Older than your brother and still cooler than you...
22 years ago four guys from Seattle spearheaded a musical phenomenon with the release of their first EP ‘Superfuzz Bigmuff’ on the fledgling record label Sub Pop. The rest is well-documented Grunge history; ex-band mates formed Pearl Jam and filled stadiums, Sub Pop is still going strong and label-mates Nirvana did pretty well too... Mudhoney on the other hand never quite achieved the success that their genre defining sound deserved, but have continued to make music ever since, releasing their 8th studio album ‘The Lucky Ones’ in 2008.
Last night the group played live to a packed crowd in Camden’s Electric Ballroom, singer Mark Arm whipping the crowd into a frenzy with his almighty holler and trademark fuzz-guitar. Before the gig we chatted to guitarist Steve Turner about tape cassettes, trying to remember how to play ‘Superfuzz’ live and fitting in being a rock star with the school run.
Wow, your tour schedule looks pretty epic...
Well we all have jobs and families back home now, so if we’re going to go half way around the world we try and do as many shows as we can whilst we’re here.
How do you juggle having a day job and a band? Is it rock star by night, mild-mannered record trader by day?
Well it doesn’t really feel like that. We just feel lucky that we still get to do what we love. When you reach a point when making music is no longer job, you can either stop altogether or find a way to keep doing it. And we decided it was actually very important to us. When we first went back to work Mark and I just carried on playing. For like a year we played more music than we had in ages, and didn’t get paid for any of it. It freed us up because the pressure was off.
You’ve been making music together for an impressive length of time now, what do you put it down to?
Well we never had any long term plan, so it’s weird that we're still together 22 years later. I think the main thing is if you’re going to be in a band, share song writing credits. Almost all the petty squabbles in bands come from getting the royalty rights on records - if, that is, the record actually sells. It’s an ego thing and it’s best to keep everyone as equal as possible.
Have you got any plans to bring out a new album any time soon?
We’re working on it. It’s always taken us quite a long time to write songs. I’ve made it a little bit harder by moving down to Portland which is three hours from Seattle. So we don’t practice all that much, but, then again we never practice that much anyway...
So you just wing it on stage..?
Well, kind of yeah! But we’re writing songs. We’ve got a handful of songs at the moment, so we’re getting there! Mark generally does not do well with deadlines. They freak him out! We can’t really say “we have six months to write a record”. It doesn’t work like that anymore since it’s more of a part time thing now. I go up to Seattle maybe once a week - I don’t spend the night, I just drive up and drive back. I’ve got a couple of kids I’ve got to get to school in the morning!
How’s the music scene in Portland? There seems to be a lot of great bands coming out of there at the moment.
There’s a lot of thriving music scenes in Portland. What attracted me to it is that it reminds me of Seattle when I was a kid. It hasn’t had the crazy success that Seattle had in the 90s, and it’s much more down to earth and D.I.Y.
What do you make of the recent resurgence of bands and labels distributing tape compilations?
Yeah, it seems funny cos it’s so much easier to have a link to your site, or to make a CD. Thurston (Moore) - god bless him - is always just ahead of the curve, and he put out that Cassette Culture book a few years ago. Actually I had to go and buy an old cassette player from a thrift store cos I have a bunch of old Daniel Johnston tapes that have never been release on any other format. But I’m still not quite sure why people would make cassettes now!
Maybe if you haven’t got a CD player in your car?
Maybe! I saw a young hipster girl in Seattle cycle past me with giant old-fashioned headphones and a Walkman cassette player and I’m walking past thinking “look at her! She’s got all the stuff!”
How was ATP in New York this last month?
Oh, it was great. We were only there for the first night but we saw The Scientists, one of our favourite bands and of course The Stooges, who were awesome!
And you played 'Superfuzz Bigmuff' in its entirety. Bands playing their early work live is something that’s become really popular recently. What do you make of it?
It’s admitting the obvious: there is a nostalgic appeal to bands that have been around for so long. We first did it here in London for ATP’s don’t look back series 5 years ago. It’s not a great thing for the band. I mean all bands want to be current and mean something now, but it’s kind of interesting. It was a weird exercise to go back and try and get into your own head 22 years before. Thinking "what the fuck would I have been playing on that?", because I can’t figure it out! But I get the appeal; I was totally stoked to see The Stooges play 'Fun House'…
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