Bandsplain - 24 Question Party People: Mark Arm of Mudhoney

Episode Date: April 16, 2024

Mark Arm of Mudhoney comes by the show to discuss the sewage tunnel boring machine named after his band, the record store that changed his life, surfing at Kelly Slater’s ranch, being radicalized by KISS and Aerosmith, seeing Robert Goulet at the airport, hanging out backstage with David Matthews, and more! Host: Yasi SalekGuest: Mark ArmProducer: Jesse Miller-GordonAudio Producer: Chris SuttonAdditional Production Supervision: Justin SaylesTheme Song: Hether Fortune Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

You may find this hard to believe, but 60 songs that explain the 90s. America's favorite poorly named music podcast is back. With 30 more songs than 120 songs total. I'm your host, Rob Harvilla, here to bring you more shrewd musical analysis, poignant nostalgic reveries, crude personal anecdotes, and rad special guests, all with even less restraint than usual. Join us once more on 60 Saws that Explain the 90s every Wednesday on. Spotify.

24 question party people and party people. Hello and welcome to 24 question party people. I am your host, Yossi Solick. This is a show where I invite an interesting person on for a little talk. I ask the same 23 questions every time, more or less, plus one wild card. The guest is allowed to skip one question. Sometimes the questions change a little. I don't have anything for you right there.

You guys, Bansplain is back this week. the long national nightmare is over. But it also means that my house is a fucking wreck babe. I should be on the television program hoarders. It's just a sea of piles in various places. I haven't folded laundry in weeks.

I've eaten so many frozen pizzas for dinner. It's dark times over here. Also, I had to retrieve a few of those sticky notebook flags from inside my puppy's mouth yesterday. we're hanging on by a thread. Binsplain is my main gig. That is, that's my calling, is to serve as the du moire of 30 to 40 year old guitar rock icons.

Whereas this show is just really a shining example of my fun personality trait where I think I can do 1,000 things, all of the things. When in reality I absolutely really cannot do all of the things, hence the piles of one. laundry and the frozen pizzas and the pain. I'm working on it. I'll tell you what's been keeping me like sort of slightly sane, slightly sane amid the sea of yorls and all the vintage MTV YouTubes and my trips into the Wayback Machine. Besides, of course, my recently reacquainted BFF wine, my friend Chloe put me on to Cameron Diaz's wine brand, Avaline, which is, you just gorgeous, babe. It's organic. It has no sugar added. It's basically a health tonic. So, thank you, Chloe. But what else is keeping me sane is my new parasocial relationship with a

Florida-based dog trainer I found on TikTok. I now kind of more understand parosocial relationships, just like I am some of your guys's imaginary best friend. Hey, besties. I now have a completely one-sided friendship with Meg, the everyday trainer. Love you girl. She has like four huge dogs and walks them all at the same time, hands free, no hands, no hands on a leash. I mean, they're on leashes, but they're wrapped around her shoulders while she's like carrying a macho latte or something. And with that, babe, she had me a fucking hello. I was in. So yeah, there's that. It's true. It's true that the path to greatness is lonely. And yes, I have convinced myself that spending. hours and hours and hours of my one wild and precious life mapping the birth of grunge has something to do with greatness. So yeah, that is lonely, but I am grateful for my Avaline

wine friendship with Andrew Huberman ended babe. Cameron Diaz and the Florida-based dog trainer from TikTok are my new best friends. And also, what else? For me, my television shows. Right now, it's the rookie. It's about a 41-year-old rookie cop on the LAPD, babe. I'm on season three. I'm also really grateful that Mark Arm from the extremely majorly iconic bands, Green River and Mudhoney took the time out of his wild and precious life to come on this podcast to help me kick off this big Bansplain Returns Week. Even though I am pretty sure he admits in the interview that he only did this because his public has made him and that he was largely her under duress,

which is honestly fine because however I get them to, you know, come on here is fine with me. I don't want to be picky. I like to think we had fun anyways, even though it was banditory for him. Here is my talk with Mark Arm. You guys, what a blessing and an honor today to have Mr. Mark Arm on the podcast. Welcome to the show Mark Arm.

Thank you, Yassie. First, I needed to talk to you about Mark Arm, the name, because I have been doing just an inordinate amount of research too much. I'm ill at this point about because I'm doing a grunge season of my other show. Don't worry. I know that you are patient zero of grunge in the interview circuit, and I will not be asking you about that. You can be free of that from today. But I did in my research, find that you got the name Mark Arm because you and your friend thought it was very funny to sit around and use body parts as like slurs at each other. Yeah, we, you know, we had a very sort of insular sense of humor and we were super into like, you know, SCTV and stuff like that. Yeah. And anything, and a fire sign theater, you know, anything that was kind of absurd. No, I loved it.

It made me feel so seen because my friend Rachel and I used to play this game. game is really an overstatement, but where we would go one, two, three, and then the other person had to say a first and last name, just off the top of their head. And to this day, I've never laughed so hard, and I remember them. Like, one was like Osgood, Fairgood. I laughed for, like, two hours. I think one of mine was Schmula Johnson. Like, I don't know why it was the fucking funniest thing to me. And I just felt a kindred spirit with you in this game. Because I was like, yeah, this is the kind of, like, thing that, like, most people will not find funny, but I would have laughed for like 10 hours playing this game.

Like arm, arm, I would die. I would think of it for years to come and just laugh to myself. So that's all just one. Osgood, fair, good. We're also very easily amused. I think that's a great personality trait. Then you can be delighted by life. I guess so.

Okay, Mark Arm, Mudhoney. You guys put your 12th album out last year. 12th album, Plastic Eternity. It's so good. It's so weird. I love it. Oh, thank you. I really felt Move Under was maybe my favorite song.

But severed dreams in the sleeper cell, it's so like, how do I say, eerie and menacing, but also like 70s. It was very to me like, what if mud honey, but also Iggy Pop, but also Lou Reed? Well, that stuff has been in our music since day. I know, totally. But I was like, I was like, I'm glad we still have that thread

running into the 12th album. We haven't surrendered. I also wanted to show you, this is an audio-only podcast so people can't see this, but I wanted to show you something very funny. I ordered this like package of rock and roll stickers off of Amazon.com. Okay. I'm just dying at the mud honey one being on the same page as Queens of the Stone Age, Jimmy World, Faith No More, and the Hives. And it's not even alphabetical. So it just makes like really no sense where they put you.

But we're at the top. At least you're at the top. Also, they had a malfunction one. Can you believe? Oh, rad. Isn't that cool? All right. Mark Arm.

I have one more question before we get into the actual 24 questions. Okay. I read an interview with you. Maybe it was last year. And the interviewer asked about the impact of COVID on the album making process and were there any opportunities? And you said, no, there were no opportunities. We saw each other once because there was a sewage tunnel, boring machine named after us.

And we got together for the unveiling of that. I'm going to need more information about this sewage tunnel boring machine that is named after Mud Honey. Well, Mudhoney completed its task. Okay, Gorge. The tunnel is happening. And apparently the people on Ballard don't have to worry about wastewater overflow in the streets anymore and into the local water system. This is like as close as you're getting to like the key to the city, is the, sewage machine. We actually

got not quite the key to the city, but Del Constantine, who is the King County Council Commissioner or whatever. He's like the King County Executive. He did a proclamation on the same day

as our album release calling it like Mud Honey Day. I don't think anyone was listening that I have a printout of it. He printed it from the internet. It's a little unfair. Because like now when we're all young pups

We worked together like KCMU which was a precursor to KexB. And it's unfair because why? I've just known him all time. Right, right, right, right. Okay, I see, I see. I see. You're like, I've known you.

It's almost nepotism. Well, I mean, I'm friends telling you friends. You're basically the mayor of Seattle rock and roll. I mean, who else could be in this position? If I was more, I guess, like outgo and likely to go around and meet people and shake hands and stuff. But that's not the vibe of the Seattle rock and roll mayor.

That's exactly your vibe. In my just humble estimation from an outside perspective, I'm like, this is actually more perfect that you're like, no, actually, I will not be doing any photo ops. Sorry. All right, Mark Arm, let's get started. 24 questions. We're going to make it through. Before we started, you guys, Mark Arm was like, is this actually going to take 90 minutes?

