The Minus 5

Specializing in a distinctive strain of clever, humorous indie pop defined by surprising detours and drawing from the British Invasion, classic glam, the lighter side of new wave, and present-day indie rock, the Minus 5 centers on Scott McCaughey’s songwriting and singing. Although McCaughey anchors the project as its chief tunesmith and frontman, the supporting cast shifts from record to record; among the revolving contributors, former R.E.M. guitarist Peter Buck remains the nearest equivalent to a steady second member. Because each album assembles a fresh roster, the resulting works display their own temperaments—the wistfully melancholic Killingsworth (2009), the ’60s-flavored Down with Wilco (2003), and the country-tinged The Minus 5 (2006, also known as “The Gun Album”)—yet McCaughey’s melodic sensibility and wry outlook remain constant throughout.

The Minus 5 originated in 1993 as McCaughey’s extracurricular outlet while he took breaks from his longtime Pacific Northwest band the Young Fresh Fellows. He conceived the group as a flexible pop collective whose every release would feature a different configuration. Early sessions most often included R.E.M.’s Peter Buck, who appeared on the project’s self-titled debut EP, issued exclusively via They Might Be Giants’ mail-order imprint Hello Records. By the time the first full-length, Old Liquidator, was tracked in 1995, the lineup had settled on McCaughey, Buck, and the Posies’ Jon Auer and Ken Stringfellow. After East Side Digital put out Old Liquidator, the same quartet regrouped in late 1996 to cut the Hollywood Records follow-up, The Lonesome Death of Buck McCoy, which surfaced in spring 1997.

That same year Hollywood reissued McCaughey’s solo effort My Chartreuse Opinion under the Minus 5 banner, while the Minus 5 and the Young Fresh Fellows traded sides on the double-disc split Let the War Against Music Begin/Because We Hate You. Following a management shift at Hollywood, the band returned to independent status in 2003 when Return to Sender released the outtakes compilation I Don’t Know Who I Am; shortly afterward McCaughey placed the project with Yep Roc for the Jeff Tweedy collaboration Down with Wilco. Yep Roc also issued the EP At the Organ, built largely from further Down with Wilco leftovers, and reissued In Rock, a set McCaughey had recorded in a single day in 2000. The full-length In Rock and At the Organ both arrived in 2004, succeeded by the self-titled The Minus 5 (“The Gun Album”) in 2006 and Killingsworth in 2009.

Buck had long invited McCaughey to contribute to R.E.M. sessions, and after the band disbanded in 2011 he enlisted McCaughey to help track a pair of solo albums—2012’s Peter Buck and 2014’s I Am Back to Blow Your Mind Once Again—at McCaughey’s home studio, enlisting additional Minus 5 regulars such as guitarist Kurt Bloch and drummer Bill Rieflin. The same musicians later formed the core of the band that backed Alejandro Escovedo on 2016’s Burn Something Beautiful and supported Sleater-Kinney’s Corin Tucker in Filthy Friends. For Record Store Day 2014 McCaughey assembled the limited vinyl box Scott the Hoople in the Dungeon of Horror, a collection of rare and unreleased Minus 5 material. In March 2015 Yep Roc distilled twelve highlights from that box into Dungeon Golds.

August 2016 brought Of Monkees & Men, an album whose songs paid tribute to each member of the storied media-constructed quartet while also nodding to Monkees songwriters Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart, the alt-country outfit Richmond Fontaine, and actor Robert Ryan. December 2017 saw the arrival of Dear December, eleven original seasonal numbers written by McCaughey and his circle. The holiday set appeared less than two weeks after McCaughey suffered a stroke on tour with Alejandro Escovedo; in a social-media message his wife, Mary Winzig, stated, “The road to recovery will be a long one, and we believe it will come through music.” Her prediction proved accurate: McCaughey’s next Minus 5 album, 2019’s Stroke Manor, drew from material begun days after his hospitalization and repeatedly addressed his altered ability to communicate both musically and verbally. The record featured contributions from many longtime associates, among them Peter Buck, Jeff Tweedy, Steve Wynn, and Corin Tucker.