By Drum Media on Wednesday, May 29, 2002 - 04:05 am: Edit

Buzz "King Buzzo" Osborne, Melvins and Fantomas guitarist, features on two new releases, the latest Melvins album 'Hostile Ambient Takeover' and the new FantomasMelvins 'Big Band Millenium Monsterwork, a live collaboration recorded in San Francisco on New Year's Eve 2000. Having toured here twice in recent years with Fantomas and not so recently with The Melvins, Buzz will soon be back in the country with The Melvins, playing support to Tool, along with the odd show of their own.

The Melvins have always been incredibly prolific, in 1999/2000 you even managed to release three albums within the space of nine months. How do you do it?

"We just work hard on it, we don't really go too overboard. It's not that hard to do you know. Try to keep it interesting and hopefully things will work out, one way or another."

Along with putting out a high number of releases, The Melvins obviously aren't adverse to taking risks musically, having thrown your fair share of curve balls over the years. Is that the idea, to just put it out there and see what happens?

"Yeah, put it out there. I don't particuarly care that much, if people like it or not. It irritates me that some people take such offence to records that we consider to be great. I get irritated about a lot of stuff, the end of the world. People disapoint me, that's how it works, that's okay. I understand that.
I can't make people do something and I can't make them understand the fact, I'm not even going to try to make them understand. If they don't get it, it's not my fault; it's not my job to make them get it. That's their job and part of their exploration. So be it. That's fine with me. Give them enough rope, they'll hang themselves."

Was the Fantomas Melvins Big Band 'Millenium Monsterwork' performance a one off event? Will it ever be repeated?

"We performed it once in Hollywood and once in San Francisco, like a couple of weeks apart. I don't know what the future will hold, I'd like to do more of it, it was fun. It came up great, really enjoyed it."

The Melvins first toured here in '97 with the Cosmic Psychos then the Psychos supported Tool when they toured Australia in 2001 and this time you're supporting Tool. What's the connection between the three bands?

"We've known the Cosmic Psychos for quite a while, since the early '90s. We just thought it would be fun to tour with them down in Australia and then they told us they'd played with a lot of bands from America on their first tours of Australia and none of them had ever said 'come to America and tour with us.'
So we brought them over to the U.S. 'cause we were 'We're going to be the first ones.' They're a nice bunch of guys and then on that tour, we often had the guitar player from Tool (Adam Jones) sitting in with us, (playing) second guitar or noise type stuff.
So he was at about four of the shows so he met those guys. And in Australia there's some kind of law that you have to have an Australian band on the bill or something, an Australian entertainer, whether it's a juggler or clowns on uni-cycles.
"He was like 'Well, if we have to have an Australian band, I know the Cosmic Psychos, we'll have them do it.' That's what it was about-they'd met them already and knew them, that's basically where it all stems from. I think it's quite good rather than having the newest up and coming horseshit band play."

What's the most 'memorable' negative crowd reaction you've ever experienced with The Melvins live?

"These things happen, it's not like we don't expect it. I've been doing this too long to have much faith in the general public. That's not happening. Needless to say, when we opened up for Nine Inch Nails and the audience didn't take too kindly to us, none of us were too taken back by it.
Oh yeah, no shit. Big suprise there, not a whole lot of head scratching in that department. That was a pretty wild show, yeah. We played in Dallas and it was basically a riot, they just fucking hated us."