there's sort of like a non-defined legacy that you want to keep honoring, right? Otherwise it becomes…then it becomes not what it really is.

Sara: I guess that's the legacy. The integrity is our connection to the original DNA.

Photo by Michael Galinsky

The Drawback to Living

Seth: I tend to focus on music over lyrics. I don’t recall your albums having lyric sheets, and live you often couldn’t hear the vocals super-well either. So right before I started talking with you, for some reason I was called to pull up the lyrics to “Corpse Pose,” which is probably your best-known song. This is what the internet thinks:

“The drawback to living is finding yourself.”

Is that the correct lyric?

Justin: Yeah, yeah. It is, yeah.

Sara: And is that sentiment correct? Well…

Seth: I’m struck by that, because it’s the germ of the idea that prompted me to talk with you in the first place. Because I go to your shows and I have this really deep confrontation with loss: The loss of people, the loss of a scene and a sense of connection—and also the growth of many new things, too. So I think it's poignant that I saw this lyric just before talking with you. Does it still stand?

Justin: Well, it's like a koan, right? It wasn't really my intention then, but when I look at it now, I see it more like that. If you're thinking about the process of life, of a living person versus a dead person, has the dead person found themselves? Is finding yourself a good thing or a bad thing, or is it just neither? You're just seeing the truth about yourself or the truth about your life, whatever that storyline is. So it's imbued with irony. Well, the drawback to living is eventually you're going to figure out the truth about yourself, right?

The Future of What?

Seth: So now you’ve come full circle—or several circles. What now? Do you write more music? Do you keep sharing what you've already done?

Justin: We're into year three on doing this reinvention / reunion thing. There's things that make sense for either creative or business reasons. We're getting close to exhausting the sort of novelty energy of playing. The first year was like a big picture career-spanning thing, and then we kind of focused a little bit on one record last year, but also, at the same time, we're hitting new markets. And so that's kind of what we're doing. We’re checking these boxes.

At some point, we run out of new markets. We run out of things we haven't played. And so then that eventually pushes you; you either make a new record and start the thing over again, or you ratchet back and you call it good, or whatever the decision ends up being.

So you want to avoid the trap of being forced into any one of those decisions. You see that all the time, right? People get trapped into making life decisions because they're forced by economic reasons—you know, as a creative person, that’s the worst. I mean, not for everybody, but for people that want to feel like they're progressing or evolving, you don't want to be forced into churning out garbage, you know, just to have something to do.

I kind of fluctuate back and forth. And some of that decision-making is like: Well, the best business decision is to make something called Unwound, because the market's built for it. There's also the risk. The risk is making a record and it being a dud commercially, or making a record that sucks—and I don't think we would make a record that sucks. But it could be quite a process, and so we wouldn't necessarily get it done in time for the market. You know, people say: Why don't you record a single? But I would rather just cook the whole fish, you know? It's not…we’re not giving you just french fries.

Sara: I was having a conversation with someone who is a fan of music but has very little knowledge about how it works from the inside. And I was talking about how we're playing these album shows, and he was like: Well, how do you feel about the order of the songs? I mean, are you okay playing them in the order they were on the record, or was that something that, like, some producer guy made you do? And I was just like: What are you talking about? No, no! We very consciously sequenced these records, built them, you know, as a whole thing, as a unit. Even “the singles” were often just songs that didn't fit on the record.

I would just add that we feel it would be a shame not to try, but we have not yet tried, and given the amount of work that we still put into making the shows we’re committed to, just there hasn't really been the time and the space to to try it out. So we'll see.

Writing the Book, Closing the Book

Justin: I kind of don't like doing interviews, but I knew that we'd be talking about more interesting things [with you]. It's like digging up Vern's grave in public. I'm kind of done doing that. I'm like: There's a book (Unwound 1991 - 2091, Numero Group, 2023). Literally, there's a book. Everything's in there. Go read it.

But I'm pretty happy playing the shows and letting it kind of just be that way: Here, come to the show. Experience the music, and we're going to do our best. And not analyzing it too much, but it is fun here and there to tease out meaning in the story.

I mean, talk about gratitude? We're very lucky, not only to have just made it through the ups and downs of life, but, like…people want to listen to this stuff? I mean, we have people to thank for that, people that pushed it and boosted it.

I mean, if you went back in the time machine and had me designing this, I'd be like: No, we're not going to be doing that. At one point I was very stubborn about it. And there was another point where I just didn't want to do it. I'm very honored, but there's also a part of me that's like: This is just shit I made up when I was a young man. And I didn't know what the fuck I was talking about to be honest, you know?

But then, when you bring up that line (from “Corpse Pose”), I'm like: I do like that line. I stand behind it because it felt a little bit wiser than I probably was, you know?

Seth: That's the thing about art: Even when you're making it, you often don't know what it is until it's done—or sometimes long after it's done.

Justin: Yeah. That's how it works. Does it stand, does it make more sense? If it makes more sense later, sometimes that's really the thing. Like: I don't know if this is any good. Or there's other things that you're like: I know this isn't any good, but I have to do it. And then later you're like: Oh yeah! Perspective, right?