By Synthesis on Tuesday, June 11, 2002 - 03:30 pm: Edit

Any fan of The Melvins - even anyone vaguely familiar with their near-20-year career - knows that they're not a mainstream rock act, and they like it that way. The Melvins' notoriously outspoken frontman, Buzz Osborne (a.k.a. King Buzzo) has never made any bones about the way he sees mainstream music and everything that goes with it, and peppers conversation on the subject with plenty of sarcasm and biting wit. When asked why he moved the originally Aberdeen, WA based trio to Los Angeles nine years ago, Buzz casually responds "The lights and glamour…and I'm trying to begin a directing career."
Buzz is not trying to begin a directing career, but he is carrying on with one of the most impressive careers in rock - with 18 years and 18 albums under his belt, and no sign of slowing down, Buzz is destined to build an impressive catalog of uniquely varied and mostly heavy music. In 2002 alone, The Melvins released Hostile Ambient Takeover, their latest hard rock opus, as well as a live CD, Millennium Monsterwork, a recording of a set The Melvins did with Fantômas (featuring Mike Patton) on New Year's Eve 2000. But as someone with such a prolific output and uncommon approach to writing music, surprisingly, Buzz has no grand visions.
"There's no master plan. The only master plan I've ever had along those lines was when we decided to do the trilogy; and the original plan was to do a louder one, a quiet one and a really noisy one. Instead, we got another idea of doing guest stars, which we'd never done," says Buzz from his home in Los Angeles, referring to the CD trilogy the band released on Ipecac Records. "So the noisy one came out as Colossus of Destiny, and that would originally have been the third one in the trilogy, but it ended up being the fourth one, and it amazes me that people fail to see the significance of that - four albums in less than two years, all 180 degrees different from each other…oh, plus… there was the Electroretard record, which is totally different from those others. So that's five fucking albums, and people were bitching."
Mainstream media and the general music-buying populace, which have always had a problem wrapping their marketing-oriented attitudes around The Melvins' music, don't always catch on, and recent albums have been panned by many critics and largely been ignored at retail.
"They think that an album like Colossus of Destiny is some kind of joke, or we're doing it to rip people off - like we're making a lot money off that record. That amazes me…yeah, right, I bought a Malibu ranch house and two speed boats and I finally got those helicopter flying lessons I've been thinking about…all off of that record, it's a good thing I ripped everybody off," quips Buzz in a scathingly mocking tone. "What really irritates me about that kind of stuff is that, especially after all this time of doing things that are certainly different from each other and certainly traveling a lot of different paths, people still - and I'm not kidding - will, in the first sentence or the first line of a review, work in the names Black Sabbath and Kurt Cobain. Like that's all we've ever done. They've obviously never listened to a single one of our records."
It is the modus operandi of the music industry to slap a quick label on something for the simple means of mass consumption, which degrades the meaning and the individuality of the music itself, and not many know this better than Buzz.
"We get these snotty people who write stuff about us and who, for some reason, have a bone to pick with us as a result of somebody like Kurt Cobain referring to us as his favorite band. But you know, it's like, oh, I'm so sorry that I don't measure[up] to you and whatever you're interested in. It's just amazing, but whatever," dismisses Buzz, though he comes back pretty quickly at the mention of bands whose critical praise is not commensurate with their talent, drive or experience; one band in particular gets him started. "Oh, The Strokes, young media darlings. Gee, I've never heard anything quite like it. Oh god, what would they do without the Velvet Underground catalogue to choose from? How convenient is that? [Hostile Ambient Takeover] is our 18th album, and people are still tossing it off to the side. You see something like a review of some hotshot chick band that just came out and they get like, 10 out of 10, and we get a six. Oh great, thanks. If bands like that put out a record that sounded like one of ours, the media would proclaim them the fucking Beatles. But that just doesn't happen. But you know, ultimately I don't really care because we do just fine in the grand scheme of things."
Buzz moves too quickly to care about anything that's not directly in front of him when it comes to making music and dealing with the bullshit that goes along with making a living from making music. And not only do shitty, biased reviews and general media hype not concern him, neither do many of his own past albums.
"In a couple of months I won't hardly listen to [Hostile Ambient Takeover] ever again. I can't go back and listen to our older records. I'll do it for reference to relearn some of the songs to play live, but it's just not fun for me," says Buzz, whose approach to his own music is very different than that of an average listener. "I don't hear it with the same kind of ears that you would. I'm coming from a different space - highly hypercritical. I hear everything that I don't like about it, I'm too biased, too close to it, too determined to pick it all apart. It's not that I hate the older stuff, it's just that I don't hear it the same way."
Buzz is not adverse to playing older material in the live setting; in fact, there's plenty of it there, and Buzz takes the opportunity onstage to play with the songs and change things that he doesn't like. Of course, he's quick to remind that the stage is a totally different place than a studio, and Melvins' songs are never presented exactly the way they were recorded.
"We always take liberties with live material. I approach the two things very differently," explains Buzz about stage versus studio. "I never really understood the point of bands going into the studio and trying to replicate exactly what they do live. Why don't they just do a live album? I want to have a live feeling in the studio - in every isolation booth. It's a little ridiculous, like going camping in a gymnasium so you can really feel the outside world. I think that when you listen to an album, you're listening to an album, either in your car or at home or work. It's a completely different experience than going to a club. Why would I want to replicate that? I think that there's something to be said for that, but after 18 albums, how much of that can you do? After two albums, wouldn't you want to move on and do something more interesting? Unfortunately, not enough bands even think that way. This album [Hostile Ambient Takeover] is the first time in our history that we've ever attempted to play every single song off of it live. Are they exactly the same? No, they're not. It's a live experience, you're not in front of your stereo."
