Mike Krol

Turkey

2015 · Debut for Merge

In baseball, a strike is a missed opportunity. Three of them and you're out.

In bowling's hallowed alleys, a strike is the minor miracle of all ten pins falling at once. Back-to-back strikes make a double. Do it a third time and you've got yourself a turkey.

History will decide which sports metaphor to apply to Mike Krol's first two records, I Hate Jazz (2011) and Trust Fund (2013). But as needle meets groove on Turkey—Krol's first record for Merge—there is no ambiguity. A shiny black ball tumbles past the suburban strip malls of a polyestered Wisconsin and veers precariously close to an East Coast gutter before gathering momentum in a physics-defying sprint for the Pacific. California is where the headpin falls—the right velocity, the perfect geometry, the bowler's intent beautifully realized in a noisy moment of awesome destruction.

Mike Krol got his bike stolen and his heart broken. He bailed on graphic-design-as-career. He kept playing drums and guitars, and he kept writing songs about the stuff he hated and the stuff he loved. Leaving Milwaukee for Los Angeles, he took a few years' worth of wrong turns. But when he showed up at a studio in Sacramento in March 2014, he had his affairs in order. Plug the vocal mic into a guitar amp. Plug the guitar into an overheating box of vacuum tubes. Put the computer in the closet. Roll the tape.

Some people thought Mike Krol couldn't do it. Mike Krol was not among them. From the mission manifesto of "Suburban Wasteland" to the alienation and vitriol of "Left Out (ATTN: SoCal Garage Rockers)," Turkey questions the world but does not question itself. It knows what it's after: explanations from a thoughtless thief, a soulless scene, and a dead dog. A certain degree of revenge. The house but not the kids. You. It is sweet melodies sneered, Mountain Dew guitars, VU needles buried in the red. It is a record 30 years in the making, made in four days.

Those who know Mike Krol know that this record was his goal. He risked a great deal for a turkey.

Goal accomplished, the question becomes: what do you call a fourth strike?

Mike Krol Is Never Dead

2017 · The First Two Records

On Mike Krol Is Never Dead: The First Two Records, we catch up—with the past, that is.

Indeed, Turkey, released in 2015, is Chapter 3 of the Krol saga; here are its long-lost predecessors. Self-released in 2011, I Hate Jazz was the opening salvo of World War Krol. Only 500 copies were pressed; they were given away to anyone who showed interest (and many who showed none whatsoever). Including Krol classics like "Fifteen Minutes" and "Like a Star," the record had long been unavailable.

Trust Fund followed in 2013; its 500 copies sold out on the ensuing tour, fueling a mini-mania that would elevate it to cult status.

Power Chords

2019 · Third Merge album

Of all the breakups in Mike Krol's songs, the most harrowing story is about his breakup with music.

In 2015, coming off of his best record yet and the ensuing world tour, Krol found himself in the midst of a full-blown existential crisis. He'd invested everything to create the rock-and-roll life he'd always wanted, but he wasn't sure the life wanted him back.

Power Chords, Krol's new Merge release, picks up where 2015's Turkey left off. It traces Krol's journey back to punk rock, harnessing both the guitar technique and the musical redemption referenced in its title. To rediscover the power in those chords, Krol recorded for two-plus years in three separate locations (Nashville, Los Angeles, and Krol's native Wisconsin). The record opens in a howling maelstrom of feedback: welcome to Krol's crucible. After a stage-setting spoken-word intro ("I used to never understand the blues, until the night I met you. And every day since, I've gotten better at guitar"), we find ourselves back in familiar Krol territory—aggressive and assertive, scratchy and raw, catchy as hell—but something has changed. The sounds have a new density—and so do the stories. Krol's lyrics have always walked a fine line between self-acceptance and self-destruction, but throughout Power Chords, they reveal a new sense of self-awareness. "Without a little drama I grow bored and sick of all my days," he sings on "Little Drama," and it's just one revelatory moment on a record full of them.

Of course, none of this is to say that Krol has mellowed. You might find a mea culpa or two, but Mike Krol will never be chastened. If anything, he's out more for revenge than forgiveness, and if he's grown, it's because he's grown bolder. He's wielding the same influences—Misfits, The Strokes, early Weezer, Ramones—but turning up the gravity and the gain. Indeed, Krol has gone somewhere new; yes, he bludgeoned himself with over-analysis and self-loathing, but along the way he stumbled upon a trove of intricate guitar lines and artfully mutating melodies. It's there in the chorus of "Blue and Pink," the bridge in "I Wonder," the entirety of the deliriously infectious first single, "An Ambulance."

Music ruined Krol's life. And then saved it. In chronicling that process, Krol has made his best record—painful, voyeuristic, and angry, but ultimately transcendent and timeless. It is the sound of Krol giving in to a force greater than himself, as though the chords are playing him rather than the other way around.