From Grief to Groove: The Wild Heart of ‘Mud Mice’

Jack Goldstein’s new song “Mud Mice” takes you on an unexpected journey that mixes old country with something completely fresh. It’s the first track from his coming album HELLFIRE BUMPER STICKER COWPUNCHING JEWBOY, which follows his personal growth after dealing with deep sadness on his last record. This time, Goldstein is turning his pain into power, and “Mud Mice” shows this change clearly.

The song begins quietly with soft steel guitar and an easy country feeling. But then it surprises you. Heavy drums, bright jangly sounds, and dreamy strings jump in, making the song much more colorful and exciting. It mixes country, pop, and psychedelic energy together. It sounds like Beck or The Polyphonic Spree meeting up with Gram Parsons for a strange, happy road trip.

The words in “Mud Mice” talk about leaving the busy modern world behind and finding peace in simple, natural living – with people who feel the same way. It’s not about being alone. It’s about finding your group, your “mud mice fleet,” and walking away from all the chaos together. In Jewish stories, mud mice are creatures made of half-dust and half-flesh. Here they represent starting fresh and living naturally with heart and honesty.

Goldstein’s singing is full of emotion – sometimes big and dramatic, sometimes soft and gentle, but always real. He doesn’t just sing the words; he makes you feel them. His harmonies sound like a small choir lifting the whole song up.

“Mud Mice” is Goldstein’s most catchy and welcoming song so far. It celebrates strange beauty, emotional growth, and the happiness of escaping to something more honest. Whether you’re looking for peace, memories, or just a new kind of sound, “Mud Mice” might be the track that gets you there.

Goldstein had more to say in a recent interview with Mister Styx of musicarenagh, where he delved deeper into his personal life and the creation of this materpiece

Listen to Mud Mice

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What’s the story behind “MUD MICE”? Is there a particular experience or concept that inspired the track?
For me, the entire album continues from where my last album, ‘The World Is Ending & I Love U’, left off. It certainly reaches a very different place quite rapidly, but it starts its journey with similar themes of loss and grief (having lost both my parents during lockdown). However, it transforms those themes into an exploration of identity, particularly my own Jewish identity.

Often, we are told that what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger—well, I believe that’s kinda neoliberal bullshit. While it may hold some truth, it is also extremely toxic. Resilience after grief does not equate to strength; rather, it leads to jadedness. You become emotionally jaded, and that’s not a positive outcome. We now exist in a world filled with so-called ‘strong men’ engaging in truly harmful actions. What we need is more love.

It sounds like Beck or The Polyphonic Spree meeting up with Gram Parsons for a strange, happy road trip.

How would you describe the overall sound and mood of “MUD MICE”? Was it a departure from your previous work?
It’s very much a country album. I’m calling it ‘Hyper-Country’—I now feel more aware and comfortable with the ideas and sounds I experiment with, making it the right time to create a country album. I’ve wanted to make a country album for some time, but I didn’t know how to approach it. I’m not a country musician; the musicianship and songwriting in country music are entirely different from what I’ve always done. I simply had to experiment and try to incorporate country ideas into the sonic world I inhabit.

Can you take us through the songwriting process for “MUD MICE”? Did it come together quickly, or was it a more gradual creation?
In terms of the rest of the album, Mud Mice came together quickly. The title track, HELLFIRE BUMPER STICKER COWPUNCHING JEWBOY, was initiated immediately after completing the last album. It sounded entirely different and was essentially a series of improvisations. It didn’t truly take shape until late last year, when I became fascinated with a lake in Austria called Lake Toplitz.

You can find plenty of information about Toplitz online, much of which is rather fantastical. For me, it became a powerful metaphor for the concept of physical spaces, as opposed to mental spaces, where human beings conceal their secrets.

At least four of the tracks on the album—Mud Mud, Cattle Drive, Lonesome Dove, and Shain Gandee—came together very quickly in the three months leading up to the album’s completion.

They underwent various versions and mixes, but were all much quicker songs to work on compared to the others. Buckle Up also came together swiftly, but it went through numerous mixes, resulting in many chaotic and layered sessions.

Did you experiment with any new sounds, instruments, or production techniques in this track?
The laptop I use to produce the entire album is over a decade old now and, sadly, nearing its end. I’ve always had very busy and chaotic sessions, and I work quickly, which often involves mixing entire sessions down to a single track and then continuing to multi-track over those mixed-down tracks.

This is more evident in the previous album, which is quite busy and maximalist, but it’s a bit more subtle on this album. For instance, I sometimes work with real pedal steel, pedal steel VST plug-ins, and pedal steel samples all at the same time, attempting to make them sound like one unified instrument. This approach applies to many of the instruments and sounds on the album, which can result in numerous tracks, plug-ins, and mixing just to achieve a single sound.

Regarding new sounds, I’m always eager to experiment. In this case, the formalized sounds of country music were the first to be explored—banjo, pedal steel, fiddle, mandolin, etc. I play the banjo, so most of the banjo you hear is me, along with some plug-in VSTs and samples. This is true for most instruments, to be honest; it’s a significant part of my recording process.

I always aimed for a more spacious sound on the album, allowing the acoustics of the room I’m in to be heard, including the percussion being held still when it’s not being played. I hardly ever mute tracks when there’s no sound, so you can still hear the room and the small things happening within it. The thing is, it’s all me, and it’s all multitracked, so it’s essentially all theatrics—I’m trying to replicate the sound of a band in a room, and I think it somewhat resembles a mutant version of that.

What do you hope listeners take away from “MUD MICE”? Is there a specific feeling or message you want them to connect with?
That we need more love in the world. That fighting for that love might indeed require just that—fighting. This fighting may involve violence, but we cannot simply sit back while our genuine emotions and feelings are co-opted and coerced. I’m an anti-Zionist Jew, and I’m incredibly tired of having to explain the weaponized conflation of anti-Zionism and antisemitism. Meanwhile, there is an actual genocide occurring in Palestine.

I initially conceived the entire album as a concept record featuring a 19th-century Palestinian nun with telekinetic powers who enters into a psychic relationship with a cattle herder in the Superstition Mountains of Arizona. However, I ultimately felt that such a specific concept might be too restrictive for this record and its themes.

I describe the album as a fever dream in a parallel dimension where Britney Spears produces a fully realized country and western album around the time she shaves her head—the moment when this cosmic heartache begins to poison the world we inhabit. I watched Coyote Ugly the other week. It’s a fun but utterly mediocre movie, yet there’s something hilariously sincere about that delightfully delusional pre-9/11 optimism. That’s what I’m trying to convey.

What’s next for you after “MUD MICE”? Can we expect more new music or live shows soon?
I’m currently on tour with shows scheduled all over the UK. I’ve also created an accompanying experimental ‘sister’ album titled “COWSTICKER HELL PUNCHER BUMPER FIRE DOPPELGÄNGER,” which will follow “HELLFIRE BUMPER STICKER…” and is set to be released later this year on Liquid Library Records.