Mudhoney Articles
Cool Beans
October '98
Mudhoney
Steve Turner and Mark Arm interviewed at Slim's in San Francisco
CB:
What experience do you bring to this position?
Steve:
Eighteen years of rock and a fuckin' attitude bigger than Texas. I'm
really bad at job interviews.
Mark:
I haven't had a job in nine years. So I don't know how to do this.
CB:
Where do you see yourself in 10 years?
Steve:
At the other side of this table.
Mark:
With Kate McGowan.
CB:
What interview questions are you asked over and over?
Steve:
Usually the one about "are you qualified for this position." That
one keeps coming up.
Mark:
If I hear that one more time...
Steve:
"Where have you been?" "Why are you guys still together?" The last
couple of days we've gotten the question - "Which one of your albums
do you like?"
CB:
Ok uh, which one?
Steve:
Well, we kind of operate on the every other record theory. We like
the first one Superfuzz Bigmuff, we don't like the self titled
record...
Mark:
Well, not as much.
Steve:
It doesn't hold up. We like the next one, Every Good Boy Deserves
Fudge
Mark:
That was a good piece of crap.
Steve:
Piece of Cake good songs, ok record. And My Brother the Cow
we still seem to like. So theoretically this one should be a bad one. But
we figured since we took three years between this record and the last one,
we skipped the bad record.
CB:
So who's the Brian Wilson of the group?
Mark:
There is none. But Dan's a Brian Wilson fanatic. And he's got Brian's
Girthness.
Steve:
There is kind of Girth Brooks similarity.
CB:
Who's the Chris Farley of the group?
Steve:
Again.
CB:
If he was here would you be saying this?
Steve:
Probably. Matt would be the Farley. Mark seems to be the David Spade
character.
Mark:
Argh, kill me now.
CB:
Which one of you was set on fire in that Number One Video In America
video?
Steve:
Dan was set on fire. We went down to Southern California near Magic
Mountain with Sonic Youth to play this one show...
Mark:
And we brought along our friend Curtis who leans toward booze and pills
of the down variety.
Steve:
He got kind of slopper and slopper as the day went on. By the end of
the day, he was pretty much useless. He was supposed to be our roadie
and you know... he was just a useless ball of valium.
Mark:
He was naked in the video. Did that make it onto the tape?
CB:
Yeah, someone who's head wasn't in the picture was naked. Somebody
else was wearing a lamp shade, someone's set on fire...
Steve:
You might have noticed Mark and I weren't in the room. We were
peacefully sleeping next door.
Mark:
Peacifully minding our own David Spade-like business.
CB:
It's one of my favourite ten seconds of video I think.
Mark:
Matt used to bring a video camera all the time, but he doesn't anymore.
CB:
I think I know why!
Steve:
I don't think he wants to remember. You know, for every four hours
there would be ten seconds of good footage.
Mark:
That would be worthwile I think.
Steve:
Looking at his feet as he walks around on acid with that thing around
his neck.
CB:
Venom or King Diamond?
Mark:
Venom.
Steve:
I'm for King Diamond.
Mark:
Have you heard that Venom record that Thurston put out?
CB:
It's awesome!
Mark:
That's the only Venom record I have.
CB:
Black Flag or Minor Threat?
Steve:
Flag.
Mark:
Down at the end of the line I'd have to say Black Flag.
Steve:
Minor Threat was a big influence though.
Mark:
Very tough choice. You'd have to say "which lineup?" I'm on the Dez
side of the fence. He's my rock'n'roll hero.
CB:
And Keith Morris.
Mark:
Keith Morris, love him. Love that stuff he did. But Dez, somehow,
wins.
CB:
Buck Owens or George Jones?
Mark:
George talked like a duck.. So I'll have to choice George.
Steve:
But I'd choose the Buckaroos backing up either of them. The Buckaroos
instrumental album is pretty great.
CB:
The Mentors or Skrewdriver?
Mark:
The Mentors.
Steve:
Mentors. They're from Seattle. They're our boys!
