Big City Redneck loves Mudhoney. So much so that they drag themselves up eight flights of stairs with a shattered ankle to interview Mark Arm and Steve Turner at the top of the Kentish Town Forum. Settling back, wiping the sweat from our brow, catching our breath and accepting a beer from the band’s rider BCR breaths deep and begins the questioning…
BCR: So how does it feel to be back in London?
Mark Arm: Well, We've only been here for one day and a half. We go to Norway tomorrow.
BCR: The last time you were here was ATP with The Scientists and Comets On Fire? How was that? How was the response from the bands?
Mark Arm: We hosted one day, over two weekends which every day was hosted by a different band. I didn't stick around for all the other days but I know ours was the best day... We had The Scientists, who I don't think had played in England for quite some time. We had The Flesh Eaters which was an LA band and we got this particular line up from a record called A Minute To Pray A Second To Die and that had members from The Blasters, and a band called X. That band had only done five or six shows in 1981. So we got this incredible thing to happen that I didn't think I'd ever get to see. That was a victory on our part...
BCR: Do you think that was because of the legacy of Mudhoney?
Mark Arm: I think they were just surprised to have been asked. The Flesh Eaters were legends to those who heard them and did around five albums I think. But that line-up only appeared on that one record. It was always the same singer and the line up would revolve. He was also a writer for Slash magazine. And then we got a couple of friends of ours who's bands hadn't really played outside their respective cities. Like Tim Kerr from Monkeywrench and a band called... Total Group Sound Direct Action Committee. And they'd never played outside of Texas. So we got them down here. John Wall And The M Show who used to be in Clawhammer and he had a new band who hadn't until that point played outside of LA. So we forced these bands on people who hadn't heard them before. The Comets On Fire and Black Mountain and Country Teasers were in there…
BCR: You mentioned Monkeywrench in that long list.. Are you still doing stuff with them?
Mark Arm: Not currently, but we've just put out a record.
Steve Turner: But that was mostly recorded in 2001. It took a loooong time. We waited so long to put out the record the record label went out of business.
Mark Arm: Whoops.
BCR: How many bands are you actually in right now, at this precise moment?
Mark Arm: Shall we count Monkeywrench? I mean, we still exist but we're not playing...
Steve Turner: Well, we've recently reformed Green River so I can say for the first time since 1985 I'm a member of Green River.
Mark Arm: Guy has a band with our soundman called Brick Lane and Dan plays in a band back home with Bruce Fairweather from Green River and Garrett Shavlik from The Fluid and a couple of guys from The Press Core, and Steve has a band called Steve Turner And His Bad Ideas. I think that about covers it but...
BCR: You've always been listed as being in various incarnations or, rather, the scene seems quite incestuous. I know Dan was on Sliver and Incesticide for Nirvana which is probably the most well known.
Steve Turner: He loves that he was on those records. Especially as every now again he'll get interesting cheques in the mail from Box Sets and such.
Mark Arm: And it's interesting in that the amount is usually 666 like, 66 dollars and 6 cents or, 6 dollars and 66 cents...
BCR: I have a suspicion you may be lying but I like it.
Mark Arm: Why would I lie to you?
BCR: Well, there's a lot of the devil around with Nirvana. Apparently William Burroughs admitted to giving Kurt Cobain this device that you put on a record... It's got a candle or some kind of light in it and if you stare at it for long enough you go into this devils trance ...but I don't remember what it was called...
Steve Turner: Is it the Orgasmatron? It was pretty awkward to introduce to the rock and roll population.
BCR: I can't quite see Cobain in the Orgasmatron although he'd probably still be alive if he had one..
Mark Arm: He'd probably have been a much happier man, then he wouldn't have needed Courtney Love.
Steve Turner: His own personal Orgasmatron! Courtney Love stars as The Orgasmatron!
BCR: So to somehow segue from Barbarella... How's the new album going on? It's an odd album compared to your others
Steve Turner: I haven't been involved in any of the reports...
BCR: So once you're out of the studio you just wash your hands of it till touring?
Steve Turner: Well, it was a really easy record to make partly because Mark didn't play any guitar on it.
BCR: Was that deliberate?
Steve Turner: It wasn't exactly deliberate like that. We suggested trying to write some songs without him playing on it, see if we could come up with some vocal melodies and stuff, get some songs shaped together quicker than the last record. We just liked the way it sounded after a while...
Mark Arm: We saw no need to add guitars.
Steve Turner: We directed the sound towards a more simplified, stripped down version... It was still pretty gnarly and aggressive though too. [Tucker] Martine, the producer, was trying to come up with things to add and we were like, it sounds pretty good you know... It was really easy to do.
BCR: Yeah, you made it three and a half days, was it really that organic?
Steve Turner: They were all really early takes on every song, pretty much. There were flubs here and there but...
Mark Arm: Name one flub!
Steve Turner: Martine was really pleased with all the takes as well...
BCR: There doesn't seem to be a huge amount of production on it either and it sounds like you're all just 16 again and thrashing something out in your basement.
Mark Arm: We couldn't play anything when we were 16. We were... like 26.
Steve Turner: I don't think it was trying to recapture anything but it's definitely referencing our youth just by naming a song Tales Of Terror. We were definitely thinking of things that were turning us on at the time. Some of the songs were reminding us of the Australian band X, the very first song we wrote we were just like, "this sounds like X" just because of the heavy bass line.
Mark Arm: Which, on the record, is called New Meaning, for the record...