So he's really excited to do this. And I cannot wait to see. what answers we got? I'm just kidding. All right, number one, Mark Arm, what is your astrological sign? It's Pisces. That's right. A Pisces man. Are you an great? I mean, for an artist, it's an excellent placement because Pisces, so Pisces is like ruled by Neptune, which is the planet that rules creativity and dreams. So it's like a very creative, very imaginative, sort of like prone to escapism and illusion, sensitive emotional sign, which I think are all really good traits for someone who makes art.

So do you think all of the people who are born, like even on the same day that I was born have these exact same traits? Well, people are born the same day as you will have even more of the same traits. I am a, listen, we all have our thing, right? Men like sports. I can't I have astrology? Like can't I have my thing? Um, Where the planets were, where you were born, informs the whole chart. So I do think broadly trying to apply just the sun sign is not a very accurate way to decipher personality types. But I think when you have someone's whole chart, you'd be surprised how on point it is. Okay.

Also, Pisces can be lazy and moody. Do you relate to any of these qualities? Not so much moosey, but for sure lazy. For sure, lazy. All right, Mark Arm, number two. What did you eat today? So far, oatmeal and coffee. It's 10.10 a.m.

Does the oatmeal flavor or did you just go plain? Chop up some apples and just add some blueberries and a little bit of cinnamon. And oat milk, just to keep it all in the family. That sounds delicious. I will be dragged for this because people don't like when I do this, but I must tell you that oat milk is very bad for you and you should not drink it or eat it. Oh, milk is? Yes, it has a very high glycemic index and it has.

It's made with like kind of bad oils. I can send some literature your way if you'd like. So what's fake dairy product you recommend? I think almost any of them are better than oat milk, like cashew, almond. Soy. Soi I don't think is very good because it tend to be, I have like bad effects on your hormones. Rice?

Rice milk is good. It doesn't taste very good, but I think it's fine to drink. How do you milk, rice? Such a great question. And I think they just like soak it, right? Like, and then it's like the creamy juice that comes off. Rice milk is also really good for your skin. I need that.

So if you want to double, double does. The people know, but I myself, I'm a raw cow milk curly. I'm surprised. Well, Seattle's not as L.A. as L.A. is with our health store trends over here. You'd be surprised. I mean, I was surprised years ago, spent a couple weeks in like San Clementine. I'm sick in California, everything's going to be like organic and stuff. I found like a farmer's supermarket, but it was, everything was like non-GMO or.

Well, San Clementi is Orange County, right? We don't claim that place. No, I know, but it's going to be all alfalfa sprouts. Orange County is its own beast. I'll tell you, I've actually spent some time in Bellevue. That's not where you grew up, but is that where you went to high school? Is that where the Christian high school is? It's very beautiful.

Was it always that beautiful? I've only been in the last couple of years. A few years ago, I kind of drove around the neighborhood that my old high school was in with Keith Cameron, who wrote the mud honey book. Sure. You know, just kind of like seeing if things would get triggered or whatever. Yeah. And I was surprised to see what had happened to the neighborhood. Because, like, it used to just be like kind of like mid-century, single family dwellings.

And most of them got torn down and got turned down. to McMansions in the last 40 years. No, it's quite bushy. It's quite bougie. There's some very new, beautiful houses. I mean, it's right on, like, where this school is, it's like kind of on the other side of the hill from Medina, which is where, like, Bill Gates has this giant waterfront compound.

Wow. So things kind of changed over the, you know, since the 70s. Yeah, but when you were there, it was pre-Microsoft. It was Boeing times, right? Yeah. No, that malarkey. It was just Boeing. It was like, you know,

Seattle and the Seattle area was just like people worked at Boeing or loggers well that's farther out like more up by Aberdeen oh and Mary'sville where Patty Shumwell was from who told me to tell you hello oh sweet yes she was said I love Mark Arum please tell him hello and I said absolutely well babe I haven't seen Patty in so long I saw Larry her brother at our last LA show and that was great she's the absolute best person I must say I love her she had she had some great stories for me as she was also boots doc martin's on the ground at the at the time so she gave me some good some good little anecdotes um all right mark arm number three it's 10 15 a m you're at work

have you listened to music today and if so what was it not yet wow just dead silence all morning got in late because i stayed up drinking with a friend who's in town from spain hell yeah mark arm is still parting. Did you drive to work? Not even the radio is on? Not silence? Just with your thoughts? I was just in NPR. Oh, sure. The long arm of

aging curves towards NPR eventually for all of us. We all get there. I've been there for several decades. I've frustrated by like having the radio choose songs for me. I don't look their choices very much.

Totally. You're not putting on the serious Pearl Jam station and just letting it ride. I don't have serious. Okay. That's a great out out of that. I don't have that. And if I did, I would actually put on the Pearl Jam station or perhaps the Bruce Springsteen. Maybe you two.

You seem like a U-2 guy. Okay. Number four, Mark Arm. What is the first song that made a meaningful impact on you as a child? Well, I mean, I was singing without ever having heard. heard the song, She Loves You Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, by The Beatles. Just like in the playground, like probably like kindergarten.

Yeah, because that was how you were exposed to that outside of your home because I did read that. There was no rock and over. Yeah, that was just like the kids were singing along. Were you into it? Were you like this is cool? I like. I wasn't even sure what I was doing. Right.

You were even incognizant. It was just the first one that made its way. The first single I bought was just like a yo-yo by the awesome. Nice. How old were you at this age that you were buying the osmond? Oh, probably like six or seven. You have to look at what year that came out. And then you could maybe do the math. It was 1972. So I would have been nine or ten.

Okay. Yeah. That makes more sense. It wasn't as cool. Yeah. I mean, maybe you were, I mean, I've always like, I'm like, Mark Arm is one of the coolest people alive. He absolutely came out of the womb with that same haircut and he's always been punk and always I think I was bald. I was born a skinhead. Do you not run my fantasy of baby Mark Arm with the ball.

It's too perfect in my mind. I love it so much. Okay, yo-yo with Osmond's. Not as cool, but, you know, we all... At nine years old, I was radicalized by the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Give it away now. So that was my hard rock. I mean, I did talk to Patty Chan all of this,

and maybe I'd love your thoughts, because you were a kiss guy as well? Like a kiss kid, I guess? Yeah. I mean, that was sort of inevitable, I think, in the mid-70s. I have a recollection of also, just like that Beatles thing, of drawing the kiss faces on a peachy without even having heard them yet. Wow, because they were just so prevalent in my other podcast.

My other podcast, I explained bands and I go into deep research about them, and I've done a bunch of bands. And it's almost across the board, any Gen X band, what the first thing they listened to or one of the first things that they got into was Kissed. Like, from everybody, Pearl Jam to pavement to everyone. It was just because it was so, I think it was, like you said, it was so prevalent. And also,

it appeals to children because there's like, they're cartoony and the songs are kind of catchy. And I was like, Patty, I really feel like that's Red Hot Chili Peppers for my generation because the music also appeals to children. I know so many people who play it for their kids and their kids are like loving it because it has this sort of like Bounciness. Bounciness, exactly, that kids, I think, can really easily connect to at a young age.

I don't think kids initially was like aiming their sights of children, but once they realized that's what was happening, they modified themselves. Sure. They were like, well, if it aim broke. There's a pretty great dangerous minds piece on the cover shoot, the photo shoot for hotter than hell, which like basically kind of turned into an orgy. Oh, no.

Oh, no. I mean, they got, you know, they started out with like the, you know, in the same scene as like the New York dolls and stuff. I know. It's really crazy to think that, right? That they're from like this like glam kind of, you know, authentic. As authentic as you can be when you put on makeup and plow and shrew zingua. And then it just like snowballed into something totally different. I listened to a couple of podcasts that you were on.

I think it was Mark Maren and then turned out a pun. and you talked about Aerosmith. Was Aerosmith the first like hard rock music that you were like, oh, I love this. The first record that I was allowed to purchase was a Desolation Boulevard by the suite.

The sweet, yeah. And that was a screaming fucking record. Yeah. For this day, I love that record. And what you connected with it was like the loud guitar. Oh, for sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, because your mom was an opera singer, right?

like a former opera singer who was very into classical music, did not want you to be messy. No, she thought rocker roll was garbage. She thought jazz, country, anything except classical music, it's garbage. There's an argument for that, I guess. I'm not refined enough to make it. Also, I like the gin blossom. So certainly my taste can stand to be scrutinized.

All right. Number five, Mark Arm. Oh, you just said it. the first album you bought with your own money or shoplifted with your own two hands was the sweet. But it probably would have been something different if I was allowed to buy records at a younger age. How old were you when you bought the suite record?

