MUDHONEY
The ‘G’ word and way beyond with the Seattle legends.
This month, legends of Seattle’s mythologised rock scene Mudhoney released their ninth studio album Vanishing Point, marking the 25th anniversary of their formation. Crack caught up with frontman Mark Arm to talk misconceptions of ‘grunge’, Iggy Pop’s retirement and managing warehouses for Sub Pop.
Right from the first drum roll, Vanishing Point is a rip roaring, bone shaking, full engine piece of garage rock. The four-piece might be older and wiser, but there’s no way they’re winding down, as anyone who’s seen them live recently will confirm. Drummer Dan Peters’s thumps are as abrasive as ever, Steve Turner’s piercing guitar howls sound merciless, Mark Arm’s vocals are as ferocious and fine as the first time you heard them and Guy Maddison’s muscular bass binds it all together.
Interviewing one of your heroes is a risky business. You could so easily cock it up or worse; they could shatter your illusions and be a total tool. Luckily for Crack, Mark Arm couldn’t be a nicer bloke. He’s warm and jovial but equipped with razor sharp wit. His lyrics have always been tongue-in-cheek, but has age influenced a more earnest lyrical direction on Vanishing Point? Mark is incredulous. “Really? You think I Like it Small is earnest?!” he laughs. “I would say of all the words to describe our band, earnest is not one of them. We’re not a reverent, earnest sort of band.” So the nightmarish and unwelcome guest Chardonnay, the namesake of track four, she’s not based on a real person? “Chardonnay’s not a person, it’s a wine” he chuckles again. “I mean, that song in particular cracks me up ‘cause it’s a straight up hardcore song and you know I’ve just turned 51 a little while ago, so for me to be doing a hardcore song and singing like ‘I hate authority and I hate my parents and I hate school’, that’s a little ridiculous. But to sing about white wine, that’s really funny.”
It can’t go unnoted that the Seattle scene saw a fair share of dark, sad endings to musicians’ lives: Mother Love Bone’s Andy Wood, Alice in Chains’ Layne Staley and, of course, he who has been practically sainted, Nirvana’s Kurt Cobain, all died untimely drug-related deaths. Mudhoney were no strangers to the heavily hedonistic culture which surrounded the scene, reportedly living out a deranged lifestyle during the 80s and early 90s as a young, touring band with a passion for narcotics. But Mudhoney survived the grunge era unscathed and with more credibility and respect than most of their contemporaries. Wait, there it is – ‘grunge’.
Now let’s get this out of the way. Mark Arm is often cited as coining the term ‘grunge’, a definition that so many Seattle acts came to hate as it rapidly became a label pinned upon them and their city, becoming both burden and bandwagon. Crack decides we’re going in, and ask Mark if the term is down to him? Did he coin ‘grunge’? The reply is lightning quick and full of conviction. “I DID NOT. I did not. It’s a weird thing to pin on one person. That term had been floating around in rock criticism mostly as an adjective, like ‘grungey guitars’, or there was a 70s reissue of the Johnny Burnette Trio, who were a 50s rockabilly band, and whoever wrote the liner notes described Paul Burlinson’s guitar sound as being ‘grungey’. So y’know, it was just a word that was kicking around.”
What followed the early success of a fledgling scene was the international hyping of a city in a way that hadn’t really been experienced before. Perhaps Seattle owed its success to the invention of MTV in the 80s, or perhaps because the influence its rock icons had on the world of fashion. For whatever reason, major labels rushed to sign ‘grunge’ bands. “What’s also weird to me is the bands that became known as grunge – Alice in Chains, Nirvana, Soundgarden, Pearl Jam, the big four I guess – the production values on their records are pretty clean, y’know?”, he muses. “Like, especially in the case of Pearl Jam, the guitars aren’t very distorted or grungey at all, so it seems a misnomer to me … and also, I would hate to be any part of a lineage that leads up to Creed and Nickelback. You know what I’m saying?” We know what he’s saying.
Surely the most regrettable legacy of the grunge movement was in the vocal style it unwittingly spawned. Polished, heartless imitations of the throaty howls of Vedder, Cornell or Staley became the go-to croon of choice. But Mark was never a victim of such fallout. His voice is inimitable, as ferocious as Mudhoney’s guitars and certainly a million miles away from the Chads and the Scotts of that post-grunge world. It’s been 25 years of grainy yelping and Mark’s still got it; a voice that oozes attitude. We ask how he maintains it. Apparently, he doesn’t. “I don’t know. I don’t really take a lot of care of my voice”, he says. “Generally it seems like if we’ve been practicing a lot and I’ve been ‘singing’ a lot, it kind of gets stronger than if I haven’t been singing.”
