Afghan Whigs Return 'Unbreakable'

Posted on Mar 22nd 2007 12:19PM by Steve Baltin
Comments

The Afghan Whigs will get a well-deserved retrospective, 'Unbreakable,' due May 1, but former Whigs frontman Greg Dulli is quick to point out that the collection is not a greatest hits. "We didn't have any hits. We were an album band," he told Spinner. "I felt very strange picking songs out of their context just as a primer for someone who may have heard of us [or] never heard us. We put together an overview of the 13, 14 years we spent together."

Given that the Whigs -- who started on Sub Pop just before the grunge explosion -- were flirting with stardom with the stunning 'Gentlemen,' yet never had any "hits," is Dulli surprised by the attention the band still commands? "Not at all," he says. "I think we were a great rock 'n' roll band that turned a lot of people on, put on great shows and were incredibly loyal to our audience as they were to us. I think it's rather apropos."

In fact, Dulli says the band still gets offers to reunite. And while they did so for two new songs on this collection -- 'I'm a Soldier' and 'Magazine' -- that's the extent of their reformation. "We're not going to do any shows," he says. "We knew that going in. We knew it the day we broke up."

But that doesn't mean he didn't enjoy going back one more time. "I will say, almost without a fault, I had incredibly great memories. Anything that was ever negative about being in that band fell to the wayside."