Big Black was founded by Steve Albini in 1981 during his second year of college at Northwestern University. Albini had become a fan of punk rock during his high school years in Missoula, Montana, and taught himself to play bass guitar in the fall of 1979, his senior year, while recuperating from a badly broken leg resulting from being struck by a car while riding his motorcycle. Moving to Evanston, Illinois the following year to pursue a journalism degree and fine art minor at Northwestern, Albini immersed himself in the fledgling Chicago punk scene and became a devoted fan of the post-punk band Naked Raygun. He also DJ'd for the campus radio station, from which he was repeatedly fired for playing loud and abrasive music during the morning time slot as well as not completing the required logs. He also wrote a controversial column titled "Tired of Ugly Fat?" for the Chicago zine "Matter", publishing confrontational rants about the local music scene which polarized readers into either respecting or hating him.