Mudhoney The Speaker Phone, Bitburger, And Mark Arm by The Beerbug & Friends first published in Caustic Truths magazine (interviewed July 2002) photo courtesy of Sub Pop Records

Every time Mudhoney comes through Minneapolis they always leave a stamp of drunken fun in my mind. My good friend Louie and I met Mr. Arm when he came through with his other band Bloodloss back in 1995 since then  we've kept up to obnoxious conversations with Mr. Arm when he comes in town. This time around I thought we might as well try it on the telephone. Thanks to Steve at Sub Pop, Aaron Lewis, and Yopparai Bill for their help with this interview.

Beerbug: Steve from Sub Pop sent a promo of the new album and from listening to it, it sounds like you guys were throwing some new stuff in there. I was wondering what had influenced you guys or what had you been listening to prior to making the album?

Mark: All kinds of stuff, I don't know, we always listen to all kinds of stuff so it wasn't like you could point to anything. You know like this is what we were trying to do necessarily, things just sort of came up as they came up. If that makes any sense, we all listen to a wide variety of music. Nothing that you'd really find on the radio charts of today.

Aaron: Ok, this is Aaron I'm sitting in here.

Mark: Are you on a speaker phone or something?

Aaron: Yeah, I'm the one who owns the speaker phone so that's why Beerbug is here. I've also been a big Mudhoney fan forever, I forgot what I was gonna ask... what have you been listening to, music wise.

Beerbug: What's been in the CD player, I guess?

Mark: Well the last couple of days I've been listening to a lot of Can for some reason, I don't know why (laughing)

Beerbug: Wasn't John Lee Hooker in that for awhile?

Mark: No that's Canned Heat. Can is this German band from the late sixties - early seventies. They were apparently a big influence on PIL (Public Image Ltd), early PIL.

Beerbug: I see, I know with PIL, John Lydon's supposedly a big Hawkwind fan and from what I've read Your a big Hawkwind fan as well.

Mark: Yes I am.

Beerbug: What about the little horn section on "Where The Flavor Is" what kind of brought that on?

Mark: When we were working on that song it just sounded, it seemed like that would be a really good thing to put in there.

Beerbug: The horn players were they friends or were they people from other bands?

Mark: The saxophonist is a friend of mine and I called him and asked him to put a horn section together.

Beerbug: Is he the same sax player from My Brother The Cow?

Mark: No it's a different guy. The guy's name is Craig Flory, since it was part of the same session we asked him to put horns on "Take It Like A Man" and since he was in the studio... he stopped to do a sax thing on "Baby Can You Dig The Light". Those songs were all recorded in the same weekend.

Beerbug: The first song "Baby Can You Dig The Light" was really long was that something you were able to do going back to Sub Pop vs. when you were on the majors?

Mark: Nah we could've done something like that on the majors too? I mean we did like "1995" that was on My Brother The Cow, which you mentioned earlier and that was pretty long... jamming thing.

Beerbug: That was the last track wasn't it, takes you to the end of the disc?

Mark: Right right, you know the whole time we were on the majors nobody really told us what to do or anything except for the very last record. They got like, you know the whole company basically shipped and got like new department heads and a new A&R guy who kind of made it clear that he didn't really care for us too much (laughing)

Beerbug: Were you guys dropped or did you fulfill your contract?

Mark: Oh no, we got dropped, you know we never turned a profit for them or anything like that so I'm sure as long as you make money for them it doesn't matter what you do.

Beerbug: So with Sub Pop are you just going with like a one deal contract or...

Mark: Yeah, it's a one record deal but you know we can always do two. It seems like at this point there's no point in us getting mired down in long... you know it's just a contract.

Beerbug: I remember reading in a Jack Endino newsletter about "Straight Life" and "Inside Job".  Weren't they released somewhere else before?

Mark:  Yeah, "Inside Job" was recorded in 2000. It was for this kind of failed internet music website/record company called Musicblitz.com...  Wayne Kramer was putting together this compilation CD for them called Beyond Cyber Punk. He came up to record it and he played bass on that particular track. He came up to produce it and Jack Endino recorded it... "Straight Life", there's an older version of that song that was recorded at the same time but since then we've totally changed the chorus and pretty much the verse riff is the same but everything else is different.

BeerBug:  The original one, did that go to the Gearhead magazine?