Buzz's drive to experiment and evolve is not confined to his music, and Buzz's penchant for shaking things up can even be seen in the artwork on the last five of The Melvins' albums. Everything has been reversed - the front covers are the CDs' tray cards and the back covers (including song titles, label information, copyright and other legal mumbo jumbo) are the front covers of the CD booklets. It's not any kind of revolution, but it is different, and Buzz says that's the point.
"Sometimes you hit homeruns with it and sometimes it doesn't work, but nothing ventured, nothing gained," he espouses, and mentions that even his decision to use the back of the CD - which Buzz says is the biggest space for art in CD packaging - for the front cover has brought even more criticism. "We've gotten people actually bitching about the fact that the art is reversed. They think it's stupid. It's like, you really have a lot of free time, don't you? It's amazing that, even with the smallest, most simple thing, people are completely governed by whatever mediocrity is in their lives."
Hostile Ambient Takeover is the band's fifth release on Mike Patton's Ipecac Records and Buzz finds Ipecac a fitting vehicle through which to get his music out. But he's not a staunch supporter of the indie way of business, as some might believe. The Melvins have had recording deals with major labels and indies of all sizes. For Buzz, sticking with Ipecac isn't a question of indie credibility. It's about business.
"I honestly don't think the label makes any difference as far as, like, when I go out and buy a record, I'm not influenced by what label it's on. I don't think more or less of it because it's on a major. I'm too wise in that department to think that one is better than the other. If I was to stand on that soap box, I would be under the reign of a political agenda as opposed to really listening to music. I don't think I could afford that because there aren't too many good bands out there to make it happen," says Buzz, whose feeling about supporting good music also rings true in his own dealings. "Personally, I don't particularly care about it. I had a really good experience on Atlantic Records. But that was a very strange time and a very strange way of dealing with it. We got signed through no fault of our own and they agreed to do three albums, which we were really surprised about because we [had] no idea that anything of that nature would happen. We've never sent out a demo tape…and I wouldn't. I mean, I just can't imagine handing my music over to some idiot, 22-year-old A&R guy so he can tell me what's wrong with it. Fuck you junior, I don't need to hear that from you. I don't need that from anybody. If somebody wants me to submit a demo tape, what that means to me is that I don't want to do anything with them. I'm just not lining up for that kind of abuse, not from anybody. If you don't want to do our records, you're an idiot. If some macho, giant label wants to sign us and I can sign the kind of deal that I want to, I don't have any problem with that.
"Indies are hardly any better," he continues, relating a personal story about the Electroretard record, which was released on Man's Ruin Records. "It's certainly a bigger rip-off as far as money goes because they just don't pay. Granted, these kinds of things happen, but the perfect example is the Man's Ruin thing. Man's Ruin goes out of business and that's it - I'm never going to get a dime, nothing, zero. Our record comes out and we get nothing. God only knows how many of those they sold, it's hard to say, but this is the nature of the beast when it comes to indie labels. Did I not expect that happen? Well, you never expect it, but I'm also not surprised. At least Atlantic Records paid their bills. There's a big difference there, and if somebody wants to act like that's a problem then I challenge them to give up their paycheck for the next six months. Go ahead - work 40 hours a week and get nothing for it. I'm sure you would like it."
Not surprisingly, Buzz is not in tune with the state of current popular music. The Melvins, despite a cult following that is nearly unrivaled by any other contemporary rock group, have never found success within the mainstream.
"Mainstream radio, for a band like us, just doesn't exist. There's no reason for me to even entertain the idea that it's a viable concept for us. It's so over-the-top ridiculously lame that I can't even think about it. We're just not that terrible," asserts Buzz, who holds a pretty low opinion of what passes for hard rock or metal in the mainstream. "Stuff like Korn and all these other bands…it just doesn't sound like metal to me, it sounds like pop music. It's not very exciting, and it all sounds like Helmet - but Helmet are superstar athletes compared to the people playing this stuff. It's not that I care about their lack of musical ability, but most of this stuff is so stupid, I can't even believe it."
And it's not like Buzz is decrying the movement from a far-removed perch. He's had his experiences with mainstream rock, and is steadfast in his belief that there is no place for The Melvins within its ranks.
"We did Ozzfest with Tool in 1998, and we were all just appalled at the hideous nature of the beast in that department. All those bands look the same, sound the same, there's not one ounce of originality in any of them," charges Buzz. "It was horrible. I mean, it was great to do it because it really cemented in my mind exactly how little I have to do with any of that stuff. I have nothing in common with those people. The worst thing about it, though, was when we did this one stop that was The Warped Tour and Ozzfest all together, in one huge show…and the Warped Tour is worse! I couldn't believe it. They set up the bands up in a semi-circle, all playing at once, all sounding like Bad Religion or Green Day…if that's punk rock, what the fuck are we? If that's heavy metal, what are we? It's all either pussy bands playing dance music or pussy metal bands not even playing metal! God damn, I mean, where do bands like Black Flag and Slayer fit into this? The sad thing is, they just don't."