Buzz Osbourne, King Buzzo, Roger Osborne—all practical joker. He had me thinking that I called the wrong number, that he never worked with Mike Patton and made me forget where I live.

Number one, the Melvins fucking rock. They rock in the weirdest ways imaginable, ever since Mike Patton stopped making music and started making noise, the Melvins are one of the few bands left that make noise.

Eclectic, funny and willing to talk about anything. Read and find out why Buzz can kick Steve Vai’s ass and why Leif Garret just doesn’t realize how funny he is.

Check out the new Melvins album Hostile Ambient Takeover and go to melvins.com for tour info

Buzz Osbourne: There’s no Buzz here.

DE: Oh jeez. I should have expected this.

BO: [laughs] Where are you calling from?

DE: Manhattan.

BO: Where’s that? [Pause then laughs]

DE: Was Hostile Ambient Takeover the original name of the new album?

BO: Yeah but we’re always throwing around names for records. I think the working title for the record was Beer Hippie.

DE: Maybe that was a too Lilith Fairish.

BO: Do they drink a lot of beer? I always thought it was a bunch of women with dude musicians backing them up. A friend of mine played with one of the bands at the Lilith Fair and he said that 99 percent of the people onstage are dudes. I didn’t even think of that whole aspect of it. You can’t get on the Lilith Fair unless you’re a chick singer, but you can have all the guys you want there as part of the band.

DE: How would you describe the music on the new album?

BO: Well, I could describe a specific song. Like the last track for instance, its called "The Anti-Vermin Seed". What I wanted to do was write a super hypnotic type of bass riff that would last for a long time and have semi-interesting things going prior to a vocal that would be hanging out in space all on its own.

DE: So it’s not like these long songs you guys do, just come out. You plan for them to be lengthy.

BO: Oh yeah. It’s all very articulated.

DE: What’s it like producing your own stuff without a major label behind you?

BO: Well we went to a studio in Los Angeles with just the house engineer and us. We did the whole thing with him. We didn’t bring in Phil Spector or Brian Wilson, As much as we would have liked to. The latest hip indie producer didn’t come in either.

DE: How much work is done once the music is all laid down?

BO: Well there are a lot of ways to record, more than you could imagine. So you walk in there, you look at the studio, you see what’s there and you make a record. If the studio has the equipment to make a 16-track album then you make a 16-track album. If, like this album, this studio could only make 8, then you make 8 tracks. There was no computer or automation type stuff, no digital anything.

DE: Would you like all that stuff?

BO: We’ve never done a whole lot of that stuff, we’ve done some. But most of it was experimental stuff. I’ve never tuned any vocals with Pro-Tools, never been in a situation to use that kind of stuff. Basically we did it all the way they did it a long time ago but that was less to do with getting back to basics and, like I said, more to do with what was in the studio. If we walked in there and they had a full computer set-up we would have made a record with a full computer setup. We don’t bring in a bunch of outboard gear. Under those circumstances you just have to plan ahead with however much stuff you plan to do. If you know something is going to be a difficult edit then it’s a lot of cagey planning.

DE: Is that also because of working with a limited budget? Because I would imagine that your albums sell better than the other albums on Ipecac [Mike Patton’s record label].

BO: We’ve never lost any money for Ipecac, we’re in the black and we have been for a long time. But we also don’t spend millions of dollars in the studio. We don’t even spend tens of thousands of dollars. I’ve never quite understood when I see people like Korn spending 4 or 5 million dollars recording it. That is just beyond me. Are they saying let’s start off this record by all buying houses and cars? Then we’ll buy all the gear we want. The last Hole record cost like 3 and a half million to record.

DE: What are they doing in there?

BO: Right, it’s a big mystery to me. It’s like military spending. The thing is if someone sits me down in front of a stereo, I hear a record, it then goes on to fuckin' blow my mind and they tell me it costs ten million dollars, I would think that that is a lot of money but it’s great and that would somehow make up for it. But when you sit me down in front of an absolute piece of shit and it costs millions of dollars, I just don’t know what to think. It’s not even part of my reality. Even when we were on Atlantic, I think the most we spent on a record was forty five thousand bucks. That coffee they’re buying must be really good.