That was like junior high. Okay. I was like finally like kind of stood up for myself enough to. You're like, you know what mom and dad? Movie annal lessons and buy a rock record. It's like footloose. Like you were living footloose. Yeah.

How did you know about the suite if you, was it from the radio? Yeah, like what I would do because I could sneak seven inches singles into my room and stuff them away in a drawer that wouldn't be found.

So like, I had a, you know, a few of those, you know, play them when my parents were gone. And I bought, I think the first one was Fox on the run and then like, Ballet came out on the radio and I was like, I'm just going to get this whole record.

Yeah, this is my shit. Sweet. I've never spent a lot of time sweet. I have to go return to the catalog. I mean, the high watermark is really Destilation Boulevard, the U.S. version, because it's a compilation of two UK records.

So that's a good gateway for me to spend time with? Okay. Some of the lyrics are pretty sketchy. Like, by sketchy, do you mean like rapey? Because that was kind of the vibe of this episode. Sweet F.A. It's not cool. I mean,

it's a great riff. Yeah. Listen, you know, it was a different time. It is really interesting that like the rock music predating sort of like 80s alternative that led into like 90s rock. Before that, there wasn't a lot of pain expressed in rock music, right? It was more like theater. Like it was libidinal or it was like bragging or it was about partying. But it wasn't much about like personal pain. Probably for the most part, yeah.

Right? until you got to like the Smith's Maybe a hit was like about a party Yeah exactly about a party or about fucking That was and then and then one day Stephen Morrissey Came to the earth Were you a Smith's head?

No I really don't like Morrissey's style of singing Oh okay It's too crunery for you No no it's like it's the same melody over and over again No matter with the music But Sure

I mean It just kind of sounds like a tone deaf guy like he's got one melody that he can sing I mean I haven't dug deeply into them and I have good friends who love them so it doesn't matter what about the cure? I really like

17 seconds on faith yeah faith is really good and then kind of felt like they got a little those are the punk records that's why no they're more the like atmospheric gothy they almost seemed like at the time like kind of fit in with like

PIL early PIL. Yeah. But then everything, all those bands kind of like got, tried to be more commercial as time went on. Yeah.

I'm not, I don't know. I did like so much research on the Kira and I feel, I'm not sure they tried to be more commercial or it just like was the natural evolution of the songwriting because it was just like the vibe of the 80s, you know? Yeah. Mark Arm is giving me such a smart.

You have no idea. I really wish you could. see his face right now. He said, yeah, but his face said no. I wanted to see them once, kind of like after that Love Cat's era. I was really surprised. The audience was basically like teenage girls. And at one point, Robert Smith was like dangling his legs off the edge of the stage, holding a teddy bear. And like, it was the closest thing I've been to like a Beatles show. Right, right. Like, I pitched screaming. He was a, he was a hard of them. me, but it was an interesting thing to witness. Right. Right. Well, Lovecats was sort of a

craven grab at mainstream success and it did get them on MTV. Did Green River have girls in the audience? Yeah, there's some hot-looking dudes in that band. I know. I have a, let me see, this gorgeous picture right here. We're doing our best. It literally sends me, you guys can't see this, but I'll post it. It's like a press picture of Green River and it looks like there's like four guys who are in one band and then Mark. I'm hidden away. Mark's just in the back once again with the same hairka. And then there's like Stone Gossards wearing two belts and a scarf, no shirt.

Jeff Aman, I don't even know what is happening. I think he has a shirt tucked into another shirt and bangs. He has bangs. Crimped bangs. This is a gorge. I'm living. The hand on the hip. All of it is so beautiful.

You're like, yep, I remember. Okay, number six. Mark Arm, did anyone in your childhood ever tell you you're never going to make it in music or something like that? And if so, who was it? And what did you say it back? Well, that would have been to my parents. Sure. Right.

That would have been mom and dad, like, get a job. I mean, it wasn't like I was trying to make it in music anyway. They were just, like, baffled by like, why are you wasting your time on this? Right, right. I mean, I was just like having fun with my friends. Was there ever a point, though, that you felt like this is real? It's my life. It's my craft.

It's my career. And you had like enough of a thing going on that your parents were like, okay, he did it. Like he's in this magazine, you know? The first time we went to Europe and the fact that we liked in Germany, that was like a big deal from my mom. Yeah, because your mom's German. We didn't mention him here, but you know, very much so. Yeah.

It's traumatic. Well. You know, you've played Germany. You know the vibe of like, you guys were okay, but I think you could have practiced more. Right, right. And then to have that as. I mean, there's a million stories like that. You've probably heard them.

But there was this group of people that would follow us around the very first time we went there. And then we didn't see him for a few years and probably like 95, like around my brother, the cow. They showed up and they're like, you were much better now, but you're not as good as you used to be. it's an I think what they're trying to say is like we can play better right right you know which is probably super legit

like our show is probably weren't as crazy as they were when we first went over there listen I don't want to besmirch anyone's culture but it is an interesting approach I do have some fans I'm using heavier quotes of my podcast that do take the same German approach

and then sometimes I'm like but why are you telling me this? Why are you reaching out on the internet? I had a whole monk, Mark Arm, a monk, a literal actual Benedictine monk lives in a monastery. I didn't even know they listened to podcasts or had email, but they do. And he wrote me an email to tell me he didn't, he's listened to the podcast and he understands why people say that my voice is annoying, but he came around to it. And I was like, is this godly? Is this a godly? Is this a godly? email to send. Also, why do you have internet? Are you not at a monastery? Sir, but we've since

buried the hatchet, me and the monkey sent me a very nice apology email because I told this story on the podcast. He seems like a lovely, he seems like a lovely man and I forget him. But people, maybe he's German. I don't know. All right. Mark Aram, number seven. When was the last time you told a lie? Probably at some point during this. I was going to say, yeah. Was it like within the last 32 minutes? you were like, for sure I said something. Like, you know, I don't know what it is. That's a lie right there. It's that you have serious XM and that actually you listen to the Dave Matthews Band channel.

And you just don't need anyone to know about that. And that's fine. That's the secrets between me and you. Okay, number eight, Mark Arm. What character in a book or film do you relate to the most and why? I'm trying to think, I'm going through movies. It's not Peter Lorry and M. oh maybe it's

the role of Chuck Barris is played by Sam Rockwell in Confessions of a Dangerous Mind You do look like Sam Rockwell Have people told you this before? I think he looks like me Sorry, excuse me, he is younger than you Oh my God, Mud Honey Biopic

Mudhoney Biopic when starring Sam Rockwell I'm not really familiar with the movie that you're referencing What's the vibe of the character Besides that he has a physical reference to you It's based on an autobiobiles biography by Chuck Beres, who hosted the gong show.

Okay, got it. He was like, he kind of came up making and producing game shows and, like, he ended up, like, hosting that one in particular. But he also claims that he was a CIA agent. You know, like, people would win, like, gifts on, like, a dating game or something. They needed, like, a chaperone for their European trip that he was actually, like, an undercover CIA agent,

scoping out what was that happening? And this is crazy, but are you an undercover CIA agent? Is this how you're revealing this information? I can't really talk about it. You're like, grunge was it was a five year long government sciop perpetuated by Mark Arm, code name Mark Arm. What do you mean five years? Was it five years? Was it longer? Is it still going? I'm still here reading about it. So Ricky Wackman too. Oh my God, is it you and Ricky Rackman. I'm going to write a film. Thank you so much.

This is my new film idea is that actually Mark Arm and Ricky Rackman are government plants. You're not even laughing because it's true. I'm laughing on the inside. I'm just trying to deal with it. I can't. Confirm or deny it. Oh, yes, this is a very funny concept. It's so absurd.

You guys. This is totally not real. It's totally not real. There's no way this is real. I could go off in the thread for a long time because I could like try to parse out what the government was trying to do what they were trying to achieve with Grunge. What why they made punk break like picturing like a big big wall in the CIA like that says 1991 will be the year that punk breaks. Here is how we achieve it. Um,

and there's a picture of Sonic Youth. 24. Number nine. Mark Arm, what is your biggest sliding doors moment? Sliding Doors is a film starring Guameth Paltrow. In the movie, she either gets on or doesn't get on a train, and that changes the course of her life. I'm asking more a choice you made that was like maybe the biggest instance

of if you had made a different choice, you wouldn't be where you are today. I mean, there's a whole bunch. When my first band, Mr. R. first started, we're basically just, it existed as an imaginary band for a couple years at all school.

