As a founding force in Hüsker Dü, the pivotal post-hardcore band that shaped much of the 1980s, Grant Hart helped fuse ferocious noise with melodic songcraft. Once the group dissolved in 1987, his solo path unfolded unevenly, interrupted by long gaps. After issuing a lone solo album he assembled the trio Nova Mob in 1989; that unit produced two records across 1991–1994 before Hart resumed working alone.
In St. Paul during the late 1970s he joined Bob Mould on lead vocals and guitar plus Greg Norton on bass to create Hüsker Dü, where Hart handled drums and lead vocals. Through the first half of the 1980s the band cultivated a devoted underground following before reaching wider audiences with the 1984 album Zen Arcade. Within two years they moved to Warner, one of the earliest independent acts of the decade to secure a major-label deal. Despite the potential for broader success, radio and other industry sectors largely ignored them, while internal tensions mounted amid collective drug problems and an increasingly bitter contest between Hart and Mould. By late 1987 the trio collapsed; accounts differ on whether Hart resigned or was dismissed over his heroin use.
Spring 1988 brought his first post-band release, the mostly acoustic 2541 EP on SST—the label that had once housed Hüsker Dü—its title taken from the former band office and studio address. Later that year he completed the full-length Intolerance entirely on his own.
Still in 1989 he launched Nova Mob, whose debut single “All of My Senses” appeared in 1990. The following year Rough Trade issued the Admiral of the Sea EP, and the band’s first album, the rock opera The Last Days of Pompeii, arrived. After that project the group went quiet until resurfacing with the self-titled Nova Mob in 1994. Hart then disbanded the trio without announcement and remained silent for two years until the British live acoustic set Ecce Homo surfaced in 1996. Good News for Modern Man followed in 1999.
The ensuing decade found him largely withdrawn from music while he explored other creative outlets. A notable exception came in 2005 when he rejoined Bob Mould onstage at a benefit for Soul Asylum bassist Karl Mueller, who was then fighting cancer. Hart re-emerged in 2009 with Hot Wax, which earned favorable notices. Four years afterward the concept album The Argument—drawing equally from William S. Burroughs and John Milton—appeared in summer 2013. He died in September 2017 at age 56 following a struggle with kidney cancer.