While his voice might not require careful nurturing, surely 25 years together have placed a fair bit of strain on the band’s internal dynamics? “This band, this isn’t our first rodeo. We’d all played in several bands by the time Mudhoney started”, he clarifies. “By the time Mudhoney started in 1988 I was 26, so it wasn’t like I was 19 and easily irritated by someone else in the band who might have slightly different musical tastes than me. There’s a little maturity that comes along with age. There are a couple of important things we did to keep any goofiness and personal bullshit at bay. Like, we just split publishing and writing credits equally, so when money did start trickling in there was no “hey man, how come you’re getting more than me?”, none of that crap. Doing things like that helped us move in a good direction.”
These days Mark holds down a day job working at his label home Sub Pop, where he’s had a role as a Warehouse Manager for the last eight years. You’ve got to love a down-to-earth rock legend. So it must be handy to work for your label? No problem getting time off for touring in that job. “Well, they want us to go out and tour, but I’m a little afraid that if I’m gone and there’s other people working here and everything runs smoothly, it’ll make it clear that I’m not really needed,” he laughs. From the outsider’s perpective it seems Mark is part of the furniture; there are few bands and labels so intrinsically linked as Mudhoney and Sub Pop. He’s been involved since the beginning, the band’s ‘88 Superfuzz Bigmuff EP being one of the imprint’s earliest successes. So how did he come to meet label managers Bruce Pavitt and Jonathan Poneman all those years ago? “I met Bruce and Jon before Sub Pop, probably in like 1983. The first time I met Bruce was at an all ages club in Seattle that had a very brief existence, he was playing records there and … I guess the current term is ‘DJing’”, he chuckles. “I bugged him several times, like, ‘play Void!’ or ‘play The Birthday Party!’ and eventually he came over to my place and listened to records. I remember playing him the Fang record. Jonathan worked at the local college radio station that I also eventually worked at and he put on local shows. It was a small group of people so anyone who was active in the ‘scene’ would end up knowing each other, at least by sight.”
Entirely fitting then that Mudhoney should play at Sub Pop’s 25th anniversary party, the Sub Pop Silver Jubilee, a free street party taking place in Seattle this July. Mark can’t confirm any of the other acts who’ll be playing, but he can confirm that we’re all invited. “You’ll have to pay for your own flight though!” he laughs. Did he ever think he’d still be playing with Mudhoney and releasing killer albums after a quarter of a century? “I’m amazed, I mean we’re all amazed that we’re still around and still able to put out records and that anyone gives a shit”, he confesses. People really do care about Mudhoney. Their shows are packed out and their albums still sell, as the band never lost any integrity, never sold out or bowed down to trends. They are a band who have delivered their very own brand of garage rocking psycho blues with such veracity since day one that there really isn’t a hater who could hate. “We thought we were a great band but we didn’t think we’d be a popular band”, Mark explains. “We believe in what we do, but we never thought ‘we will naturally be super rich and famous because of this music’. We knew the history of the bands that we were into, like ‘I know what happened to The Stooges, I know what happened to the New York Dolls.’ There’s a history there, you know?”
We laugh about some bands who probably shouldn’t still be going, before he relinquishes all judgment. “You know, that’s not really up to me and I don’t really care if those bands keep going or not, it’s no skin off my nose – is that even a phrase? It’s no skin off me anywhere.” He’s quite the authority on The Stooges. He’s been a fan since childhood, some of the most cherished items in his LP collection are the Stooges records which he’s owned since 1980, and he’s had the pleasure of touring with them in recent years. Crack dares to question the impeccable legacy of Iggy Pop; those car adverts were somewhat unforgivable. What does he think he’s doing? Mark jumps to Iggy’s defence. “Oh, I can tell you exactly what he’s doing, he’s planning for his retirement. I don’t think he can do this forever, he might as well try to make as much money as he can because retirement housing is really, really fucking expensive in the States.” Crack feels a bit guilty for ever putting the Pop man down and can confirm that speaking to one of your heroes about one of their heroes is pretty reassuring. God forbid anyone should diss Mark Arm, we’d take ‘em down town.
– – – – – – – – – – –
Vanishing Point is available now via Sub Pop.
Words: Lucie Grace
Illustration: James Wilson
CONNECT TO CRACK
