Bob Mould / Photo by Richard Kern

It's hard to imagine that Bob Mould was once referred to as "literally the meanest person I have ever met" -- by one of his own bandmates, no less. Of course, that was more than 25 years ago, when Minneapolis DIY punk trailblazers Hüsker Dü were still at their most brain-meltingly abrasive and booze-and-amphetamine-fueled fastest, before the considerable enmity between Mould and drummer Grant Hart turned hopelessly toxic. And before Mould scraped away layers of noise to reveal himself as one of modern rock's most influential lights, over the course of eight canonical Hüsker Dü albums, two poppier Sugar full-lengths and one EP, and eight stylistically diverse solo records, the latest of which, District Line (Anti-), plays like a Whitman's Sampler of all of the above. Whether he's mellowed with age or whether his ogrelike disposition was exaggerated for drama's sake -- Mould would argue that both may be the case -- he has come to embrace his role as a revered godfather of alternative rock, picking over a salad in a health-food café in the Dupont Circle neighborhood of Washington, D.C., his home since 2002. "I was a miserablist for a long time," Mould, 47, says, smiling nonmiserably. "Me, Morrissey, Kristin Hersh. I know better now."

Even though you're so closely associated with Minneapolis, you haven't actually lived there since 1989, and you grew up in upstate New York. What is it that you like about living in D.C.?
I moved here because my friends are here and it's just down the road from New York. The deal is -- and I think this really speaks to the content of the new record -- that I have a very small life now. Literally, this street, down ten blocks, then two streets each way, it's a box, and that's my whole life. Inside this box, I'm comfortable and safe. I have a room I work in at home that's a special place to me. But the rest of D.C. is weird, because both the military and the government are based here -- aggression and deception. And it takes a certain kind of person to move here to work in the industries of aggression and deception. The best is when I go to some upscale bar and guys come up to me and ask what I do -- to me, this is the "district line" in D.C., always the first question. So I say I'm a musician, and they say, "Oh, can you make a living at that?" and walk away. If they only knew the things I've done and will continue to do. So my life is really simple inside of a very complex, bizarre place.

You've been doing a lot more with dance music and electronic music on your recent solo albums and in your LoudBomb project with Richard Morel, as well as DJing at your party, Blowoff. Does that feel like a real departure from your older work?
I stumbled into it. I was living in New York around 1998 and was just surrounded by club music, going to record stores that weren't indie shops. When I first heard Sasha's Xpander, I was like, this is [Sugar's 1993 EP] Beaster, but with synthesizers. This same repetitious, heavy drone, and I just started chasing that down forever. What I like about DJing is, it's made me a fan of music again. It's brutal coming up with two hours of stuff to spin, so I really started taking in a lot of new music.

What song do you hear and wish you had written?
When I heard [My Bloody Valentine's] Loveless, I thought, "Oh, God." And the second Garbage record, I thought, "This is crazy how good this is" -- just pure pop, plus all the density and complexity. When I finally got around to hearing Foo Fighters, well…let's just say that seemed very familiar to me. [Laughs]

Are you bitter that bands like Nirvana and Foo Fighters had such massive success off a formula that you helped invent?
You have to remember, somewhere in my basement I have the demos for Nevermind, because I was on the short list for producers. In July of 1992, Sugar were performing for 100 people in Morgantown, and a year later, we're playing for 70,000 people in Belgium. Why would I possibly feel gypped? Not only did I get to spend the whole decade making great music, but more importantly, I was part of a movement of people who created great music and a lifestyle completely different from what had existed before. So when "Smells Like Teen Spirit" showed up on TV, I went, "We won!" Why would I be bitter about not only being there, but getting to be here right now?