Mark:
They're funny at least. Skrewdriver just kind of sucks.
Steve:
But the sad thing is, that singer, rest his soul, he had a great voice.
He could make really stupid songs sound good.
Mark:
Ian Curtis made wearing a sheet sound like fun.
Steve:
What's your opinion on the El Duce murder?
Mark:
He was pushed by the hand of love. The world is a smaller place without
Eldon. My sister-in-law had classes with him at Roosvelt High School.
CB:
Was he disruptive?
Mark:
Apparently he was a half wit.
Steve:
Don't wreck my image of Eldon!
CB:
Did you ever meet him?
Steve:
Yeah. Real briefly.
Mark:
Green River played with the Mentors.
Steve:
I was at that show. That was great!
Mark:
I had a Mentors type mask made out of a flowered pillow case, and with
like, a smile.
Steve:
Did they think it was funny?
Mark:
I don't even think they paid attention. You know Dorf? I love Dorf,
and golf bloopers.
CB:
What's the worst record you have and actually listen to?
Mark:
Doc Dart - Patricia. That's a secret love of mine and Tom Price,
the guitar player from Gas Huffer. We've had quite a few great fuckin'
nights listening to that record.
Steve:
Gotta get it. It's a dollar bin record, but you gotta get it. It's so
horrible, but the lyrics are so pained and torturous, "I'm about to
kill myself over the love of this woman," lyrics. It's just excellent.
Mark:
We covered a Crucifucks song. "You give me the creeps." We played it
maybe three times.
CB:
I don't want to skip any question so.. Are any of you active participants
in Seattle's burgeoning S&M scene?
Mark:
If I were, I wouldn't tell you.. unless you beat it out of me.. would
you like to try?
CB:
Whatever happened to Cattbutt?
Steve:
They did grunge and then they broke up.
Mark:
The stories about them and L7 and them are true.
CB:
What stories?
Mark:
They travelled together in one long van doing each other across the
country.
Steve:
So it was a sticky summer of love. People tell me I look like Tom Cruise.
Mark gets the David Spade comparisons.
Mark:
Hey, there's David Nudelman over there.
CB:
He's a celebrity in this town.
Mark:
As well he should be!
CB:
Ok, do your Tom Cruise pose, I'll take a picture and then run it next
to a picture of Tom Cruise so everyone can see the similarity.
Steve:
Well, you know I have to be inspired. I can't just turn it on like a
faucet.
[pause while Matt takes a picture]
Mark:
I think you did!
Steve:
So what kind of bike stuff you put in Cool Beans?
CB:
Um, there's a bike tour of San Francisco in number seven and there's
a longer bike tour from Vancouver to San Francisco in number eight.
Steve:
I'm part of a cult up in Seattle that only rides one speeds.
CB:
Sort of like that group in Portland that only rides choppers?
Steve:
There's one of those in Seattle too, Dead Baby Head.
Mark:
The Skull Fuckers. They ride one speeds, cruisers. They ride around
at night and kick over garbage cans. It's pretty tough.
Steve:
We dedicate our lives to trying to pass mountain bikers.
CB:
We used to do that mailbox baseball bat thing.
Mark:
Those guys are in their thirties.
CB:
Who are the biggest celebrities you've seen in your audience and did
they stage dive?
Mark:
Nicholas Cage but that didn't really count because we were touring
with Pearl Jam. Matt Dillon, Neil Young...
Steve:
That doesn't count because we were with Pearl Jam.
CB:
Any Courtney Love stories?
Both:
Nahhh...
CB:
Calvin Johnson stories?
Steve:
We just played in Olympia, and he now parades around at shows wearing
those big industrial earmuffs to help keep the sound out. He was lookin'
good. That's a great new look for Calvin.
Mark:
Hipwaders and earmuffs.
Steve:
I'm starting to worry about Calvin. He's getting a little weird in his
old age.
Mark:
And a cottong tail pinned to his butt. That's keeping with the Beat
Happening cute thing.
Steve:
He's such a letch. He's figured out how to get teenage girls. He's a
dirty old man.