Mark:  No, no.  If you bought the CyberPunk CD somehow in the CD, I don't know how you're supposed to figure this out but, there's a way if you put it in you're computer it gives you an access to more songs to download or whatever for free and that was available that way.

BeerBug:  Ok, I see.

Mark: The internet is way too complicated. (laughter)

Beerbug:  Yeah, most internet sites kind of are. So Wayne Kramer asked you guys to do that, and he was going to produce it, then he ended up playing bass on it is that what you're saying?

Mark:  Yeah, pretty wild, huh?

Beerbug: I was wondering about that. The little promo kit that Steve at Sub Pop had sent to me mentioned that in there and I was curious about that and how you guys hooked up with him.

Mark:  I think the deal was this guy who worked at Musicblitz used to live up in Seattle, he called us and hooked us up with Wayne. The reason he played on the record, I mean, originally Steve was just going to play bass on that track in the studio when we recorded it but Wayne came up the night before and watched us practice the night before we went in to record it. He noticed there was a bass sitting there and asked if he could play it. We were like, "Fuck Yeah!"  (laughter)

Beerbug:  You were also involved in some Stooges cover that didn't get released or something.

Mark:  There was a band called the Wild Rats, it was wild with a Y and rats had like three T's or something (Wyld Ratttz). That was done for the movie Velvet Goldmine. Do you remember that movie?

Beerbug: Yup.

Mark: It came out a couple of years ago and it was Thurston Moore and Steve Shelley of Sonic Youth and Mike Watt playing bass and Ron Asheton playing guitar. I got a call from Thurston to come out and basically what happened was I wrote words to two new Ron Asheton songs. And the rest of the time we just blasted Stooges covers. One of which "TV Eye", they used for the movie but that's not me singing in the movie. That's "what's his face", the character, the actor guy, so please, please, don't blame me for that. (laughter) And they did some other recordings when I wasn't around, Mudhoney was on tour, this must've been around '98. It's been quite a while now and it's never seen the light of day and I'm not sure why. I mean there's plenty of stuff and there's no reason for the Stooges covers to be released. But like Ron's original stuff was really cool and I heard some other stuff they did afterwards when I wasn't involved and it's pretty cool so I'm not sure why it never came out.

Beerbug: So the song you did with Ron Asheton never got released then?

Mark: No, in the movie there, I can't remember the name of that guy, the actor, he's in Train Spotting and Star Wars.

Beerbug: Velvet Goldmine. Eww...?

Aaron: Ewan McGregor.

Everybody: Yeah

Mark: There's a scene, I don't know if you've seen Velvet Goldmine or not, but there's a scene in that movie where's he's in the studio where he's trying to sing to a song and he's having a hard time and a bad day.  That song, that music, is Ron. I don't know, they kind of butchered it and it's sort of a shame that they did that to it in the movie.

Beerbug: I know when you've come to Minneapolis you met a buddy of ours named Louie.

Mark: Oh yeah! yeah ok. (laughter)

Beerbug: Well Louie just joined us here.

Mark: Are you guys calling from Minneapolis?

Beerbug: Yes. We're calling from Minneapolis. I actually run a record label called Chicken Katsu Records.

Mark: Right, right...ok.

Beerbug: Yeah, we're here in Minneapolis, and it was weird I just emailed well what happened was I picked up a copy of Caustic Truths magazine and they had The Damned in it and I'm a big Damned fan especially with Captain Sensible.

Mark: Right

Beerbug: So I emailed the magazine to ask question but they didn't exactly answer my question but the next thing I know it I'm getting records sent to me to be reviewed (laughing) He asked if anybody wanted to do the Mudhoney interview and I said sure I'll do it I was pretty sure somebody else would pick it up but he replied back that you have it and contact Steve from Sub Pop (laughing) he'd done a really good job Steve from Sub Pop.

Mark: Right, he's a really good guy

Beerbug: Yeah, he's on the ball, he's really good at getting back to people about stuff. (to Louie) You've got any questions?

Louie: Hi Mark.

Mark: Hey Louie, how you doing?

Louie: Ok, I just woke up and had a bad dream. (laughing) I'm not in good mood but it's nice talking to you.

Mark: Likewise.

Louie: Yeah long time no see...

Mark: What?

Beerbug: He didn't hear you come up closer.