Just a few years. It was an imaginary. Yeah, and then we eventually got a couple instruments and we're making noise and recorded tapes and stuff like that. And then we got to the point where we're like,

oh, I think we can like maybe play live. And one of the guys who was involved, Peter Wick, like, you know, I just don't want to make music my life. I'm going to focus on writing. And so I can't play that first show. I heard you tell that story.

And I was laughing so hard. I was like, your fake band who just got instruments that nobody knew how to play. And this guy was like, you guys, I'm sorry, I'm not ready to commit to this. It's like to commit to one. Exactly. Which seemed absurd to me at the time. But like, he ended up being right. He's writing books to this day.

and I'm playing music to this day. Wow. So he became a writer, like a novelist? Yeah, he's got a couple of self-published books, and he's like kind of worked in film and stuff. Oh, incredible. I wanted to ask you, I did read that you guys would flyer for Mr. Up in the Calculations when it was a fake band. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I did read a story, confirm or and deny that, was it called Desperate Times? Was that the name of the zine? Mm-hmm. So you wrote the letter famously telling them that you're, own band is the worst band in Seattle, signed your name four times, and then the editor's note was like,

this is the singer and guitarist. So the lady that was the co-founder of that zine said in a book that she's the one that got you guys to play her first show because she thought your letter was so funny, and she saw you flyering, and she chased you down and said you guys should play a show. Is that true? My already totally chased us down.

I don't think I was there, but like someone was fliring, you know, putting up like fate. She's like, oh, you're the people behind this. You know, but we were already friends with student nurse who they ran a record store in Bellevue. Roboto. Roboto records.

And it was like hugely influential to us. Like, you know, like basically gave us the keys to the kingdom in terms of music at the time. Because, you know, there wasn't like. The internet, Spotify algorithm. Just a way to listen to stuff and hear it. Easily. And Myri and her partner, Dennis White, ran a little label at the time called Probda

and also released a student nurse seven inch or more. So I'm not sure exactly who gets credit for that. Yeah, who's in trouble, who we have to take this up with. And the crazy, awesome thing is student nurse is back together, They're still playing and they're... Really? It's fucking awesome. Helena is an insane guitar player,

and they have the same bass player, Eric, that they had for a lot of their history, and they've got a new drummer and second guitar player. And they're all age-appropriate and awesome. Wait, that sounds... That's so cool. I got to tell Patty, because she's the one that... She brought up student nurse when we were talking, and then I saw later that it was the band that you guys opened for.

How old were you when you wrote this letter to the editor? Probably 18. You were a very clever 18-year-old, I got to say. It was extremely witty and sharp and funny letter. And then Mohawk Man, one of the most witty and sharp incisive lyrics, for a young person to write that level of satire is very impressive. You can just say thank you. Mark Arm is going to implode.

He's like, please, I can't handle this. When you're getting a movie at like 18 or 19 is like Dr. Strangelove, you know. But it just, it really strikes me that you had that level of like clarity to see the like fake parts of a scene that had just started five minutes ago and already had this like, you know, putting on airs. Like what did you call the guys in Seattle, the punk rock fonsies? Oh, right. It's very funny. The leather jacket. Yeah.

So just like we're in, we're in it. should there have been Instagram back then we're in it for the Instagram photos but maybe not for the culture well I mean that was kind of boring of a frustrating thing because we would put on we would have to rent a hall to like put on a show

and then there would be like these assholes that thought you weren't punk enough they would like inevitably destroy the bathroom because they were being quote unquote punk right it's like so you want to keep going to shows you want to keep hanging

out, but you're still like, it just seemed extremely counterproductive and kind of stupid. And like, who are you impressing by like taking out your anger on a toilet? On a toilet that's like at like a independently owned, you know, it's not like they were like burning a Walmart or whatever. You know, like the Polish hall or the Serbian hall, like, you know, and you'd have to like kind of lie about what kind of band you were. I mean, they never like asked for tapes or anything like that, but you're just going to throw a party. And, you know, we never got, of course, the damage deposits back.

No, you didn't. You know, my favorite adult rock star era story of this is, is the story of Eddie Vedder playing, I think it was like Roger Daltry's 50th birthday party at like Carnegie Hall. And he destroyed his dressing room, like broke the mirror, wrote like the lyrics to Teenage Wasteland in his own blood. on the wall and they built him for $10,000. I've never heard that story.

Was he being channeling Keith Moon or something? Yeah, I think he was channeling Keith Moon. I think he was, you know, if you allow me to speculate on a person that you're friends with that I don't know at all, who is to me like a basically a mythical figure. It feels to me like he never got his chance to just be punk because it was like I'm in bad radio playing to five people and now I'm in the biggest band in the world that we like rehearsed twice and now we're like fucking huge. So I don't think he

got the chance to just be like dumb and punk for a little while. And maybe it was just that was the opportunity to like let it out. You'll have to fact check that with Edward yourself. Don't leave the podcast but I just did nine hours of podcast

on Pearl Jam so I'm a little again mentally ill with I know it's my job, but this is my time. It's nine hours long it's two parts. They made 11 albums. Mark Arm. I'm a completeist. I had to go and the story is very interesting. There's many bad books written about them. I had to read them all. You know, this is, this is what I do. I'm the, I'm the Christian Amunpore of alternative guitar rock music. My parents are extremely proud. That's why

they fled a revolution to come to America so that I could make nine hours of podcasts about Pearl Jam. Okay. Next question. Number 10, Mark Arm. What characteristic are you drawn to in other people? I don't know. I've never even thought of that. I would guess, like, just someone who's no bullshit and has a good bullshit

detector themselves. So like authenticity? I think so, yeah. I love it. You know, everyone's different. Like, I'm always really struck, everyone's different. That's a profound statement. I'm always really struck by like the different answers to this question.

It really, I do think it shows a lot. I'll tell you Mark Grum, the reason I made the show like this, which is 24 of the same sort of random questions every time, I was such a kid that grew up on zines, like music scenes. And that that was the tone of music scenes. It was often like in a reverent tone that to me brought to life artists that I didn't know their personalities. Like I knew their music and I had this like connection with their music and I thought they were so cool. But then like through these sort of like questions that weren't about like your guitar tone. or your pedal setup or whatever, you get to know a deeper level of people, and I always just really love that. I'll probably think, like, you know, a sense of humor and not taking yourself seriously. Who's the funniest member of the alternative rock and roll community

besides yourself that you know? I guess Fred Armisen. Okay, well, that's not fair. The funniest member of the alternative rock and roll community that is not on Saturday Live. Who I've never met. Really? That's surprising.

Is it? I don't know. In my mind, you guys all hanging out, all buds, you pop down to Portland, Portland, yeah, I don't know. Possibly Rick Froberg, it was someone who had all those qualities that I admire in a person. I mean, it was subtle.

Right. Which is also, like, you know, like, you know, key. Yeah. Okay. Number 11, Mark Arm, who's the last person you met that you were star-struck by? This is sort of a weird, it's not exactly the same thing, but like several years ago, I was like walking down the concourse at CTAC, and this guy is kind of like dyed black hair, glasses, mustache, sort of leathery skin and outfit.

And I'm like, who is that? Who is that? And it's like, oh, my fucking God. And I start like, oh, my guy, I should run up to Robert Goulet and say how much I love him. And then realize, I don't even know what Robert Goulet really does. It was just like a guy on variety shows when I grew up. Totally.

Was he an actor? But he was an actor, but he was an actor, I think initially. And then, like, also, you know, appeared on a love boat. I didn't know he was still alive, love and respect. This is probably like 20 years. Okay. So I don't think he, I don't think he's still with us. So it was just sort of like,

this weird, like, the idea of being starstruck is just dumb. But you can't help yourself. I've talked about this. For me, it's never, like, the most famous person. It's always the person that I've had the most parasocial relationship with. So it'll be, like, an actor that's on, like, my TBS drama about, like, a band of thieves that rob people for good or whatever. that like because I watch it so much that I feel that I'm friends with this person, then I get that

crazy feeling. I'm like, oh my God, they're here. They're right here at the coffee shop. But, you know, we have like such a fame-driven culture that, like, creates this thing where like these people are separate from you and they're special. And, you know, if you get to see them, what a gift, which I'm not sure. Do people, do you get recognized a lot? Occasionally.

