Fuzzy recollections

Mudhoney make peace with their past

FEELING LUCKY: Mudhoney

“Grunge.” Just the mere mention of the word is going to give many a case of the willies. For better or worse, whenever the genre receives a retrospective look, Mudhoney is always mentioned amidst the flannel, fuzz and that other band from Seattle. Now celebrating two full decades, Mudhoney remain one of the only bands from that place and time that have not turned into bloated, preening arena-rock blowhards. They’ve continued to deliver stellar records, like the heavy psych workouts on 2002’s Since We’ve Become Translucent and 2006’s Under a Billion Suns, even if not many were listening. Their new record, The Lucky Ones, proves that Mudhoney is still full of piss and vinegar, with punk rock chutzpah that recalls their classic calling card, 1988’s Superfuzz Bigmuff. The Mirror talked to guitarist Steve Turner over the phone from his home in Portland, OR.

Mirror: The new record seems like you’re back to basics, going back to your raw sound. Was that due to Mark [Arm, singer/guitarist] not playing guitar while banging out the record in three and a half days?

Steve Turner: We weren’t expecting it to be done so quickly, but we just didn’t sweat the small details like we usually do, and it just sounded right. We were practising with Mark just singing because that’s how the songs come the quickest to us, and it just sounded like we didn’t really need another guitar. We saw Mark sing with the MC5 and be a frontman again, it was really exciting to watch, so it’s kind of cool when we play these songs live because he can just hop around like a madman.

M: Is it harder for you guys to get out on tour as much as you used to, with family and career commitments?

ST: Everything we do now is kind of like an extended weekend. Mark works for Sub Pop and I have two kids and sell rare punk rock records on eBay, so we all have limitations of what we can put in the band. It was kind of a slow transition, how we started scaling things back a bit. Around 1995, I was just burnt and wanted to stay home for a year, and a couple of years later, when Dan [Peters, drummer] brought a sonar picture of his baby in the womb to practice, I guess that just changed everything completely. By 1998, our latest record tanked, nobody was coming to shows and Matt [Lukin, bass] quit, so it really seemed like the next logical step. Despite all of that, though, we never ever entertained the idea of packing it in. There’s really no more pressure being in this band now and since Guy [Maddison, bass] joined, the band really energized us again. People still aren’t buying too many of our records (laughs), but whatever.

M: Does it ever bother you that you are still just associated with your earlier records?

ST: I suppose, because most journalists just have us frozen in time, but at the same time, I totally understand that. It’s not like I wouldn’t be excited to see the Stooges do a whole set from the Funhouse record. I think we’ve finally made peace with our past.

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