Louie: Long time no see and no talk.

Mark: Yeah indeed.

Louie: Are you guys coming back to Minneapolis anytime soon?

Mark: Hopefully, what's been happening with us... is like Dan he's a stay at home Dad so we can pretty much only get away for the weekends. So we're gonna be flying in to places on the weekend to play.

Louie: Maybe I can come to Seattle and see you guys.

Mark: Yeah that'd be great we're playing August 29th can you make it?

Louie: I got to see financial wise.

Beerbug: Actually you mentioned 4:00 your time you're going into the studio.

Mark: Yeah.

Beerbug: Are you going with Mudhoney or with another project?

Mark: Oh no, it's to do vocals for an Alice Copper cover?

Beerbug: Is that by yourself?

Mark: No it's Mudhoney.

Beerbug: What will that be going to then?

Mark: That's gonna be the B-side to a single... there's also gonna be Sub Pop putting together a fake version of Love It To Death with different bands doing different songs from that album.

Beerbug: That'll be interesting, so Sub Pop nowadays, you always hear different things about it. Is it still Jonathan Poneman and Bruce Pavitt or have they sold it?

Mark: I know... well Jonathan there he's in the office all the time he basically runs it but Bruce hasn't really been involved in a long time I'm not sure if he still owns his part of the company or not.

Beerbug: I'm sure you get asked this a lot, but I know that Matt left the band then he came back then he left again?

Mark: Right.

Beerbug: Could we get the whole story

Mark: Well he quit but we managed to talk him into doing a tour (laughing) but you know he really wasn't all that happy about it so it made it obvious that we had to move on.

Beerbug: Was it touring or did he want to get away from the music pretty much?

Mark: Yeah, all of it pretty much.

Beerbug: So he retired from the music?

Mark: Right.

Beerbug: So how about the album title? (Since We've Become Translucent).

Mark: It's a line form "Sonic Infusion" which is the last song on the record.

Beerbug: Ok, last summer you came through Minneapolis?

Mark: Right, with Guy playing bass.

Beerbug: And he's from Bloodless and Lubricated Goat?

Mark: Yep and a band called Monroe's Fur and about a half dozen bands you never heard of from Australia.

Beerbug: Was that tour to get Mudhoney back out?

Mark: Yeah to kind of break him in and to kind of get out there and do something you know once we came back from that tour we started writing songs for the new record.

Beerbug: Ok, this is not related to Mudhoney but you always hear the stories about the supposed beginning of Mr. Epp is that all true?

Mark: I don't know, what's the story?

Beerbug: That you guys weren't really a band you'd just put up flyers.

Mark: Kind of, what it was, I mean we were in high school at the time (laughing) and we had this fake band there was this math teacher at school called Mr. Epp so it was Mr. Epp & The Calculations and this went on for years. One year a couple of the guys who were involved in this group of people went to France with the French club and like they took Mr. Epp on a European tour it was all just in our head. Eventually we just started fucking around with whatever instruments we had on hand which wasn't much but we'd play with old cassette recorders and stuff like that and make noise and make it go backwards and stuff. Darren had a drum kit and was a really good drummer he eventually became the drummer for Steel Pole Bathtub we would just sit around in Darren's bedroom and make shit up, make flyers you know pretend that we were a real band. (laughing) We were putting up flyers one time and this woman Myrene Mascow saw that we were doing this for this fake show that was never gonna happen and she was actually interested in the band so we decided to go to the pawn shop and get cheap instruments.

Beerbug: But you guys... I remember seeing a long time ago an SST catalog and you did get on some compilation.

Mark: Yeah, that was a New Alliance compilation called Mighty Feeble that we were on.

Beerbug: Ok, how far was that from when you didn't know what you were doing? By that time had you guys been serious into it?

Mark: (laughing) Well when we first started Darren knew how to play drums. He was a really good drummer so he pretty much stuck to drums and the rest of us traded off playing stuff like the guitar we bought, the tuning peg on the A string was broken so we'd always, we didn't even know how to tune the damn thing for one thing we didn't even know how a guitar should be tuned. (laughing) We got this tiny little Peavey amp with the gain knob and the saturation all the way up and you know the guitar had a whammy bar thing and we'd get feed back and make noise and pretend we're Hendrix (laughter) actually knowing how to play.

