Mudhoney Articles
The Irish News
30 August '02
Every Good Boy Deserves Fuzz
An interview with the ever free-wheelin' Mark Arm, conducted by phone
while he and Steve were in London pressing the flesh in advance of their
2002 European mudride.
A crappy, watered down 600 word version of this ran in the August 30 issue
of The Irish News, but now all you Muddites can read the full-length version.
Your conduit to the stars is Mr Baine Jakey...
Baine Jakey (BJ): You've just made your sixth album, which might be
one of the band's best in the 14 years you've been going. Are you surprised
that you've managed to last this long and keep the quality so high?
Markus Armus (MA): (laughing) Er, probably less surprised than
everyone else is!
BJ: I think we're more pleased than surprised...
MA: Right, right, um... I'm not surprised - it's probably just
kind of weird. Usually even some of the people I really, really love have
lost the plot after a certain point, and I think we're very aware of that.
We've tried to hang onto the plot as tightly as possible!
If you'd asked me thirteen or fourteen years ago if we were going to be
around I would probably have doubted it, but here we are (chuckles) Y'know,
there was a time in my life where I wouldn't even have conceived of reaching
thirty. It wasn't a case of 'oh I'm going to take a lot of drugs and die
young' or something, it was more just that I couldn't even see that far ahead!
BJ: It's also the first record without Matt - do you think that
because it's so good, secretly he'll be a little green that he didn't get
to play on it?
MA: You know, I don't know if it would have been the same record
if Matt was still playing the bass. Guy had a big input into it - he wrote
two songs, and I don't think Matt really cares one way or the other to tell
you the truth... he stopped caring several years before he quit.
BJ: His heart just wasn't in it anymore?
MA: I think that he might have felt that he would have been letting
the rest of us down if he quit, but, um... he had no great love for playing
music or going on tour anymore and that just gradually built up and built up
until he couldn't deal with it anymore. This way everyone's happier.
BJ: You're using a lot of sax and horns this time around?
MA: The horns were actually a last minute thing that we did during
the last session. We always knew that there would be horns on Where The Flavor
Is, and since they were coming in anyway we thought we'd see if they could
come up with something that would work on Take It Like A Man. It ended up that
they were just playing right through the song and punctuating things, but it
really worked so we kept them in there.
Then we asked Craig (Flory) to throw on some sax onto Baby Can You Dig The
Light just for the hell of it, just to see how it turned out. In the end it
kind of made the song, and it's a great opener for the album. Although, we
were in Germany yesterday and a lot of the interviewers would be saying (adopts
ridiculous Germanic accent) you putt on e very dif-ficult song ut ze beginning?
but to me it doesn't seem difficult at all.
BJ: Your voice is sounding pretty good on Since We've Become
Translucent. In particular, on the song Our Time Is Now you seem to be
trying for something a bit different than the traditional Armian roar?
MA: Yeah, I'd never sung like that before until we did this cover of
a blues song by Elmore James called Sunnyland in Monkeywrench - actually, we
changed the lyrics completely, but the music is similar. So I found myself
singing a certain way for that, and I just tried to remember how I did it for
Our Time Is Now.
As far as singing goes, I just do what I do. The more I do it the more I
learn about my limits and how far I can push them. Hopefully, I keep learning
stuff all the time - that's part of the joy of it.
BJ: Production wise, you had three different sessions with three
different producers. They aren't 'big name' guys, so for people who don't
know, give us some details about who they are...
MA: The producers we used were just local guys who either owned their
own studios or work in the particular studios we used. Gravelvoice studio was
the first place we went to, and that's run by Scott Colburn. He works closely
with the Sun City Girls, and he sometimes plays with the Climax Golden Twins -
both of those outfits are kind of on the more avant garde side of things.
I've known Scott for a number of years now and I wanted to work with him
because I like his take on things and I thought that maybe he would bring
something new to us. He doesn't really work with straight ahead rock bands
that much, so it was something different for him as well. It turns out that
we all have a kind of similar background, in that he played in a hardcore punk
band in 1981 in Bloomington, Indiana.
So then the next place we went to was Egg Studios, which we've used before
(the scene of the crime for 1991's Conrad Uno masterstroke Every Good Boy
Deserves Fudge) Conrad doesn't really record there that much, but Johnny
Sangster's been working there ever since he got back from Denmark... (chuckles)
he's a local guy, but he lived in Denmark for about 10 years. Anyway, he did
the last Kent Three record and, uh... (asks Steve: Hey, what else did Johnny
Sangster do?) Oh yeah, the Wiretaps too.
But anyway, what we'd heard him do sounded great and he's a cool guy, and he's
got more of a generally 'pop feel' I guess - not that any of the stuff we did
with him is really pop - although I do think that Dying For It could make the
Top 10!
Then finally we went to Jupiter Studios with Martin Feveyear, who did the last
Lanegan record. That studio is the biggest studio we went to - it actually has
two inch tape and 24 tracks.
BJ: Speaking of going large, didn't you splurge out on lush production
for Lukin's swan song, Tomorrow Hit Today?
MA: We definitely spent the most money we've ever spent on Tomorrow Hit
Today, but only because we had to spend that money - the first two records we
did for Reprise, whatever recording budget we didn't use, we got to keep. But on
that one we didn't get to keep it, so we decided to use it - all of it!
