WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - Episode 1011 - Mark Arm / The Pashman Cometh

Episode Date: April 18, 2019

Mark Arm was there at the beginning of a Seattle music scene that became a national phenomenon. But all Mark ever thought he and his bandmates were doing was entertaining themselves. Mark talks about how he grew up in Suburban Washington with pressure from his mom to be in the arts and how his outsider status led him to starting bands like Green River and Mudhoney, playing alongside contemporaries like Soundgarden and Mother Love Bone. Also on this episode, Marc’s old pal Dan Pashman from The Sporkful stops by because he was in the neighborhood. This episode is sponsored by Squarespace and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Sign up here for WTF+ to get the full show archives and weekly bonus material! https://plus.acast.com/s/wtf-with-marc-maron-podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Death is in our air. This year's most anticipated series, FX's Shogun, only on Disney+. We live and we die. We control nothing beyond that. An epic saga based on the global best-selling novel by James Clavel. To show your true heart is to risk your life.

When I die here, you'll never leave Japan alive. FX's Shogun, a new original series streaming February 27th, exclusively on Disney Plus. 18 plus subscription required. T's and C's apply. Hi, it's Terry O'Reilly, host of Under the Influence. Recently, we created an episode on cannabis marketing with cannabis legalization. It's a brand new challenging marketing category.

legalization. It's a brand new challenging marketing category. And I want to let you know we've produced a special bonus podcast episode where I talk to an actual cannabis producer. I wanted to know how a producer becomes licensed, how a cannabis company competes with big corporations, how a cannabis company markets its products in such a highly regulated category and what the term dignified consumption actually means. I think you'll find the answers interesting and surprising. Hear it now on Under the Influence with Terry O'Reilly. This bonus episode is brought to you by the Ontario Cannabis Store and ACAS Creative. Lock the gate!

Alright, let's do this. How are you, what the fuckers? What the fuck, buddies? What the fuck, nicks? What's happening? I'm Mark Maron. This is my podcast. Welcome to it. I don't know. I'm still a little jet-lagged, but getting better. I'm almost sleeping through the night. Look, today on the show, it's sort of a double-header. I haven't done that in a while. I had an interview with my pal Dan Pashman around in the can. We're going to throw that up. And Mark Arm, the guitar player and singer from the band Mudhoney, Seattle's own, is also here.

So kind of a little bit of a doubleheader. I'm going to go through some emails because there seems to be, I wouldn't say any sort of theme, not a theme, but people are a little touchy. But first let's do this. Today is what is it? Thursday? It's Thursday the 18th. I'm in San Diego tonight, tomorrow, Friday, and Saturday. But I just want to make sure that I give everybody a heads up where I'm going to be playing, okay? Because it's hard to get word out. And I got an email from a woman named Carol who understands. She says, I feel you. Hi, Mark. I've

been listening to you for years and never wrote in, but I just wanted to let you know you are not alone. At the beginning of today's episode, that was the other day, you were talking about how you've got to keep announcing upcoming shows or else people are like, oh, I didn't know you were coming to my town. I am a program manager for a small nonprofit in northern Michigan. And this morning, right before listening to your podcast, I was gardening with friends and they were like, you need to work on a better way to communicate about your events. I didn't know about your event Saturday. I told them about how I posted it on Facebook and Instagram.

My boss sent out an email about it. We posted it on our marquee outside. Local NPR talked about it and the local newspaper wrote about it. After pointing out that it feels like I'm doing enough to get the word out, they all shrugged it off. Well, I didn't hear about it. After pointing out that it feels like I'm doing enough to get the word out, they all shrugged it off. Well, I didn't hear about it. Huh. One said she saw it in the newspaper, but really I need to be better at communicating with people when we have events. So I just wanted to share my experiences so you know that you can do your darndest, but people are going to keep claiming it's you who is not getting the word out, not their complete lack of effort to seek out information. Keep up the good work. I really enjoy getting to listen in on your chats.

Warm regards, Carol. Well, yeah, man, that's I don't know. I guess it's annoying. It's really not about I understand some people got to listen to me talk about places that aren't near them, but I'm just trying to, I don't go out that much and I'm going to be out a lot. You can go to wtfpod.com slash tour to see where I'm going. The other emails, there's, okay, the tone of this one I enjoyed because I really hope this guy is a Buddhist. That would make me happy. hope this guy is a buddhist that would make me happy and you know sometimes you guys i don't i don't even remember you know what i said it's usually i'm making a joke it's in a conversation or you know i understand i understand things are delicate and things can be touchy but the tone on

this one was great buddhism comment hey Mark, read D'Onofrio episode. Your summary of Buddhism based on meeting a couple of people in a basement cafe was about the most tone fucking deaf perspective I've ever heard. You sounded like a smug idiot. No, that's not correct. You sounded like a fucking totalitarian evangelical, though sadly many I've met are a bit more intelligent on the subject. So good job there. Didn't hear the D'Onofrio interview after that. Thanks for nothing. Wouldn't bother even writing,

but I like you enough to bother maybe because you're the only person who drops dirty uncle bill references once in a while or often displays a genuine humility. Who knows on behalf of lay practitioners and your idiot listeners who now have a new definition of Buddhism, courtesy of Mark, try practicing right speech once in a while, which loosely translates to, among other things, try shutting your pie hole about shit you clearly know nothing about. I know it's hard and your pie hole is your business. But, hey, you're not alone.