Beerbug: Well what came out on Super Electro is pretty interesting, The Apocalypse, maybe I'm thinking Monkeywrench, but I remember the CD with the black & white jacket.

Mark: Right

Beerbug: Collection CD, How about Steve? Did he know how to play before he joined, I know it mentioned he came in later?

Mark: Before he joined he'd played guitar a year or something, I mean I didn't know him then and he played briefly in this hardcore band called Spluii Numa but I think he quit that band before they ever played a show and he joined up with Mr. Epp.

Beerbug: You got any questions?

Mark: Huh?

Beerbug: No I was just asking my colleagues here if they had any questions.

Mark: Oh, Ok.

Beerbug: Louie you've got to get closer to the mic.

Louie: I've got a lot but I can't think right now, I just wanted to talk to you Mark so that's why I stopped by. (laughing)

Mark: Ok.

Louie: Hopefully I see you August 29th.  I'm really thinking seriously about coming down there.

Mark: That'd be great let us know if you're coming down and we'll put you on the guest list.

Louie: That'd be awesome and maybe we can hang out after that or whatever.

Mark: Yeah.

Louie: I wanna check out, Do you do like solo projects or side band thing?

Beerbug: Free Wheeling Mark Arm?

Louie: Like for fun?

Mark: I didn't catch any of that.

Beerbug: You've got to get closer!!

Louie: Do you do like solo or a side band thing for fun? Like for yourself or for whatever?

Mark: No, I haven't done anything besides that one single.

Louie: Ah no, or what?

Beerbug: The Free Wheeling Mark Arm.

Mark: Steve just recorded a solo record though.

(confusion)

Beerbug: Could you repeat that again?

Mark: What?

Beerbug: Who did you say recorded a solo record?

Mark: Steve just recorded a folky sort of record.

Beerbug: Steve Turner, the guitarist.

Louie: Oh, Ok.

Aaron: How will that album be?  Or what will that be available on, Sub Pop?

Mark: I have no idea, I don't think he's even played it for anyone yet.

Beerbug: Is he still doing Super Electro?

Mark: Ah, No.

Beerbug: He quit doing the label then?

Mark: No, no. If you want to get stuff that is put out then you can, but he's not doing anything new.

Beerbug: I see, it's kinda what C/Z Records is doing now-a-days.

Mark: What record?

Beerbug: C/Z.

Mark: Yeah, I guess so. I don't really know what's up with Daniel.

Beerbug: Well is there anything you'd like to talk on, to get into the interview?

Mark: Oh, well not really. I don't have anything I'm dying to get off my chest. (laughter)

Beerbug: I think we got a good amount covered.

Mark: Yeah, it seems like it.

Beerbug: I know you gotta get to the studio then.  Thank you very much for taking the time.

Mark:  (says something)

Beerbug: Ah, ok.

Mark: (laughter) I'm glad we hooked up.

Beerbug: Oh, same here! If you see Steve over at Sub Pop, I mean,  I'll send him an email too, but if you could thank him for being really on the ball and getting back to me for the interview and all of that.

Mark: Sure.

Beerbug: I do have actually one more question...

Mark: Ok what's that?

Beerbug: I noticed there's some website that's put out as the "un-official" Mudhoney website but in the message board, you and Steve are always sending comments...Do you guys put that out?

Mark: The Italian one?

Beerbug: Is it an Italian one?  It has a lot of information and talks about all the different bands you guys have been in.

Mark: Right, right. That's put together buy a guy in Italy named Giordano.

Beerbug: I think that's it.

Mark: Every once in a while he'll ask us what's up. We'll e-mail him back and he'll put that up.

Beerbug: Oh, Ok. Is that what would be the website that you refer people to?

Mark: We're actually going to be starting a website. It's not up yet.  We're working on it now. Well... we're not. We don't know how to do any of that crap. (laughter) But someone's helping us design one. It'll be at www.mudhoney.org.

Beerbug: Ok, I guess one more, Is Dan Peters still playing in a million bands?

Mark: No, Dan is really busy taking care of his kids.

Beerbug: I see, well. Once again thanks for you're time. (laughter)

Mark: Sure thing.

Beerbug: Ok.

Mark: Alright, talk to you guys later.

Beerbug: Talk to you later.

(Everyone says goodbye)

HOME