Scott McCaughey is the man of many bands.
You might know him as the founding member of Seattle’s alternative rock band that made its mark in the '80s: Young Fresh Fellows. Or you might know McCaughey from his band The Minus 5, or his work as an auxiliary musician in the studio and on stage with R.E.M.
McCaughey's current band is called The No Ones. R.E.M.’s lead guitarist Peter Buck is one of its members. The No Ones is a bi-continental collaboration that covers a lot of ground including southwest Norway, Athens, Georgia and the Pacific Northwest. And The No Ones cover a lot of ground musically on their latest album, "My Best Evil Friend."
Besides McCaughey and Peter Buck, the other members of The No Ones are two Norwegian musicians — Arne Kjelsrud Mathiesen and Frode Strømstad. McCaughey and Buck met them while performing in various festivals In Norway.
Strømstad sent a couple of tracks to McCaughey to add a bass track to, "and (Strømstad) was kind of singing on them, going 'la-de-da-da-da.'"
McCaughey told Wisconsin Public Radio's "BETA" he asked if the songs had any words.
"And it's like, 'Well, not really — kind of, but not really,'" he recalled Strømstad saying.
Strømstad then asked of McCaughey: "'Do you want to write them?' I was like, 'Sure, I'll try that.' So it made it more of a collaboration. And we thought, 'Well, let's call it a band.'"
Several songs on "My Best Evil Friend" are about being in a band, though McCaughey said this record is more about being a fan of music than about being in bands.
There's a good chance that McCaughey might hold the record for the number of bands he has been in and continues to be a member of. Is this why so many songs have that theme?
"With The Young Fresh Fellows, my first real band, we did a lot of that right from the get-go. We were singing about being in a band when we weren't even really a band at that point."
The fabulous sounds of the Young Fresh Fellows
In 1984, McCaughey and his fellow Fellows released their debut album, "The Fabulous Sounds of the Pacific Northwest."
It's a spectacular album, and one of the things that makes is so distinctive is the way the band used sound clips from a Pacific Northwest Bell promotional record with the very same name.
"Chuck Carroll, the original guitarist of The Young Fresh Fellows, had found that record," McCaughey said. "And we just thought it was super funny because we had just moved to Seattle. So we were sending this tape to all our friends and kind of making fun of the fact that we were in Seattle, and we loved it there."
In 1989, the Young Fresh Fellows released their fifth album, "This One's for the Ladies." One of the songs is a cover version of The Kinks' "Picture Book" from the band's 1968 concept album, "The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society."
The Fellows' bass player, Jim Sangster, really wanted the band to record a cover version of "Picture Book," but McCaughey didn't think he would be able to sing the song. Sangster was adamant, and the result is an excellent cover version and a very creative music video.
The Fellows record with the Viscount of Viroqua, Butch Vig, at Smart Studios in Madison
In March 1991, The Young Fresh Fellows recorded an album called "Electric Bird Digest" here in Madison, Wisconsin, at Smart Studios, which unfortunately no longer exists. And Butch Vig produced this album just a couple of months before he produced Nirvana's iconic "Nevermind" album.
"He (Butch) was just amazing to work with. We had heard a lot of stuff he did with like Killdozer and Urge Overkill. We really liked the sound he got. And we thought, let's let's see how much it would cost to do it. And he was really reasonable. It was just so much fun working with him," McCaughey said.
One of the most intriguing songs on "Electric Bird Digest" is "Swiftly But Gently," which does not sound at all like a typical Young Fresh Fellows song. And that's probably what makes it so intriguing.
"I'm surprised we got it on the record because I guess I just really liked it. And I didn't really even come up with much of a song. It was just a line that I just kept kind of going over and over in my head," McCaughey said.
McCaughey joins R.E.M.
In 1994, McCaughey started working with R.E.M. in the studio and live in concert.
"Peter (Buck) and I had gotten to be pretty good friends over the years," McCaughey said. "We just started playing music together because he likes to play music all the time, as do I."
McCaughey said the Fellows' schedule wasn't busy, and Buck was about to go back on tour with R.E.M. after five years. The band wanted an auxiliary musician and eyed McCaughey because he can play bass, guitar and keyboards.
"And I'm not a real hotshot on any of them because they didn't really want hotshot musicians. So I auditioned, and it worked out really well, and I stayed with them for 18 years," he said.
One of McCaughey's favorite R.E.M. songs to play was "Circus Envy," which he loved because it was a "thrashing rocker," which they didn't play very often.
McCaughey's health scare
McCaughey suffered a really serious health scare in 2017, so we’re fortunate that he is still with us and still writing songs and performing.
When it happened, he was on tour with Alejandro Escovedo and The Minus 5.
"It was an amazing tour. We were having a really great time, and we had a day off in San Francisco, my favorite city, where I used to live. And I was walking down the street and suddenly all the strength sucked out of me, and I was sliding down into the street and just lying there and I couldn't talk or anything," he said.
Two good Samaritans helped McCaughey. They thought that he had suffered a seizure. They called 911, and McCaughey was taken to the hospital, and then to another hospital.
"It wasn't a lot of fun," he said.
McCaughey said one doctor insisted that he was a drug casualty. The doctor didn't identify McCaughey as a stroke victim and didn't order an MRI.
"They finally found out who I was, and Peter Buck came down and was kind of reading the riot act," he said.
The doctor finally ordered an MRI and determined that McCaughey had indeed suffered a stroke. He couldn't talk for a few days and was paralyzed on one side.
"I guess in the long run, I'm really lucky because I'm still fairly functional," he said. "I'm not at the level I was before that. But I can't complain because I'm here and I can still write songs and I can play guitar."
McCaughey explained he had to relearn guitar, because the part of his brain involved in speech was affected by the stroke.
"So I can't remember words now," McCaughey saod. "It's harder for me to write lyrics. But I manage."