Yeah. Like a couple weeks ago. my wife was at the local grocery store and the cashier was like, are you Mark Arms partner? Wow, she got proxy rocket arts. Well, we've been like, you know, we've been going there for years. Yeah, and you've been married a long time. And she's like, that was weird. Because like, he's never like even given an inkling that he has any idea who I am.

you know, which is cool. I appreciate that. And it's not that there's really that much there, you know, with me. It's like, it's not like, I think people who are like actual celebrities have to have people go to the grocery store for them. It actually adds another weird layer of a move to like real life. Totally. I would hate that. I love the grocery store.

Just go get what you want when you want it. It's just one of my favorite activity is going to the grocery store. Luckily, I am only. marginally famous as an audio-only podcaster. What if someone caught you getting old milk? That would be like the biggest scandaloso. They'd be like, this bitch lied to us. She's been lying for years. Mark Arm, are you one of the voices on the CTAC?

Like, please don't smoke inside or whatever. I know. Yeah, yeah. There's a bunch of us. You're on there. Yeah, I remember hearing Duff McCagan, you, I can't remember who the rest of the people are. It really delights me. They really, Seattle really found its identity and is really stuck by that. Are you in Duff McKagan friends? Do you guys hang out? We don't hang out, but we know each other and, you know, have known each other for a long time.

Like, my wife knew him way better, like in high school times. Now, they didn't get Roosevelt High School together. And Nikki Six also, right? That was earlier, I think. because he's older. Also, El Ducche. Sure, El Ducay, of course. He went there.

My sister-in-law, who's older, had him in a class, and they had to do, like, a group projects, and he was in her group, and the teacher actually, like, took the rest of him aside and said, like, don't worry, he won't drag you down. I won't break you down. Really? Mentorsman.

We all let Elden Hoke affect you. Elton Hoke. I know. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. He was a real interesting, man. All right.

Moving on. Mark Arm. Number 12. Oh, you don't have social media, right? No. Okay, so you don't slide into people's DMs. This question won't apply to you. We'll skip it.

I don't know what that means. It's when you DM someone who doesn't follow you to say something. Direct message? That's right. Direct message. Correct. that's right you're hip Mark Arm is hip

he's hip to what the kids are up to these days number 13 Mark Arm what is the horniest song ever in your estimation oh what's that Donna Summer song My Blubby Baby Yeah

Maybe because she kind of simulates orgasm voice Or maybe Betty Davis You're in luck You might I'll get picked up or whatever Those are great. Those are great ones. Do you think there's any horny grunge songs? Even flow?

I read a great story that the first night they played that at the off ramp. I think it was Kim Thail came up. I was like, I love that song, Evening Flow, you guys did. It was really good evening flow. And I laughed for a long time about evening flow. Imagine if it was called Evening Flow. This is the stuff that amuses me. This is all, this is all, it. I've got is thinking about evening flow, knowing that Chris Cornell tried out to be the singer of Shadow, the metal band. Yes. Even you didn't know that, Mark. That's right. I'm the Christian Amampur. I told you of 90s and 80s guitar rock music.

Yeah, I found it buried in, not even buried. I think it was in one of the Pearl Jam books. But yeah, he early on auditioned to be or tried to audition to be the singer of Shadow, which was Seattle's Minuto of metal. Was it before Rob was the singer or after like he laughed and they were a three piece? It was just, yeah, it was just McCready and the Freel brothers. And they must have been looking for a new singer. That doesn't make a ton of sense to me because Soundgarten was already going at that point and was doing well.

He said it himself. So maybe he didn't say when. So maybe it was before that. But he said he drove out to Bellevue to get the tape from one of the guys' houses. and he was very upset because he didn't like it. He, like, didn't like the guy's vibe and he didn't like the tapes vibe. And the guy was like, well, you have to bring the tape back. And Chris was like, you want me to drive all the way back to return to you a fucking low-res cassette tape?

And he was like, yeah, I need it back. So he had a bad taste in his mouth about Shadow. Hmm. I know the Friel brothers, I think they were Roosevelt. And also Mike McCready, who was his... you know, a little kid. I don't know where Danny grew up or where Rob. Did you ever see Shadow

play? Were you going to metal shows at all? Great. I played with Shadow. Right. Yes. And Mike McCready would smash dolls on stage. Maybe. I don't remember that. Well, I wasn't there. I just didn't. I didn't see them that often. But we played with them.

I think it was kind of through Stone because he was going out to the metal shows at Lake Hill's Roller Rink. He went to high school with Steve, Turner, and Alex Schumway. Right. At Northwest School of the Arts. And they...

In Stone. Yeah. And it was, you know, like a small, weird, like, already private school. Right. That's now super expensive. Was it not super expensive then? Well, it was probably for the time. Like, my wife went there for one year,

her junior year and, like, couldn't afford to go back. for a senior year. I think they are in possession of a Pearl Jam, Platham record there. I believe, at the hands of the Stonegastard. I think he handed one over to one of the music teachers or something? Yeah, yeah. Stone was sort of like the, for us, like the bridge into knowing like people in shadow and later overlord and stuff like that.

Metal church. Metal church, that was a different beast because I, Kurt Vanderhoof was the drummer in the original version of the Lube before they moved down. Right, okay. Right, right, right, right. And he started that band out in Aberdeen. Yeah, so it was a different. It was TKO Seattle area?

Yeah, those guys were older. Okay. They were like the band that like all those East Side metal bands looked up to because they had actually like put out a record and like had gone to Japan and stuff like that. Sure. I mean, this is kind of my favorite nerdy stuff, is like connecting everything back to Z-W-W-Kids. Z-W-Kids, you say? Yeah.

Z-E-W-H-I-Z-Z-E-Z-Kids. Are you familiar with the cockettes? It was like a San Francisco drag theatrical troupe. And Z-Z-Kids kids were like kind of a sister group up here in the Seattle area in the early 70s. Okay. And it was kind of partly like they would write their own musicals, I guess. And, I mean, I never saw them.

But they were like, you know, like these kind of glam kids. Most of them gay, would do these performances at like, you know, wherever they could. And there was kind of a musical component to it that kind of got, like there was a band that would like back up. Right. Because it was like musical theater all right. People from like TKO were in in that band. And Sats from the Lood was a member of Zinwiz Kids, as was Tomato Du Plenty who went on to form the screamers.

Yeah, yeah, of course. You know, and to me, this is sort of like where what became punk and metal in Seattle, like the sieves of which were... born with this group. And then they kind of, those things went in different directions and they kind of like, by the mid-80s, like started coming together again. That's what kind of, I think, gave birth to grunge in the Pacific Northwest. That's my nerdy historian. No, that's exactly the most. That's what I needed from you. I wasn't going to ask, but I needed that and were injected

into my veins. This is the exact stuff that makes me so excited. You said something. on, I can't remember which podcast it was. It was like a piece of information that I had like uncovered deep in like some weird fan website. But you knew it too. And I was like, oh my God. And I told Patty she was like really blown away,

which was that, say, I feel like your mind. Maybe it worked the same as mine. Which was that deranged diction had started after Jeff Amant saw the band. I feel like you couldn't remember the name, but it was called Who Killed Society.

Oh, Circle 7. No, I thought it was Who Killed Society. Oh, yeah, yeah. Who killed society became Circle 7? Yeah, that was like the band that this guy who had been in a band with Steve Albini called Ducky something. Ducky. Because someone had this band with Steve. Ducky boys.

Ducky boys had nothing to do. I know. And I was struck. I was like, was Ducky like a cool band name thing back then? Like how like Wolf became cool in the 2000s like Wolf and Wolf Mother and Wolf Eyes, Snake, Black Eyes, Black Eyes. black lips, all that stuff. But maybe Duckie was the one of the 80s. But yeah, but it blew my mind that Steve Albini produced that Who Killed Society record that was the band that inspired Jeff A. meant to start Drain's Diction. And here we are now. It's just these little things, these little things

really, I have no life. Mark Arm, I just need you understand. Okay. I'm a sad. I'm a sad person with no life. Okay. Next question. Number 14. Don't laugh. What is the biggest money you've ever turned down? Have I turned down money? They weren't like, oh my God, we're doing like a Coca-Cola grunge 12-pack. We want mud honey to be on the Coca-Cola package. Will you do it?

