The melvins - music beat - Interview

Thrasher Magazine, July, 2002 by Alan Velasco

THEY'VE BEEN AROUND FOR ABOUT 18 YEARS AND they're still cool. Most bands can't even go on tour more than once without breaking up, and if they do stick around, they start sounding like whatever radio station gives away the most free bumper stickers. This interview was done at my house and I have to admit I was a bit nervous. After all, it's not every day that King Buzzo and Kevin Rutmanis (formerly of the Cows) come knockin' on the door. Dale (drummer) was in Hawaii on his honeymoon, so you know he's getting some. The new record is called Hostile Ambient Takeover and they got plenty more where that came from. Keep looking in your weekly because they will be on tour as long as Cracker Barrel keeps cookin' it old school with the puzzles on the table.

Do you use hemp shampoo?

Buzzo: No. I rarely, if ever, wash my hair.

The first time I saw you guys was in Santa Monica when you opened for White Zombie. Were you on tour with them?

Buzzo: It was terrible, those guys are dicks. It was across the board the worst single touring experience of my entire career.

The crowd was like, "What's going on?"

Buzzo: They were wondering when we were going to play our tape.

Does the Zombie do a tape thing live?

Kevin: Oh, yeah. They play "the tape."

Buzzo: I know no one believes me so let's just say it was a great tour. No, it was terrible. The other people in the band-really nice. The singer is the biggest fucking asshole I have ever, ever had to deal with. You should do an interview with the rest of the White Zombie people.

Do you think they would talk shit?

Kevin: Fuck yeah.

List in order of importance: TV, movie, book, or staring at a wall.

Buzzo: Book, movie, stare at a wall, TV.

Kevin: Yeah, stare at a wall, I don't know, movie and a book is a tough one...

What books are you reading?

Kevin: I'm reading like 20 different books.

Buzzo: I just finished the entire Flannery O'Conner Oliver books.

Kevin: What's that book about tigers? The Last Tasmanian Tiger. That's one I'm reading.

You guys play really loud. How fucked up is your hearing?

Buzzo: WHAT?! Seems fine to me I wear ear plugs sometimes, not always. It's not that loud, you'd be worse off working in a factory. My father-in-law is almost deaf and he's never played in a rock band.

Kevin: It's louder up front through the PA than it is on stage. I've lost some hearing I'm sure; it's fine. It's like the Cows old drummer said, "It's not like I' have to hear the worms crawling in the ground."

I watch VH-1 and that guy Moby has always got something to say about every-body. What do you think about Moby?

Buzz: He couldn't be whiter. He's supposed to be Mr Soul, but he couldn't be whiter. He's like the guy from that movie Powder, I've never heard his music.

Kevin: It's not very interesting.

Buzzo: It's Gap-commercial type stuff. He did something with that No Doubt girl.

Like Ozzy and Lita Ford, huh?

Kevin: It's not that good.

Buzzo: At least Ozzy and Lita Ford did things that you might want to listen to.

Do you still party with Luke Skywalker's son?

Buzzo: I haven't seen him in along time.

Kevin: Who's that?

Buzzo: You've never met him. His name is Luke.

His name's really Luke?

Buzzo: I don't know.

El Beardo: Wait, are we talking about the 2 Live Crew variety or...

No, the actual Jedi.

Buzzo: He's real nice. He says his dad's real grumpy and smokes a lot of weed.

Kevin: A grouchy Jedi pot head?

On Electra Retard you thank A Hilter. Has that upset any of your dyslexic fans?

Buzzo: Some people, Germans mostly.

Kevin: It's an old Monty Python joke. I couldn't believe no one remembered.

Buzzo: The Germans got all upset about it. They had a problem with that and wanted to change it, but also in the same record we had a picture of a rabbit with a Hitler mustache and a nazi uniform on and that was totally fine.

Kevin: Well, the record cover was a blind kid in a wheelchair...

Buzzo: Blind girl in a wheelchair getting handed a black widow spider. All that was fine, and what was funny was they started bitching to us about it and I thought they were talking about the rabbit. I was like, "Oh, maybe they would be a little mad about that." No, it's H-I-L-T-E-R It's a dumb joke. What I learned about most people that get upset about those kind of things is that they couldn't even tell you when World War II started, generally speaking.

Kevin: Another thing I hate about the Germans is--did you ever see the triple gatefold picture disk that has all those symbols? The only complaint on that was, "Why do you have a swastika?" It says more about them than it does about us--they only notice the swastika. They didn't notice the Klan or the Black Panthers or the Satanic cross. Six hate groups and they only noticed one. They will arrest you for walking against the light in Germany. Very tense, yet pointless people.

Buzzo: Pointless and absolutely no sense of humor. None.

Kevin: And super rude; (German accents) "That show wasn't good."

Buzzo: Yeah. "Here is a bar graph as to why your show wasn't very good."

Kevin: "There were too many seconds gap between songs." Get away from me