Guns N’Roses

INTERVIEW
INTERVIEW
Original Melvins drummer
Mike Dillard even joins in on the
fun, with Crover moving over to
bass while the band relives the
recklessly simpler days of the
early 80s. Odder, still, is “Planet
Destructo,” on which Osborne’s
vocals sound muted and Trevor
Dunn of Mr. Bungle leads the
song straight into free-jazz
regions.
While Osborne had sketches
for the bulk of the songs
before bringing them to the
group’s collaborators, he says
he gave the bassists total control
to redirect the tunes.
“You let these guys do their
job, that’s what you do,” he
says. “You let the bass players
work. You let them put
their thumbprint on it. That’s
one thing I always hated about
composers, especially rock
composer people who think
they know everything. You
haven’t thought of everything.
You haven’t thought of a tenth
of everything. Let these musicians
do their work and they’ll
come up with something you
haven’t thought of.”
Novoselic, for instance,
even brought a new instrument
into the Melvins’ arsenal.
“It was a song he had written
on the accordion, which
was cool,” says Crover of Novoselic’s
contribution, “Maybe I
Am Amused.”
“I don’t know if a lot of people
know, he’s always played
accordion and we’ve never had
an accordion on the record,”
Crover continues, “so we had
to do it. We’re not afraid to trying
anything weird or new.”
The band also isn’t scared
of mouthing off. On the subject
of Nirvana, Osborne found
himself the center of Internetdriven
ire earlier this year when
he took the recent Cobain
documentary Montage of Heck
to task in an op-ed piece for
online site The Talkhouse. He
slammed the film as “90%
bullshit,” citing his friendship
with Cobain as his source to
dispute the film’s romanticized
claims.
Among Osborne’s gripes:
Cobain lied about having
stomach troubles to mask his
addictions.
Less than five minutes into
an interview, Osborne brings
up the mini-brouhaha, unprompted,
as if anticipating a
question about the reaction to
his essay. Nirvana, and numerous
other bands of the grunge
and alt-rock era, regularly
cheerleaded the Melvins, often
going on to achieve more fame
than Osborne and his revolving
door of musicians.
“I speak my mind and tell
things like they are,” he says. “I
was talking about working with
Cobain, and people actually
piped in and said I should have
no comment if I have nothing
nice to say. The guy was
a heroin addict who ended up
dead. What’s the nice part? So
according to them I shouldn’t
even bring that up. I find that to
be fascinating.”
Osborne has little interest
in reflecting, especially when
it comes to the band’s early
days in a small town in western
Washington. Sure, he’s happy
original drummer Dillard remains
a part of the band’s circle, but
he doesn’t have much to say
about the band’s beginnings.
“I’m just not a good ol’ days
type of a guy,” he says. “I’ve
never looked backed fondly on
all those days.
“It was a relatively dark period
in my life,” he continues. “I
didn’t have a lot of people who
were telling me, ‘What you’re
doing is great! This is really
cool!’ That was not happening.
So I had to forge ahead, with
almost everyone on all sides
telling me that what I was doing
was shit. You have to be bullheaded,
and I’m nothing if I’m
not that.”
Still, Crover remembers
early on catching what made
the Melvins so special. As a
teenager in rural Washington,
Crover says his initial bands
relied on covers of mainstream
metal bands—the Def Leppards
and Judas Priests of the world.
(continued)
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AUGUST 2016 79