But of course you’re getting into that world of producers. Producers want a lot of money. Some hotshot producers won’t even talk to you for less than a hundred thousand bucks. A hundred thousand! I’ve never had a hundred thousand dollars in my life. Or they start getting uppity and thinking that them producing it has something to do with record sales. It’s just an atrocity how much they are paid to produce stuff that doesn’t even sound good.

DE: You got any good stories from the recording?

BO: It went pretty smoothly. No one started crying. Well, when you think of recording you’re thinking of people sitting up all night. People screaming and yelling. We didn’t want to do that. It was just the engineer and us and we only wanted to work from noon until 9 at night. We only wanted to be in the studio for twenty days and at the end whatever we have that’s what we’re putting out. So that’s what we did. It worked out fine and I’m really happy with what we did. But, Jesus, after 18 albums I think we might know our way around.

DE: Fantomas the band you and Mike Patton formed opened for Tool at Madison Square Garden. I think many people didn’t really understand what you guys were.

BO: Okay, you’ve got Tool who sell is millions of records. Out of those millions of people who buy those records, how many of them are actually people you would ever want to have a conversation with. A really good reference is to stand at the entrance at any concert of that nature and watch the people going in. Basically they’re tire iron wielding troglodytes but you get the same people at Melvins shows just not as many.

But having said that, Tool listens to really cool music. They’re not playing hacky-sack along to a Korn album. But for some reason, fans for a band like that never put two and two together that the headlining might be interested in the band that’s opening for them. Its not just to annoy people, maybe this band has something to do with what Tool is doing. Never that. Tool is in control of everything with their shows. It’s not like some corporate decision that they want some crappy opening band but it’s really asking a lot.

DE: As usual the bass player for the Melvins is fairly new.

BO: Since 1998 it's been Kevin Rutmanis.

DE: Where did you meet up with him?

BO: I’ve known Kevin for at least 12 years. He used to play in the Cows and we played lots of shows with them. I did a production for their last record and we admire his bass style, when the time came for us to find a new bass player, he was the obvious choice.

DE: Why have you gone though so many bassists?

BO: Because I can’t get along with anybody. I get along with Kevin until the next album [laughs].

DE: The Melvins have survived while every other band that got popular when you started has gone away or passed away.

BO: Thank god. More room for the rest of us.

DE: Why have you survived so long?

BO: Maybe because those bands were never any good to begin with.

DE: Were you really never a big fan of bands like Soundgarden or Alice in Chains?

BO: What can I say about that? I never knew Alice in Chains and I never appreciated their music in any way. They’re not my buddies; to me we’re not even cut from the same mold. Not even close. They are a commercial vehicle to sell records and we are an uncommercial vehicle not to sell records. With Soundgarden, we like a lot of the same bands; we both came from the same area and played many shows together. They went on to massive success and then nothing. For some reason they all couldn’t handle it anymore.

DE: At least Soundgarden gave up before they put out even more mediocre albums.

BO: Did they [laughs]. I expect a lot from people and I shouldn’t. I also expect a lot from people who are put into an amazing situation and then fail to live up to it. But maybe that’s my fault. If they are doing exactly what they want to then, good for them. At what point do you not need any more money and you can stop worrying about singles.

DE: Obviously you’re friends with Mike Patton or you work together at least.

BO: We work together at least.

DE: Is that the reason for working with his record label Ipecac?

BO: Mike called me up; he wanted to create a band called Fantomas with all this music that he had. He sent me a tape and I thought it was pretty wacked out shit. I never did anything like it before. He tried to get a record deal and nobody is interested even though he’s got him, Dave Lombardo, me and Trevor Dunn. Some record labels offered him a couple of thousand bucks to do a record deal. It was so discouraging. Finally Mike and his manager, Greg Werckman, just wanted to put it out themselves. It was such a bummer; we actually had labels that wanted to hear demos. I’ve never made a fucking demo in my life; they think I’m going to turn something in to some indie label so they could put it out on their precious label. I am not passing an audition.

