Guns N’Roses

INTERVIEW
INTERVIEW
Buzz Osborne is making a racket. As the leader of
the Melvins, proponents of sludgy, guttural, and
fast hard rock for three decades, this is, perhaps,
to be expected.
Pans cling. Pots rattle. Running water drowns
out the singer’s voice.
Oblivious, Osborne, meanwhile, fields an
interviewer’s questions as if he’s a slugger taking
batting practice. Thwack. Crack. Boom. Don’t care
about this. Not apologizing for that. Never worried
about the other thing.
On this day, Osborne is at home in Los Angeles.
The background clamor? He’s cleaning the
kitchen, multitasking while talking on the phone
to a reporter. But don’t be fooled by the domestic
chores.
The Melvins, more than 20 albums deep into
their career, are not ones to give much of a hoot
about maturity. The band’s new album, Basses
Loaded, serves as a sort of primer for their career—a
bass swapping, head-spinning (and -banging)
romp that’s as stylistically diverse as it is aggressive.
A key ingredient, as always, is absurdity,
be it the carnival-like cover of “Take Me Out to the
Three Decades of Operating
Ballgame” or the constantly jolting shifts of direction
(see the muddy stump and unexpected bluesy
snarl of album-opener “The Decay of the Living”).
Outside Normalcy
Amid this cacophony resides a secret to the
group’s longevity. Work hard, laugh about it, and
then move on.
Todd Martens Talks With the Melvins
“We’re called the Melvins,” says Osborne. “We
Photos by Mackie Osborne
can’t be serious. It is serious and dark, to some
degree, but that’s part of the humor, too.”
74 TONE AUDIO NO.78
AUGUST 2016 75