And you were like, no, thank you. We've never got approached by them as far as I know. I made that up. But you know what I'm saying? There was a time, you know, when it was super uncool to like, do commercials or that's what I'm saying so I'm saying

and somewhere I think like the economics of being in a band changed so dramatically that people had to like I always triangulate it back to the shins doing that McDonald's commercial

yeah I think that's like the first when it like selling out stopped existing but there was also just like this weird like my friend Larry Hardy runs in the red records and for a while like Cyan or whatever was like

once you're in doors of garage bands it's like what are they hoping to accomplish with that with these small garage bands or like all of a sudden these people are going to like start driving sioms babe the fan base of the oCs a is never going to drive a cyan and b probably doesn't have enough money to buy a car exactly love and respect i love the oces i am part of the fan base but like no i remember that sion was like really like that was their whole thing for the 2000 they were like we are going to sponsor music and i don't think it got them anywhere do sioux still exist

I see them drive around occasionally, but I think they're older models. My favorite answer to date has been, do you know the band Thursday? I feel like a Screamo-ish adjacent band that, anyways, they got approached in the early 2000s, no, I think it was, 2003 or 4, to be in a print American Express ad. And it was a million dollars. And they said no, because it was like, that's, that's selling out. That's uncool. And so they put hubas stank in instead. And I'm just to this day, I'm like, man, you should have said yes.

Like, who cares at this? Like, by that point, who cares? And that's a lot of money. Yeah. But so nothing, but honey didn't turn anything down ever. Oh, probably have. I just can't. We just can't remember.

Yeah, it was nothing that was like sticks on. I mean, I'm sure like in the 90s, there were things were like, can't do that. Yeah, yeah, totally. All right. Number 15, Mark Arm, what's the best live show you've ever seen,

live music concert? Wow. I know, it's going to be a tough one. I know you have 40 plus years of ones to rifle through in your mind. You know, you can, you don't have to give a super letter. You can throw out a couple if you want.

First time, Telfa Tare played in town. It was pretty fucking amazing. Like the singer was doing backflips. And by the end of the show, they're all like wrapped up in each other's guitar. chords.

It was like mayhem. But that, and then like, you know, they did the same thing. Like somehow that was just part of their. Also like, uh, seeing the bottle surfers, like saw them in December of 83 and, uh, had no idea about the clothespin trick. Can you elaborate? Uh, uh, Ghibie was wearing a bunch of,

he had a bunch of clothes pins, clipped in his hair. And, uh, that one point he just like shook us. head and the clothespins just went flying everywhere. You guys were so creative with your ways to torment the audience. You and your fish in your pants, Gibby Haynes and the... Those kids, I don't think they'd torment.

They were just like, oh, that's... It's just cool. It's stupid and cool at the same time. It's absurd. Yeah, just like the fish in your pants. I mean, you guys weren't trying to torment the audience with the fish in your pants. That probably just is what the side effect was with the smell and stuff. Yeah. The problem with that fish was it actually had spiny fins.

It hurt you as much as it hurt everybody else in the end, which is fair. It's comically fair, I think. It made me laugh really hard and I don't remember which of the 500 books I was reading, but maybe it was Bruce was saying that when he was in Love Battery, they also played with Agent Orange because that show that you had the fish in your pants was in Agent Orange opening slot and that he went up to the singer and was like, remember that? Wasn't that so funny? and the singer just like looked at him, said nothing and walked away. That made me laugh. Well, they probably had to clear, clean fish guts off the stage. Yeah, and the drummer's rug mat. Apparently you guys were borrowing the drum set of HR. It's so funny.

This is, again, I told you, I have no life. This is the stuff that brings me joy. 24-4-1. Number 16, Mark Arm, when in your life were you the most fucked up wasted hammered trashed? Early 90s. Just not a one instance,

just a time frame. Just the whole period of time. Yeah. Okay, fair enough. Fair enough. Okay, number 17 and 18 are tandem questions. What do you love the most about being famous and what do you hate the most about being famous?

And don't say you're not famous. because at least on some level, you're notable and notorious enough to be, there's books written about you, sir. Come on. I mean, I guess I have sort of like access that is usually just like kind of to things that are like adjacent

to people who are much more famous than me. Do you mean like shows? Like you can get concert tickets, restaurant reservations? I went to Kelly Slater's Surf Ranch. once. Oh, hell yeah. Thanks, Edward Vedder. Oh, yeah, you surf. That's so cool. I was unexpected, but I think that's very cool. And you surf in the Pacific Northwest, there's good surf out there? Yes. It must be very cold. It is very cold. And I've grown less willing to go out there in the winter. Right. You're like, I'll see you. See you in the spring. See in the spring. My fingers are

drain white. My friend Sarah also went to Kelly Slater's surf ranch just recently. Now I've talked to two people that I've been to- I mean, it was cool. It was fucking great. And thanks. Ed brought Jeff and I for birthdays. Kind of in the middle of the pandemic.

It's okay. Well, I want to know. I think you're safe at Kelly Slater's server. I can't explain it, but like COVID doesn't go there. Do you know, no? I think both Jeff and Ed by that point had like, like the had the Johnson and Johnson. And it wasn't like out there wide enough for my wife and I to get our shots yet.

But yeah, that was a crazy trip. It was awesome. Well, that is a cool. That's a cool bonus of being Mark Arm. For sure. What do you hate about it? Ah. Any complaints I have, it would be just, I mean, I think the worst is just like when someone's just like really drunk and trying to like sell me in the band or whatever.

Yeah. Punishers. Punishers are rough, right? Mark, listen to my tape. Is it annoying to like kind of constantly be asked about like a period of time in your life that was now 30 years ago that you're like, okay, how much longer do I have to talk about this? Or is it like, oh, that's cool. It's okay. It's okay. I mean, you know, it's part of what I lived and experience. It's nothing I dwell on. and it's nothing I want to go back to or like,

it's like, boy, those were the days. Right, the glory days. My life is way better now. Yeah, yeah, totally. I know. Freaky joints and whatnot. But I guess like to some level

you understand like the fascination. Yeah, I guess. You know, I can only speak for myself, but I think it always feels like it was better before your time, you know? But like, I do think like there was a time where you could be in bands and not have to pay $6 million in rent. There's just very few places now that that lifestyle can exist.

Like I watched Slacker again the other day and I was like, there's a bunch of fucking people in Austin, Texas with no job, like living in places and just like making art and maybe they worked three hours a week. And this was possible, right? It was there was like a, it was the last time in history that you could kind of, not that there aren't, isn't music now and there aren't scenes. I'm not saying that. Of course, that's stupid to say. But it sucks looking back and being like, damn, like, we didn't get to do that.

You know, and like so, and it is, it's just so inspiring and heartening. I don't know what the right word is, but like when I read about it, it's just like sounds magical, even though there's so much darkness and stuff too, like in every scene. But just the idea that a bunch of. 20-something-year-olds were creating together and having a community. And, you know, there was high school and infighting, but that they could do it without having, I don't even know how bands form now. Like, I don't know how they afford it. I don't know how they pay for practice space. Like, unless you're in, like, a fourth-tier town.

I'll stop my TED talk now, but that's just why. That's, for me, that's why, like, I love to read and think about it. And also because it was, it was the monoculture for a while. And it was crazy. Like, I always think about myself being 12 and getting to turn on MTV or buy magazines. And like, these were the bands that were in it. Or like, I got to have Courtney Love as a pop star as a young woman. So, and for better or for worse, whatever you want to say about Courtney Love, to be a 12 year old girl and see a very famous, extremely chaotic, messy person that was a woman that was allowed to exist in that way instead of like an antiseptic, perfect.

pop woman, which is all we had ever kind of had before then, that was major for me. And I think about that went away. That was just like a brief period of time. And then it went back to being Taylor Swift's and seven, I love Lewis Swift. I like the music, whatever. But it's like if I was 12 and I felt these like very ugly or messy feelings and all I got to see was Taylor Swift, I think it would be hard. In that like talking about like kind of missing feeling like you missed out of a previous time I really love watching like any kind of like documentary or movie that takes place that's not necessarily about music but like takes place in New York and like the 60s and 70s and how run down and fucked up it is and like yeah obviously easy to live in because no one

wanted to live there yeah you got you got like a 7000 square foot loft in downtown New York for like 80 bucks a month or whatever yeah yeah yeah And, you know, it was a hotbed of creativity, like, in all the arts and as well as, like, a media center. And so it was just like this weird, like, hot house of like super rich people on the Upper East Side and then, like, you know, down in the village or whatever, you know, just people being really creative. And then, like, all hanging out at like, Max's Kansas City together. Yeah. And CBGME is, obviously nothing is over, but it's, I think one thing people don't think about in these terms is that the population keeps rapid. increasing so that there's the opportunity, like, to be one of the players, for lack of a better

word, like, in a scene and like CBGBs, there weren't as many people. So like it was more likely that you could be that, right? But now there's so many fucking people. Like, even when you, when I I'm reading about like the 90s, like, even since then the population has probably gone up like a massive amount. In Seattle for sure and in other places. And like the bigger the population gets, the less likely it is to have community because people get more and more, I think, isolated.

