SST (the biggest indie label in the US) tried to help Hüsker Dü play ball with radio, but the way Hüsker Dü perceived it, SST's real allegiances lay elsewhere.
"I think there's a little reluctance on their part to let anything get a little more attention than Black Flag".
Zen Arcade
SST erred on the side of caution and in July '84 did an initial pressing of somewhere between 3.500 and 5.000 copies, which sold out in a couple of weeks. [...] Joe Carducci says SST realized they had a big seller on their hands, but they had to be particularly cautious about financial expenditures because Black Flag had a slew of albums coming out that year and the Minutemen had decided to make their next one a double as well (in fact, Zen Arcade was held up so SST could release Double Nickels on the Dime on the same day). So even though SST had some cash by that point, the label's resources were already stretched.
[...] The band felt they'd hit a sales ceiling that only a major label could break through. Warner Brothers had been in touch with Hüsker Dü since Zen Arcade. The label then made an offer that the band agreed to sign.
The clincher was the promise of complete creative control of their records, from the cover to the music, something no other major was prepared to grant. Hüsker Dü's contract soon became a model for many indie bands seeking to jump to a major.
It was a momentous move. Hüsker Dü was the first key American indie band to defect to a major; the event marked the end of an era within the American indie community
[...] But despite all this, the band's sense of independence was not a natural fit with a major label. "I can engineer our records," Mould said around the time of the signing, "since I know exactly what it should sound like. I'd also like to still be able to work with booking the band. I've booked Hüsker Dü for quite some time now and I don't think we need a manager to tell us whet we're worth. Most importantly, we don't need someone to work on our image, since we'll never have one." For all Warner's good intentions, these could not have been completely welcome words.
[...] Warehouse sold about 125.000 copies in the US - it hit the label's sales target, and yet with various promotional expenses, the band made little more than they would have with less sales on SST. The major label gambit had failed. "As it turned out, it didn't make that big of a difference in the long run," Mould admitted years later. "The sales went up, but not enough to justify, you know, to say it was the smartest move ever made."
In the end
[...] "Being together for nine years, the amount of touring that we did, the pressures of being on a major label, the more demand for your time, the less time you have for yourself... Because the energy was being sucked from different places, whereas before it was just the three of us, let's get in the van and go blow the doors off this town."
The bottom line was that Hüsker Dü had become what the band had never wanted to be: out of control. "The band was like a train speeding uphill and downhill, and nobody could get near it or they'd get run over." said Mould. "Certain people would try to be the conductor and certain people would pull the brakes. And nobody could get on or off. When it finally hit down in that valley and slowed down, Bob jumped off. Bob got off the train... And it's the best thing I ever did."
Reading about the atmosphere signing to a major label had brought on, I remembered some Misfits' lyrics
I got something to say
I killed your baby today
And it doesn't matter much to me
As long as it's dead
