Is Bob Mould reforming his early ’90s trio Sugar? We shouldn’t be surprised that any band from the last 40 years might get back together these days, but here’s one that caught us a little off guard. There’s been no official word, but a new Instagram account, @sugarcopperblue, went public a couple days ago, and so far they’ve posted a couple short videos with no text.
What make this more interesting is that when we looked at the followers, of which there were 9 when we first visited today, all three members of Sugar — Bob Mould, bassist David Barbe and drummer Malcolm Travis — were among them. Something is definitely up.
Sugar were only together for three years, February 1992 to January 1995, but they made a big impact. Their perfect debut album, Copper Blue, was a hit in both the US and the UK and features such classics as “If I Can’t Change Your Mind” and “Changes.” They followed that up quickly with the “Beaster” mini-LP and then released their second album File Under Easy Listening in September of 1994. Four months later they had broken up.
Copper Blue has been reissued a few times over the last 30 years (most recently in 2022 for its 30th anniversary) and Bob and his current band (bassist Jason Narducy and drummer Jon Wurster) played Copper Blue in full for a 2012 tour celebrating the album’s 20th anniversary.
David Barbe has been opening for Bob on his fall tour, so it seems like the puzzle pieces aren’t that far apart.
If they are getting back together it will be their first shows in three decades. What will actually be announced? Stay tuned.
Meanwhile, Copper Blue is being reissued as a box of 7″ singles for Record Store Day Black Friday.