Now they decided to put the album out themselves and the Melvins weren’t on a label. So I said that the Melvins would do a record with you guys if it would help get this whole thing rolling. He took all those things and got a manufacturing and distribution deal. It’s worked out perfect. Now the Fantomas record has sold over fifty thousand records, what fucking morons those labels were, that’s massive success on the indie level and that’s just in the US. If I was an indie that turned us down I would feel like an idiot.

DE: Would you go back to a major label if you had the chance?

BO: Absolutely, but the problem there is that I’ve never made demos and I never want to. Back in the early 1990’s lots of major labels wanted to sign us and that’s because Kurt Cobain was spouting off about us all the time and that made a lot of people interested. We had a chance to do something, which we thought was never in the cards for us. With almost no pressure whatsoever we got signed, sight unseen with total creative control. If I could get that same deal as before with the same situation I would do it in a heartbeat. It was great. They never fucked with us at all, I’m still really proud of those records. We do better now live and sell more indie records because of that history with Atlantic Records.

Now having said that, are they the smartest people I’ve ever worked with, absolutely not. Was it really easy to deal with? No it wasn’t. But then again I’ve been involved with indie labels that have been a much bigger rip-off. Tens of thousands of dollars that I’ll never see. Atlantic’s checks never bounced.

DE: I’ve read that you said Mike Patton is like Hitler with a cunt.

BO: Yeah I was pretty proud of that quote.

DE: Why is that?

BO: I don’t know. He’s like a woman who acts like Hitler. Imagine that. Hitler-bitch.

DE: You got any good stories about you and Mike Patton?

BO: I saw him get into a shoving match with a school crossing guard in Italy. Mike speaks fluent Italian. There’s no kids around and we were walking past this guard and something was said between them, I don’t know what. All of sudden they are shoving each other. A crowd formed and it went on and on between them. I asked Mike what it was all about and he said, "it’s all this Italian bullshit, I can’t stand it." I don’t know what happened.

DE: You’ve said that you’re not a phenomenally technical guitarist, where do your strengths lie?

BO: Well you put me up against Steve Vai in terms of technical ability, he will blow me away. But I’ll take the Pepsi challenge with songwriting against Steve any day. I think I’m a hundred times more interesting than him in terms of coming up with interesting records. I saw Steve Vai play with Frank Zappa in the early 1980’s, he was fucking amazing, but he’s playing exactly what Frank wants him to play. Put him in that situation and he will bury you. If you ask him to write you an album, I mean Kurt Cobain would have stomped his ass. Ultimately being a phenomenal technical guitarist is worthless unless you’re a hired gun, which is where Vai’s strengths lie. I never took guitar lessons; I don’t know how to read music.

DE: What made you want to work with Leif Garrett for the Nirvana cover song?

BO: I think that should be fairly obvious. It’s just funny. We were laughing our asses off. I still think it’s hilarious.

DE: Did Leif get the joke?

BO: I don’t know what exactly Leif gets. It’s a series of jokes. Leif has problems, all of which are relatively obvious. It certainly was one of the weirdest things I’ve ever been involved with. It was the most punk rock thing I’ve ever been involved with.

DE: You got the band local LA band, Lucky Stars, on Ipecac, what do you like about them?

BO: Well I suggested them. They’re just the best band in LA by far. They have a really great approach to what they are doing. The thing that irritates me about modern country music is the fact that either its played and it sounds like Shania Twain, which is little or no different than Mariah Carey, or it’s Brooks and Dunn or punkabilly, which I really can’t stand. All those bands sound like they are playing versions of "Hot Rod Lincoln" every night. Lucky Stars are really traditional and I love them.

Dan Epstein lives on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City. He is contributor to such websites as Gadflyonline.com, 3ammagazine.com, Hybridmagazine.com, SlushFactory.com, Ifanboy.com and DavidFincher.net. He has interviewed such luminaries as Jodie Foster, David Fincher, Bruce Campbell, Jerry Stahl, Daniel Clowes, Gilbert Shelton, Chuck Palahniuk, Douglas Coupland, Paul Auster and The Damned.

He is also a former producer for MetroTV where he worked on such shows as The Daily Beat, Studio Y and New York Eats and has worked on such feature films as Tromeo & Juliet by the Troma studios and Dinner and Driving.

He loves referring to himself in the third person

Email him at danepstein75@hotmail.com

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