Mudhoney
Where Is the Future That Was Promised Us?
2007-12-20
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Though other bands stole the headlines, Mudhoney managed to escape the shitstorm that raged from grunge’s meteoric rise more or less unscathed. Their latest release, Under a Billion Suns, the group’s second album since returning to Sub Pop (and second with bass player Guy Maddison), reinforces the foundation laid in their previous effort, 2002’s Since We’ve Become Translucent, using the bawdy horn arrangements of Craig Flory to enhance Mudhoney’s signature fuzzy stomp. This past November, Synthesis spoke with Mudhoney’s Mark Arm at Sub Pop’s office in Seattle, where we learned about Mudhoney’s greatest challenges to date: families and day jobs.
You and the rest of the group all have other jobs and responsibilities — Guy’s a nurse, Dan’s a full-time dad…
Yeah, he’s a stay-at-home dad. He’s about to have his third kid in April.
When do you find are the best times to write, considering that you’re all busy?
We can practice a couple times a week, no problem. It’s more difficult to get away from town. When evening comes around, people are off work, someone else is there to take care of the kids and all that. It’s just getting away from town that proves difficult. A friend of ours a couple years back, Tom Price, who plays in Monkeywrench, came up with a great quote: “Families kill rock ‘n’ roll.”
Do you think that’s true?
It may very well be. I don’t know if they kill rock ‘n’ roll, but it really makes it more difficult to get out there and… It really gets in the way of fucking groupies [laughs]. All the guilt that comes with it…
Sometimes, you’ve just gotta put the guilt behind you.
That’s where the drinking comes in.
I was reading some old interviews with you guys, and some recent ones also, and it seemed like you were more jaded back then than you are now, just from reading the interviews.
I think at this point we all just appreciate it a lot more. And we might have taken it for granted in the early ‘90s.
Why do you think you took it for granted?
Because it came really easy to us. We didn’t put a whole lot of work behind it. We just went out on tour and people came. A lot of bands had a lot tougher starts than we ever had. Shortly after we formed, we had two different record companies that were willing to put out at least singles by us — like Sub Pop and Amphetamine Reptile.
Since the band isn’t your sole means of support, do you feel like that frees you up to be more creative?
In terms of what we put on the record? I suppose so, but it’s never been like…we’ve never thought of Mudhoney as a way to make a shitload of money. There were a few years there when it accidentally happened, but we were never trying to get on commercial radio or anything. It’s not that we’d have a problem with that, it’s just that we would rather play the music we would want to hear instead of sell millions of records. Does that make any sense?
You and the rest of the group all have other jobs and responsibilities — Guy’s a nurse, Dan’s a full-time dad…
Yeah, he’s a stay-at-home dad. He’s about to have his third kid in April.
When do you find are the best times to write, considering that you’re all busy?
We can practice a couple times a week, no problem. It’s more difficult to get away from town. When evening comes around, people are off work, someone else is there to take care of the kids and all that. It’s just getting away from town that proves difficult. A friend of ours a couple years back, Tom Price, who plays in Monkeywrench, came up with a great quote: “Families kill rock ‘n’ roll.”
Do you think that’s true?
It may very well be. I don’t know if they kill rock ‘n’ roll, but it really makes it more difficult to get out there and… It really gets in the way of fucking groupies [laughs]. All the guilt that comes with it…
Sometimes, you’ve just gotta put the guilt behind you.
That’s where the drinking comes in.
I was reading some old interviews with you guys, and some recent ones also, and it seemed like you were more jaded back then than you are now, just from reading the interviews.
I think at this point we all just appreciate it a lot more. And we might have taken it for granted in the early ‘90s.
Why do you think you took it for granted?
Because it came really easy to us. We didn’t put a whole lot of work behind it. We just went out on tour and people came. A lot of bands had a lot tougher starts than we ever had. Shortly after we formed, we had two different record companies that were willing to put out at least singles by us — like Sub Pop and Amphetamine Reptile.
Since the band isn’t your sole means of support, do you feel like that frees you up to be more creative?
In terms of what we put on the record? I suppose so, but it’s never been like…we’ve never thought of Mudhoney as a way to make a shitload of money. There were a few years there when it accidentally happened, but we were never trying to get on commercial radio or anything. It’s not that we’d have a problem with that, it’s just that we would rather play the music we would want to hear instead of sell millions of records. Does that make any sense?
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