CB:
Well, they never buy ads from me anyway.. it's not like I'm going to
lose their advertising.
Mark:
Sometimes we lie, sometimes we do not.
Steve:
One time we were playing in Vancouver with Beat Happening and we pulled
up to the club at the same time as them. Calvin came over and put his
arm around me and goes, "Ahhh, another college show Steve, you know
what that means don't you?" I didn't say anything and he said, "Young
girls with striped T-shirts and no bras." That was Calvin revealing
himself to me.
CB:
Any new dirt on Barry Hensler?
Mark:
Nah, haven't heard anything since uh...
Both:
... The drinking of the pee.
Steve:
That was the famous Flipside story. Whose piss was it?
Mark:
I think it was Kim from the Muffs. They pissed in his beer or something
when he was on stage asking for beer or something.
CB:
Can I have a warm beer please?
Steve:
A hot beer.
CB:
Are the Thrown Ups dead and buried?
Steve:
Oh yes. Layton fired us. Layton being the bass player.
CB:
Why?
Steve:
He booked a show without telling us. Then he told us about three days
before the show. We need more than three days to prepare for a show
because we have costumes and we need to have a gimmick. So we said
"We're not going to do it, Layton. You should have told us." Then he
got really mad and did the show with a couple other people.
CB:
So there was a new Thrown Ups?
Mark:
He changed the name to Stomach Pump.
Steve:
Yeah, and we thought it was so funny that he fired us.
Mark:
Because we figured that the Thrown Ups was going to be a band that
never ended. Because we never praticed--
Steve:
We made absolutely no effort. But then we thought that was just too
perfect an ending for the Thrown Ups. In almost every article ever
written about the Thrown Ups they never ever wrote about Layton, and
we'd explain that it was really Layton's band. It was his idea. But
they'd always just talk about Ed and Mark and me. Fired by the bass
player that no one ever talked about.
CB:
And the retrospective CD on Amphetamine Reptile came out later.
Mark:
Much later. Ed never wanted to finish the cover because he didn't
really want it coming out.
Steve:
Ed is a graphic designer and never really wanted anyone to know about
the Thrown Ups.
CB:
He was embarassed to be part of the band?
Mark:
He just doesn't want the folks at Nieman Marcus to know what he
sang about.
CB:
I can see that.
Steve:
And then of course there was the theory that we would probably do a
reunion show only to embarass Ed. Force Ed to do the show and then
just watch Ed be really uncomfortable making a fool of himself. Were
you a Thrown Ups fan?
CB:
Yeah. But I only have the Melancholy Girlhole box.
Mark:
The problem with that one is that... For all the singles, we'd record
for one hour or two and then take the funniest parts and make a single.
But with Melancholy Girlhole that was basically everything we did for
an entire session.
Steve:
Some of it is really good though. I really like the short songs like
"Sparse tits."
Mark:
Hairy Crater Man is Bob Whittaker, our manager.
CB:
How long has he been your manager?
Steve:
About since we signed to Reprise. He went on tour with us the very
first time we went on tour. For no apparent reason. We didn't have
t-shirts or anything.
Mark:
We just wanted him to entertain us.
CB:
Steve, what would you like people to know about your label Super
Electro?
Steve:
I love the Kent Three. I just put out their newest record. I also put
out a Mudhoney single with two new songs.
CB:
Want to hear the questions we're not going to ask?
Both:
Sure.
CB:
Have you ever had any serious head injury?
Steve:
I knocked myself out twice skateboarding.
Mark:
Dan has hurt himself fallind down drunk.
CB:
What was the most cahotic show you ever played?
Steve:
When the stage collapsed in London.
Mark:
Berlin was much funner though. In Berlin they had this weird rubber
stage that if it got wet it would be totally slick. And we were just
shit-faced drunk on this slippery stage.
Steve:
And there was a crate of beer next to the stage. I asked Dan to get
me a beer and he threw it, thinking it would bounce off the rubber.
But it just shattered. By the end of the night I had cuts all over
my arms.
C.Keddy / M.Kelly
