Mudhoney Articles

Thrasher Online

February '01

Mudhoney

First Seattle loses Randy Johnson, then Griffey Jr, then A-Rod and now Mudhoney?
Wow, I'm not sure how i should react to getting compared to baseball players. I despise organized team sports. They're boring and people waste too much time with them. I can't figure out why anyone would devote so much time to hitting a ball with a stick, or (even more baffling to me) watching other people hit a ball with a stick. (no disrespect to Conrad Uno & Emily Bishton.)

What is going on with Mudhoney, I am hearing that you are breaking up?
As you know we just did a west coast tour. I'm pretty sure that's the last of Lukin (bassist). We're going to Brazil next week and we've got another bass player, our good friend Steve Dukich, formerly of the late great Steel Wool. We're not breaking up, we're just entering a new era.

How was the last show in Seattle?
It was a blast. Graceland was packed to the gills. People were drinking & smiling; no macho bullshit.

What happened with Reprise?
We didn't turn out to be the cash cow they were hoping we would be when they signed us in '92. Also, the entire corporation went through major personel changes. Reprise/Warner Bros. went from being "the artist friendly major label" to just another major label ruled by accountants with tin ears.

Are you going to direct more emphasis now on Monkeywrench?
Steve & I definately spent more time with Monkeywrench this last year (2000). We plan on writing, recording, and playing with both bands during 2001.

What were your early influences when Mudhoney started?
Blue Cheer, Wipers, Stooges, 13th Floor Elevators, Scientists, Feedtime, Neil Young, Captain Beefheart, Hawkwind, Alice Cooper, Motorhead, Black Sabbath, 60s comps like Pebbles & Nuggets etc., 70s punk like the Ramones & the Damned, early 80s hardcore like Black Flag, Adolescents, Really Red and Void, and mid 80s post hardcore brainfrying bands like the Butthole Surfers, Meat Puppets, & Poison 13.

What music today inspires you?
Much of the same plus some blues & jazz dudes like Howlin' Wolf, Charles Mingus, Fred McDowell, Sun Ra, Lightning Hopkins, John Coltrane,... this could go on forever. Steve really digs a lot of folk stuff, some of which I like, some of which makes me bristle. I can only handle so much 'laid back attitude' before i pop.

How many guitars do you have?
Nine. My house has an alarm and my dogs are vicious.

Do you have a favorite?
I really like my Gretsch Silver Jet, and my Telecaster. Both have Bixbys, the best tremelo bar ever made.

What time do you normally wake up?
7am when i'm at home, working. As late as possible when we're on tour.

Favorite beer?
Pacifico.

Any old skateboard related stories?
Wow, I haven't gone skateboarding since the mid 80s & by then it was pretty much just for transportation. I shattered my right ankle in this giant poorly contructed bowl at a skatepark in Olympia back in '79. it had this strange hump in the middle of the transition which threw me. My board was right under me as i was falling and i didn't run out of it, for fear of stepping on my board. I landed flat and hard.

I'm a little jealous of the kids today. There seem to be parks & pools everywhere. Steve's gotten back into skating in a big way. He says that the kids aren't really even interested in pools. I think that's really odd. I used to dream of stumbling onto a kidney shaped pool, or going down to California to ride Upland or Del Mar. Compared to that, street tricks & kick flips are kinda goofy, and uh, lightweight.

Your early lyrics ('Here comes sickness', 'You Got It', etc..) give me the impression you had some tough times as far as relationships go. The pain really came through in your vocal style. What are the early horror stories with women that made you sing out like that?
I hope you can see the humor in my lyrics. It's black as my tiny shrivelled heart, but it's there. I think both those songs are pretty funny. They're only slightly based on reality. For instance, my dad never took off with another chick. My parents are still married. I don't know what makes me sing like i do. I guess it's just my voice. I made some really stupid choices concerning women in my 20s. I romanticized fragile, unstable, and even down right insane personalities. I blame the song "hospital" by the modern lovers.

Are you involved with a woman now?
Yes. I've been married nearly 7 years.

What was the worst(sell out or degrading) offer someone made you with Mudhoney-advertising or lables etc?
The makers of immodium wanted to use "Mudride" in an ad campaign. We were all ready to sign on the dotted line, 'cause we would've made a shitload (so to speak), but i guess they had their analysts listen to the song and they realized that it has nothing to do with diarrhea.

You guys seem like you never (even when Nirvana and Pearl Jam had the worlds attention focusing on Seattle) let that get to you. Seems like you always kept it real(recording at Egg Studios with friends and staying out of the limelite overall)-Why wasn't Mudhoney as big as they should have been. Was that by design or do you feel like you were overlooked?
I don't feel like we were overlooked, and we never intended to stay out of the spotlight. We knew from the begining that we wouldn't be a huge band. If you look at the list of influences above, you'll notice that maybe only 3 of the artists mentioned were ever "huge". Music isn't about popularity. Life isn't about competition. We are very lucky that there are as many people who relate to us as there are.

What would be a "dream show" for you to play in?
Opening for the Stooges and Captain Beefheart in 1971.

The Kurt Cobain suicide has probably been overly discussed, but now that time has gone by; could you make any comments regarding your feelings on it?
Let me tell you a little story here: by the end of '92 i had dumped my junkie girfriend and was trying to stay away from heroin. I ran into Kurt & Courtney at a new years eve party and went back to their hotel room where i overdosed. There's nothing like waking up surrounded by paramedics. I stopped hanging around Kurt and Courtney after that, you know, for health reasons. I hardly saw Kurt at all until we joined Nirvana for the first 2 weeks of the 'In Utero' tour.

One night a couple of us abandoned our van and rode to the next town on Nirvana's bus. That night Kurt asked me how i managed to stop doing heroin. I told him that i had wanted to, from the depths of my soul. It wasn't fun anymore (it hadn't been fun for a long time), and it was killing me emotionally as well as physically. I guess what I failed to mention was that if you really want to quit, you've got to lose all those junkie leeches you call "friends" and YOU NEED TO DUMP YOUR JUNKIE WIFE!

What are you into doing besides music?
Scuba diving, snowboarding, playing with my dogs, and marijuana.

What are your future plans?
Keep stretching, until my legs are flexible enough to reach up and kick even the tallest asses, and run like hell.

This is the typical word association thing, just put the first thing that comes to mind:
Subpop - bus stop
Steve Turner - tube top
Matt Lukin - fruit loop
Dan Peters - poop shute
Alchohol - loose & blind
Drugs - blowin' minds
Skateboarding - broken bones
Mainstream - not in my home
Grunge - grimey grumps
Seattle - yuppie dump