Or they just find pockets, you know? They find pockets. And it's the internet though. The internet was born and it splintered people into isolation because they don't have to participate in human life as much as they did before to have social, quote-unquote social interaction. So they're getting this sort of like

proxy for social interaction that isn't it's like drinking soylent and it's enough to like satiate you but it's not nourishing yeah i don't know anything about that yeah you're like i don't have social media i have dogs i have small dogs they're very cute two dogs two dogs at the moment yeah i just adopted a puppy and um does it get better puppies are nuts she's joey romeone my love of my life, but she is psychotic. She's psychotic. What sort of critters?

I'm not really sure. They told me she was a border collie and rat terrier mix, but she looks like high energy. I don't think she is border collage. I think they just said that because they didn't want to say she's pit bull. She looks more pit bull in the face, but she is on the smaller side. So I think she is rat terrier. She's black and white.

She's very cute. And she's good. It's just, I've never had a puppy. So like, I'm like, wow, I just have to eyes on. eyes on you all the time because you're going to fuck shit if I don't want you. Around seven, she'll bellow out. Seven years old? Yeah.

Okay. All right. Number 19. Number 19 is the wild card. Is there a band that in real time, you were like, this is not for me. This is whack. And with time and perspective looking back, you appreciate differently now. Oh, probably.

You know, you mean like just when I first heard them or when I Because there's something like you kind of discovered that it already existed and like maybe initially it wasn't for you. It could be anything. It could be one of those. It could be like a band that you like played shows with or you knew that you were like, I don't know about this band. And then maybe like 10 years later, you're like actually what they were doing was kind of cool. I just like wasn't for me at the time. It doesn't, it can be anything.

Whatever comes to your mind. there are some things that are just sort of like an acquired taste and like an extreme example of that would be just like reading about Captain Beefart's trial mask replica when you're like 19 and then going buying that and going like what the fuck is this I don't know what to make of it

and then years later it cleared a spot in the first record and then like going back into trial mask replica and loving look my decals off and do you think that you were able to access it more after you had played music for a while because you understand music better? Or it was just like, you need to...

There's nothing about the music and trauma as purple that I understand. But I can listen to it and dig it now. And have for a long time, but you know. Interesting. Yeah, that's an inaccessible album for me. I'll be honest. I'll tell on myself. I've tried.

I'm like, I don't understand. I think if you go to the next record, like my decals off, that's where they've actually kind of like... Because Tramask replica, the captain, was apparently wouldn't put on headphones to do the vocals. Yeah. The music was already recorded. And so I think his timing is a little bit off because there's a weird delay.

But that adds to the craziness. Interesting. But like my decals off, but kind of like they refined what they'd been, what they discovered on Trimask replica. And it's a great record. Could I tell you an amazing, even though I don't, I'm not really like a big Captain Beaphart fan because again, my brain is too smooth to access the information. I'm pretty positive that at some point Bono wrote a letter to Captain Beephard asking either to like for them to go on tour with you two or to collaborate.

And he wrote him back a letter that started, Dear Bongo. I don't know if he did that on purpose or not, but I love it so much. Dear Bongo. Well, by the time, like you too, had any kind of, you know, like by the early 80s, Captain had stopped. Yeah, and I think he was absolutely not going to do that. Like, he was not, he was like, I don't know who you are Bongo, but I appreciate the offer of it. We're staying home now. But I did think it was funny that he wrote him back and called him Bongo.

Again, it's the little things. It's the little things that really keep me going when my puppy is making me cry. All right. Number 20, Mark Arm. Look at this. Home Stretch. When was the last time you cried? I was actually listening to the Saints song, Brisbane. The Saints are so fucking good. And really, really listening closely to the lyrics.

I kind of shook up about just the situation that City was in at the time. Yeah. And their response to it. I don't think I've full on balled though. No, just like a little, like... You know, I get we be at movies and stuff and when I can't get the third glass of wine. What was the last movie that made you cry?

I don't know. What was the last movie you saw? The last movie I saw was, Girls Can't Surf. There's a documentary on, like, the pro-women surfers. in the late 70s, 80s, through the 90s, and how terribly they got shafted by the pro tour. I haven't seen that.

I should watch it. Does your wife surf? Mm-hmm. Hell yeah. What a cool couple. Dogs surfing. You guys are cool. We don't put dogs on the surfports.

You could. I've seen it. No, it's like that. It is a bit dog abuse, I must admit. But it is always cute to see it on the internet. All right, Mark Arm, number 21. What is your relationship to the Dave Matthews band? There is no real relationship to the Dave Matthews band,

but our good friend, Ed Fotheringham, is good friends with Dave Matthews. Hell yeah, because he also lives in Seattle part-time, doesn't he? Yes. Yeah. I think I met him for the first time just recently at the Dinosaur Jr. show. That is what I wanted to ask you, Mark Arm, because guess what? I died, 10,000 deaths. Here's the thing.

I'll tell you, Mark Arm, I'm a huge Dave Matthews Band fan. fan sincerely, very sincerely. I adopted a puppy in December, not the puppy I have now, from a shelter. Her name was Lou Reed. She got extremely sick and did not make it. I had her for like less than two months. Yeah, it was horrible. She had neurological issues. She couldn't walk. It was really bad. And then maybe shortly after I had to put her down the dinosaur junior featuring David Matthews and also Mark Arm news of the show broke. I literally got real-time updates from like a girl that worked at the venue who listened to the podcast.

She was like, emergency, Yossi. This is, this is, you must know about this. And I was like, oh, my God, Lou Reed, my dog did this for me from heaven. She somehow put David Matthews and Jamesis in touch and had them. And then I got obsessed with the idea of backstage. Was David Matthews hanging out with Mark Arm? what did they talk about? And I couldn't find any information.

So I went to the AI, and I asked AI to make some photos of you and David Matthews hanging out backstage. And they're truly incredible. I'll send them on through to Becca. You can take a look at them. The first one, Dave Matthews, Dave Matthews, the AI, Dave Matthews, who looks so crazy, has a tattoo on his arm. and then I realized, oh my God, AI put a mark on his arm. Ah! It's pretty genius.

So back to the real story. So you guys did chit chat backstage? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Mostly got our mutual friend to Ed, fatheringham. Right. Ed was in bands as well, right? Yeah, he was in the throne-ups. Also, Eddie in the back nine, which was him backed up by flop,

and they did songs about golf. because he was really super into golf for about two years. It's just a big brief two-year obsession with golf. Actually, this is boring. I'm over this now. Buzz Osborne is an avid golfer, golf's like every day pretty much. Buzz Osborne,

one of the most interesting people ever born, I must say. Amazing. Melvin's cannot be overstated the incredbleness and impact and just everything. Dale Crow... I saw Donald Jr. a while ago, and Dale Crover drummed them. I don't know why. I don't know where the regular drummer was, but it was so cool.

Was that recently? No, it was like maybe 10 years ago. Okay, okay. It was a Marshall Amps event. So, like, they like handed out ear plugs and it was a really small, like a house. It was the loudest show I've ever seen in my life. Jay's setup is fucking insane. It's insane. And we were looking a little back yard. Two or three Marshall stacks that kind of like cradle around behind him. Yeah. And it's a full volume. And then he has like a Fender twin at head level. facing him. Like, I don't understand the purpose of all that firepower. I don't know. There's no song you have done to answer to that you need all that for. Also, a fun, Jay Maskus fact that I learned to my research was that he came to Seattle to make that subpop single, The Wagon, and all he

wanted to do was go see Mother Lovebone. I did not know that. Jesus Christ. Thank you. I'm here. I'm the historian. I'm here to inform. Nilsburn. stein reported this information in one of the books. Number 22, Mark Arm, what song would you like to hear just before you die? Evening flow. Maybe it's good by the stooges. Hell yeah. Take it back to the beginning. Take it back to the happy roots of your happiness. I mean, it depends on like how I'm dying. If it's like, you know, like I'm on a deathbed and things are kind of going peacefully or whatever, that would be the thing. If it's like a gunshot or a sudden shot, maybe death. by the stooges. It's like, you know, a machete raid or something.

