[lamusicblog.com] One of modern music’s most efficacious bands, the Melvins have been perfecting their unique brand of unconventional heavy music for nearly three decades. Led by founder and frontman Buzz Osborne, the group remains an absurdly influential force on countless bands and genres across the board.
With a new album, split, and box set already released this year, the band has kept busy and shows no signs of slowing down. Prior to the kickoff of their upcoming US tour, Osborne took some time out to speak on The Bride Screamed Murder, the band’s Billboard debut, and what the future holds for the Melvins and music as a whole.
So The Bride Screamed Murder was released in June…
Yes, it was!
It was! And it saw the band’s first appearance on the Billboard Top 200 chart. Do accolades like that have any sort of relevance to you guys at this point?
I think it shows you exactly how down the scale the music business has come. I mean, it doesn’t take much to break the Billboard charts, you know?
That’s true. I read that an auto-tuned version of the news was somehow #89 last week.
Oh yeah, well there you go. You know, I never really worried too much about that stuff. It’s a good thing that didn’t make much of a difference to me because I would have quit a long time ago if that was the case.
In your opinion, where does this album rank among your entire discography?
I have no idea. I always say that I couldn’t pick one record, but I could pick five out of all of ours probably. And that’s hard, even then.
If I had to pick today, I would put it in our top five; I think it’s one of our best records. But I would also pick Colossus of Destiny, Stag, Nude With Boots, and Bullhead as well. That’s what I’d pick today; that doesn’t mean that wouldn’t change like fifteen minutes from now.
I have a hard time listening to my own music, believe it or not. I’m a little close to it. Anyone who sits around listening to their own music, getting off on it, it’s a little weird. It’s like watching yourself in a movie or something. “You know, I really am good, don’t you think? But that’s enough about me, let’s hear you talk about me.” You know, that type of thing.
I’m the wrong type of person to ask about that kind of stuff. I know what I think, but I’m also hypercritical, and I hear it with warts and all. Rarely do I ever agree when people say, “This is my favorite song!” I also think that yeah, that’s a good one, but I would’ve picked this one. With my own stuff, I hear it differently than everyone else does.
Personally, I have to say that I think it’s the best of your records with the Big Business lineup. And in terms of that, has the writing process changed since Jared and Coady joined the band?
Well, what happens usually with the vast majority of the stuff is that I have a kernel of an idea that I want to do, and we elaborate on it from there. I’m very much an accidentalist in that department, and I like to self-edit as I go along.
A lot of times I’ll think I have a really good idea, and a lot of times, it is a good idea. But then in midstream, I realize it’s not quite as good as this idea I just though of, so then we’ll change things. Or they’ll come up with something that I like, and the old idea will evaporate and turn into something new.
The creative process is always weird; it has to come from somewhere. “Happy Birthday” is, generally speaking, an acapella song, but if you take “Happy Birthday” and add an orchestra to it, that doesn’t mean that you wrote the song. [LAUGHS] You added things to something that was already there!
So we’re always adding things to something that’s already there, constantly.
As with all of your releases, it’s hard to determine whether the songs were created spur of the moment or were more carefully calculated.
More carefully calculated–even the stupid stuff is carefully calculated pretty much.
We play weird rock music. That’s what we do, and that’s what I want to do! It’s like Captain Beefheart-style heavy metal. I don’t think people should expect us to be a normal band. Hopefully our fans don’t expect that. They certainly don’t seem to, but pretty much with us, anything goes.
READ THE ENTIRE INTERVIEW HERE!!!
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