We knew we weren't going to be on Reprise any longer, so we figured, Well let's
actually work with a producer. Who should we work with? About the only person
we could even think of that we wanted to work with was Jim Dickinson. He did a
great job and got a cool feel, and then we had hot-shot LA guy David Bianco mix
it, who did a great job too. It all turned out really well, thank-god!
BJ: Was it hellish being on Reprise after you failed to turn into The Next
Nirvana for them?
MA: No, it was perfectly fine, until the time came to make the third record
(Tomorrow Hit Today) When we signed to Reprise, it was part of Warner
Brothers. By the time we did My Brother the Cow, it was Time-Warner, and
for Tomorrow Hit Today it had become AOL/Time-Warner. The people who had
been running the company when we signed to them weren't there anymore, and the
whole thing had been taken over by more number-crunchin' types who came up through
the music industry as producers and what-not.
So, by that point it was way more about the bottom line than anything else. There
was a time where Warner Brothers was known as the 'artist friendly' major label -
they had the Sex Pistols and Captain Beefheart, and they had the foresight to sign
Devo. Signing to them seemed like a good idea at the time...
BJ: Well, you still made three kick ass records for them. You don't really
seem to like Piece of Cake very much though - only a couple of songs made
it onto March to Fuzz. How come you're so down on it?
MA: Well, that could partly be for personal reasons. Also, I don't think it
really packed the wallop that it could have. There's a few songs on there I like
- Suck You Dry, Blinding Sun, 13th Floor Opening, Acetone. I like No End In Sight
too. It's a good song, but we've kind of stopped playing it though...
BJ: You're back on Sub-Pop now. Happy to be home?
MA: Sub-Pop are doing great right now, they have some really good bands. The
Catheters who we're touring with are great - I don't think any of them are 21 yet,
but they have a really good sense of punk rock history, which is kid rare for kids
today! We've played together several times and they're always fun. One time we
played with them and Motorhead and it was like three generations of rock 'n' roll
on the one bill. It was pretty funny.
BJ: Did putting together the BBC Sessions and March to Fuzz after Matt
left help persuade you to keep the band going? For a while there, a lot of us weren't
sure if there would ever be another Mudhoney record...
MA: Yeah, I guess the 'best of' definitely seemed like a tombstone kind of
thing, and maybe it was in terms of the Matt era - Mudhoney: The Lukin years!
Sub-Pop wanted to do a 'best of' for just the Sub-Pop years, but all that stuff
could almost fit on one CD. It seemed like a good idea to make it a more full-blown
thing and include the rarities thing, which we'd been meaning to do for just about
forever. Also, it wasn't a problem getting the Reprise stuff, since Warners owns 49%
of Sub-Pop anyway. The one song I wanted to fit on that record was Broken Hands, but
it was just too long. I know that's got nothing to do with your question, but I
thought you might enjoy the trivia!
BJ: You're playing with Billy Childish for the upcoming London gig. Is he
going to sing with you - maybe you could dust off You Make Me Die for the occasion?
MA: I don't know, but we haven't been working on it anyway. Incidentally, we're
also doing our third ever BBC session while we're in England - our second for John Peel.
BJ: What's in the current set then?
MA: We play everything off the new record, a lot of the stuff off March to
Fuzz, and a few songs from Tomorrow Hit Today. That's basically what Guy
knows. We haven't bothered relearning our obscure b-sides or anything! Guy actually
gives us the perfect excuse not to take obscure requests...
BJ: So will there be any 'horn action' for the UK dates?
MA: No, we won't be bringing Craig, Jeff and Greg with us on tour - we can
barely afford to fly over as it is! Unfortunately, we don't know anyone in England
who could do it, but it would be cool to hook up with someone.
However, we are going to do our first show of the tour with the horns, in Seattle
on the 29th. We've asked them to play out a bunch of times before but they've
always been too busy. I guess they finally had a window for us!
BJ: There's a new Monkeywrench single out now, and Steve also has a solo
record coming down the pipe. Any word on that?
MA: Yeah, Steve did his first solo show the night before we left for England,
on the 13th. Dan plays drums on the record, but live it's just Steve and Johnny
Sangster on another guitar. It sounds great, really cool - stripped down. The songs
are definitely designed to be played on the acoustic guitar, with all these different
little parts inbetween the lines.
Steve's pretty heavily into folk stuff, and it sounds much better than just doing,
like, Mudhoney songs acoustically. Mudhoney stuff is designed to be played a certain
way - there's a reason why we're really picky about our guitars and amps and effects
pedals, and we've got the propulsion of a kick ass rhythm section. I don't think it
would translate too well if we suddenly went 'unplugged!'
BJ: Finally Mr Arm, how do you think the Mudhonies will be remembered in years
to come?
MA: You know, I don't care. That's not up to me to say, it's up to the listener
to make of us what they will... People can remember us however they choose to, it's
not going to affect me. You might think 'But it's your life's work!' but really,
there's more to me than just this band. At least, that's what I keep telling myself!
(Big thanks to Nita at Goldstar and Chris at Sub-Pop for sorting this out!)