The two different kinds of ways did I, either peacefully surrounded by your loved ones or by machete. Of course. All right. Number 23, Mark Arm, what do you think about me? I barely know you. Wow, you and Evan Dando with the same answer. Babe, of course you barely know me. We've only spent 90 minutes together, but that's the design of this question. What do you think of me from the 90 minutes? minutes that we've spent together. Well, maybe we need more time. Wow.

He's like, I don't have any opinion of you. No, no. Much like that monk, I find your voice a little annoying. That is not true. I'm just riffing. Just riffing, Mark Arm. I don't know. You seem like a very nice, fun person.

Thank you, Mark. Yeah. I don't know what you're really like outside of these, this hour and a half. I don't know what you're really like, Mark Arm. No one does. I can't. No one does because you're a CIA operative and you're not even a real. This is all upfront.

This is a really long con. Super long. That's one way of putting it. All right. Last question. Number 24, Mark Arm. What do you want to plug? What do I want to plug?

Well, I mean, I can't pretend to know your motivations for coming on a podcast today, but I was actually really surprised you said yes. I'm basically doing this because Becca said like, hey, man, you need to do this. Well, I guess I'm plugging Becca. Oh, my God, thank you, Becca. I mean, Mudhoney does have a relatively recent album last year. You guys should check it out. It's really good. Also, you're probably playing some shows in the near future.

One show, there's a boat show coming up I saw on your Instagram. Yeah, we're playing a weird festival of Everett. Our base player guy moved to Australia. Okay. And so we're playing with an old friend Jim Sankster on base just for this one show. Cool. It was one of those shows. We're like, we can't turn down that kind of money, but it's not big enough to like fly guy out for one show.

Sure. Hope they're not listening. The promoters. Yeah, I mean, we're totally overvalued for this event. Mark Arm, we need to work on your estimation of Mudhoney. Mudhoney is a majorly important band. Oh, I'm well aware of that. Steve Turner wrote a book.

You guys could buy that. I've been reading that. It's very good. There's a really great Green River cover of a David Bowie song that I've been listening to a lot lately. I was done a while ago. Queen bitch. Listen, there's no statute of limitations on promo.

You still get the money from the streams. Oh, I kind of hate that word streaming. I know. I'm really sorry. I'm so sorry to drag you back into the present day with streaming and DMs. I mean, it's nice that you can just have quick access to stuff, but I kind of feel like maybe that makes for a more cursory listen. You don't have to wait 10 years to find the Randy Holden record.

But it diminishes the value. And like, even me who is, you know, younger than you, but I still grew up having to like save my allowance money or shoplifting long box CDs. long box CDs went right down the pants under the sweatshirt. But like, and having to seek things out and like wait for them and like mail order catalogs and discovery on your own.

I mean, I learned, this is the nerdiest fact about me, but I learned about Fugazi and the replacements from a book. Oh, from like, Gina Arnold's book. No,

actually, I didn't know about our band. I was, you know, I was 12 in 1994. So Nirvana was my favorite band. And I went to the used bookstore with my dad. And I saw this book called Route 666 on the road to Nirvana by Gina Arnold.

It's a great book. And she basically tracks like all the like music that kind of led up to the year that punk broke or whatever. She talked about their placements, Husker do, like all these great bands, dinosaur junior. And like I would just save up my little allowance money and go to the record store and buy whatever she talked about. And but again, like, and it meant so much because it had context and it was like special.

and I don't, I think the opposite has happened. People have so much access, they actually don't dig and they don't do discovery, you know? Like, I really got to find that awesome single. You should. Yo-yo, babe. Do you solve it in your collection? Are you a, do you have a huge record collection? I do have a bunch of records in the basement.

I'm not much of a record collector, though. No, yeah. That's good. It's a kind of. I feel like it's time for me to do a Swedish death cleaning and get rid of stuff. so someone, no one else has to like fucking sit through it one. Well, I mean, if you have any like old mudhoney T-shirts you don't want, I'll happily take them off your hands.

I have a couple of vins of T-shirts that are just crazy. A lot of the early 90s stuff is like so oversized because I was kind of a style at the time. I guess it's back now with like. You probably have $100,000 of T. I'm not even kidding. There is a Green River Press. kit on eBay for $1,000. That's a.

Please enjoy that. So if you have any of those in your home, you can- Well, that's how much it costs to make. There's also, I can't remember if it's a Mother Lovebone or a Green River t-shirt on Etsy for like $7,000. Who? My brother's in Christ. Show me the person that is like, I have $7,000 for an original Green River

T-shirt. Is this something that, like, someone is setting the price? Yeah, they set the price. Yeah. So if you want to send them to me, I'll take them. But I understand if you want to sell them in order to fund more trips to Kelly Slater's surf ranch. Yeah. I'm astounded by like, I mean, I guess it's thanks to Biden, like the price of like just venues, like going to a show.

I mean, it's probably good news. I used to pay $8. And now I'm like, I have to have $75 just to like go see. a show? What about teenagers? Although I will say there's still a very healthy underground scene. I can only speak for LA, but like, and there's plenty of shows that are like 15,

$18 with like lineups of bands and that are smaller, you know. You can do it. It's just not, you can't go see Pearl Jam for $18, but you can go see like underground guitar rock bands. Did you ask what the last show that you went to? No, I asked what your best show that you went to.

No, I asked what your best show that you went to? What was the last show you went to? Laurie Anderson. Oh, that's so cool. Do you know, do you know Arley Carstons? Who used to be in Juno? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I worked with his old guitar player at Gates.

Yes, yes, he told me that. He's a good friend of mine, and he texted me. That's so weird that he said last night. And he was like, are you at the Lori Anderson talk right now? And I was like, no, I didn't know about it. I'm so sad. Yeah, I wasn't sure even what it was going to be. It wasn't like a talk or anything. And I kind of thought it was going to be more along those lines,

where it's actually a musical performance issue is backed up by, sex mob. So like when I went into the it was at the Benar Royal Hall, which is like kind of the local classical music venue. Like the CL Symphony plays there and stuff.

That's cool. So, you know, it's kind of like this is a nice event and everyone has a chair, a seat. That's all I want now. I was almost surprised walking down the aisle and seeing like a backline set up.

I was like, oh, I wasn't quite expecting that. I want every show to have chairs now. That's the age I've reached. I love going to shows. I want them all to start at 6 p.m., be over by 8, and have chairs. I love the post-pandemic early shows. That's so good. And it makes it possible to, like, have a job and go see.

If you're 21 years old in a band, absolutely the fuck play at 11.30 p.m. Go off, sis. Like, that's fine. But if I'm going to see. bands that are my age or older, your fan base is also your age. Nobody wants to go to an 11 p.m. show. The band doesn't want to play that late.

We don't want to go that late. Why can't we just have it start at eight? And then we're all beautiful and home in our beds by 9.30. If I was president, this is what I would enact into legislation. In the late 90s, Patty Smith played at the crocodile. And the starting time was 9.30.

And there was no opening band. And this is fully in the era where like, like keep people in the bar until two. Right, right. Yeah, yeah. And I was just like, how the fuck did she pull this off? She's Patty Smith. She can do it. Yeah.

Yeah. She's like this and then it happened. Mark Arm, this has honestly been so fun. I know your jury is out on me, but I think maybe when you said it for a little while, you'll be like, hey, I had an okay time. even though I was literally forced at gunpoint by my publicist to do this. In the end, I had an okay time. There was no gun involved.

And it was a machete. That's called a callback. Yeah, yeah. I'm thinking of my shoulder. All right, Mark. Thank you so much for coming on. Everyone check out the new Mudhoney album. And come back next week for a new episode of 24-question party people.

Awesome. Thank you. It's a pleasure. Thanks for listening to 24-question party people. and thanks to my guest Mark Arm. Mudhoney's latest album, Plastic Eternity, is available on Spotify and everywhere else. It rules.

Go listen to it. They're playing the Rock the Boat Festival in Everett, Washington on July 19th. You can go to subopopop.com, predicates. This episode was produced by Jesse Miller Gordon and Chris Sutton with help from Justin Sales. Our gorgeous theme song was composed by Heather Fortune.

Special thanks to Frank Nietto, Becca Flynn, Sean Fennacy, Rob Marvilla, and The Everyday Trainer. Come back every Tuesday for a episode of 24 question party people on Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts. 24 question party people.