The Melvins
Twisted Trilogy
By Chris Gramlich
It was 18 years ago, when singer, guitarist, big
haired and mouthed
firebrand Buzz Osborne picked up a guitar, that the
confusing story of
the Melvins begins. At that moment, he gave birth to
one of the most
fearsome three pieces ever to abuse the auditory
sensibilities of the
musical world. Over the course of their existence, the
Melvins
(completed by longtime drummer Dale Crover and
recently recruited Cows
bassist Kevin) have done everything they can to become
a force in the
world of music, while simultaneously struggling to
distance themselves
from it.
They are infamous for inciting near riots while
touring with some of
rock's biggest - the likes of Kiss, Nine Inch Nails,
Primus, White
Zombie and Rush. They are as likely to play a
traditional song as they
are to embark upon a ten-minute noise jam simply to
annoy the audience.
They've confused their fans by embarking on a steady
musical
metamorphosis, from the pioneering sludge rock of
their first records,
“Gluey Porch Treatments” (1987), “Ozma” (1989) and
“Bullhead” (1990), to
full-out rock monsters like their major label debut
“Houdini”(1993) and
its successor “Stoner Witch” (1994). Their latest
musical endeavours have
taken on aspects of the ambient/noise genre, while
still retaining some
of the facets of their earlier molasses-like metallic
crawl (“Honky,”
1997), and they can still offer up a rock extravaganza
like “Stag” (1996).
The Melvins myth isn't limited to boosting headliner
credibility or
releasing an eclectic and extensive volume of work.
The Melvins will
forever be remembered as the band that helped break
Nirvana (the
Melvins were the name Kurt Cobain dropped to get his
first demo
recording time; legend has it he roadied for the
Melvins before touring
with them incessantly leading up to the success of
Nevermind). In fact,
they influenced almost everyone in the Seattle scene,
from Green River
to Nirvana and Soundgarden, and, unlike many, survived
the inevitable
backlash against all things flannel.
The Melvins are not a band to rest on their laurels,
though, nor hope
that past success will carry them into the new
millennium. While the
average band (and label) is content to release an
album every three
years and milk it for all it's worth, the Melvins are
embarking on their
most ambitious project yet. In the next five months,
the band will
release three albums on Mike Patton's fledgling Ipecac
label. The first,
“The Maggot,” is a return of sorts to the metallic
rock of “Bullhead,”
highlighting the slowed-down Kiss riffs of the
Melvins' adolescence.
The second instalment, “The Bootlicker” - described by
Ipecac honcho Mike
Patton as a more "ambient and listenable album than
past Melvins noise
releases, which even has Buzz singing and playing an
acoustic guitar" -
will drop in August. The third, a still-in-progress
fall release
called “The Crybaby,” featuring a number of guest
appearances, will be the
furthest deviation yet for the Melvins.
"When the whole thing is done and it comes out, some
people are going to
piss all over it and I think they're going to miss the
point of it,"
Buzz explains. "The way I figure it, people will like
the first record
and they won't like the second album, which is a
shame. The first one is
more of a metal album and the one to follow, I'm
happier with it because
I think it is more of a departure for us.
"People bitch about us becoming too weird, but the
same people would
complain if we hadn't changed.
"The interesting thing is that people bitch and
complain about us
becoming too weird and not being metal or rock enough
anymore," Buzz
continues, "but the same people would bitch and
complain if we hadn't
changed. They probably wouldn't like us now if we had
put out six or
seven albums that sounded like “Bullhead” - they would
have forsaken us a
long time ago. Since we didn't, they are still curious
about us. But
they still bitch and I find that really interesting.
Then you find out
what bands they are into, and you go, 'Well, that
explains it, you're
obviously a moron.'
"The third album (“The Crybaby”), is again a bit of a
departure for us.
We are having a lot of guests on it, and that is what
is going to make
it possible for us to pull off this trilogy. It is
going to be great, it
is going to be really weird, it'll be straight-forward
in some aspects
and strange in others and I'm really looking forward
to it. Some of the
guests we're having are Jim Thirwell (Foetus), Beck,
Hank Williams III,
Tool, David Yow (Jesus Lizard), Kevin Sharpe (from the
now defunct
Brutal Truth), Mike Patton and, of course, Leif
Garrett. We're doing a
cover of 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' with Leif singing,
and that'll be
great. The whole idea is Leif is going to carry this
baby and it doesn't
matter what it sounds like. It'll be a perfect capper
for the '90s - the
guys who got Nirvana started doing their song with a
teen idol from the
'70s. In a lot of ways, he and Kurt are a lot alike.
I'll leave the rest
up to the imagination."
Ipecac and the Melvins may be, tongue-in-cheek,
offering the trilogy up
as the final nail in their coffin, referring to this
as their "career
suicide" project, but the band has always embraced
directions that could
be construed as career assassination.
"If I started to sound like Smashing Pumpkins, that
would be career
suicide. I think people who are smart enough to like
our band can handle
it. A lot of dorks, especially in the glossy rock
world, won't be able
to understand it because they are used to dealing with
bands of far
lesser value and talent," Buzz declares, with just a
hint of
self-depreciating humour.
"When I measure myself against the benchmark that is
Orgy, Hole, Eminem
or anything else that is 'current,' I don't know how I
can continue. If
people are going to judge us along those lines, we
don't have a chance,
because they are obviously so stupid that they won't
have time for a
band like the Melvins."
Even fans who have time for the Melvins will admit
that it can be a
devilishly frustrating affair. One never knows whether
they will receive
a sludge/metal masterpiece such as “Lysol” (1992), a
rock opus like “Stoner
Witch” or a beautifully absurd, noise overindulgence
like “Prick” (1994),
perhaps the most hated of all of the Melvins'
considerable catalogue.
"In the grand scheme of things the general population
is stupid,"
according to Buzz. "A small minority of them are going
to be smart
enough to understand a band like us. We're not
pabulum, we're not
soilent green being served up for the masses. I think
it takes a bit of
intelligence to understand us, and that is unfortunate
in the grand
scheme of music because intelligence isn't something
that usually comes
into play. I think a sense of humour comes with
intelligence, and that's
why “Prick” was the perfect album for us to put out.
If people just want
to sit there and take the album at face value and not
look at the ironic
nature of it, then I can't help them," he laments.
"They are beyond my
ability to save.
"It's my job to push the limits, at least to a certain
degree. It's all
these other bands whose job it is to be safe - they
shouldn't expect us
to be like all the other stupid fucking bands they
listen to. But I
don't want to win. I don't care. I don't give a monkey
what Spin or
Rolling Stone or Nirvana's management or whoever
thinks - it doesn't
concern me at all. We can always go out and play and
find people to put
out our albums, so I have succeeded. Not only
succeeded, but have become
a taxpaying citizen. How strange is that?"