We're all trying here. Nice tone, Morgan. And, yes, my pie hole is my business. But are you okay man you know maybe you should meditate or something or kind of like balance out a little bit i'm not sure what i said but it does like it i don't know is is your chosen religion working for you? Wow. Nice tone. I like the flow of it. I did.

There's another one that I found enjoyable. Women don't fart, question mark, question mark, question mark. Oh, boy. Sensitive people. Hi, Mark. You said a couple of podcasts ago that when an opportunity comes to teach a lesson one should take it and teach it without sourness or anger so here it comes i found the conversation you had recently with your guest kyle dunn again about women farting funny but disappointing to be honest so it's um take pause and and know that that it was funny

all right the disappointing part is coming but it was funny i don't even remember what it was but just for your general information women are people and they fart just as much or as little as other people do oh my god do you like is our jokes really lost i mean like do people believe fucking everything? Seriously. Just exactly how do you think that women's farts would smell less if they did? It still comes out of their arse, after all. There's no biological reason that would make women evolve to have less smelly farts.

Oh, boy. The women in your life repress a bodily function so that you are not inconvenienced and you on the other hand don't concern yourself with whether or not the fact that you don't inconveniences them. This should pretty much be the textbook definition of patriarchy in my opinion. Okay. I know you didn't create the conditioning but i feel that in that conversation you inadvertently contributed to this conditioning imagine a teenage girl or young adult listening to that with all the insecurities that that phase in life brings thinking you are the cool guy that you are and then bam she's told that her bodily function should be repressed because mark maron thinks women don't fart as much,

so she must be sick or something. I know that this may seem trivial, but it's the little things that make a big difference. All this aside, I think the podcast is great, and I love your work in general. Cheers. Mel from Australia. Look, you know, wow. Look, I repress farts pretty pretty regularly i'm pretty farty and you know and in and i'm and i'm polite about it so so that that goes on and i don't ask anyone

in my life to repress their farts but you know when they do fart i mean i might be like wow fart i mean i might be like wow or like what or like was that you or like what happened in here or or if i do it i'll be like oops uh that was bad i'm sorry is it still in here i didn't i thought i i didn't i didn't know it would follow me into the car. There's a lot of things that happen, but I don't think this is really a fundamentally patriarchal problem. And I don't mean to argue. I don't want to get into this fight. And I'll just say to my teenage listeners, feel free to fart, but you're going to have to take a hit, you know, farting, you know, it can hang on you forever. Like, you know, if you fart

in, in the wrong situation, you're going to be the farter. This is male or female. This is non-gender specific fart advice. You know, I think we all know innately that though natural, farts can be embarrassing and intrusive and sometimes just like, holy shit, where did that come from? What did you eat? So I think on that level, impressive, but still not great socially. Okay. All right. But I do enjoy the new definition of patriarchy, almost that I'd like to repeat it. The new definition of patriarchy, according to Mel in Australia, is when a woman represses her farts so it doesn't inconvenience the man and the man doesn't do that in kind in other words the man doesn't uh realize how much that is unfair because he farts freely that's patriarchy definition one new stuff learning new stuff also you'll notice i don't fart on the podcast Also, you'll notice I don't fart on the podcast. You know, out of respect for anybody in here. I just, I don't like the whole premise. I don't like using farting as a political or ideological launching point.

So, folks, if you listen to the thousandth episode a few weeks ago, you heard me and Brendan talk about our beginnings at Air America Radio. And one of the guys there was Dan Pashman. You might have heard Pashman on here a few times. I tend to have him jump on the mic whenever he's around because we have a good time talking about bullshit. And you may also know him from his podcast, The Sporkful, where he talks about food with people from all walks of life, including a lot of comics. where he talks about food with people from all walks of life, including a lot of comics. Recently, he had on Maria Bamford, Josie Long, Ron Funches. You can go check out The Sporkful at thesporkful.com or wherever you get podcasts. That's The Sporkful. So this is me and Pashman doing what me and Pashman do when he's in town. Pashman doing what me and Pashman do when he's in town.

Be honest. When was the last time you thought about your current business insurance policy? If your existing business insurance policy is renewing on autopilot each year without checking out Zensurance, you're probably spending more than you need. That's why you need to switch to low-cost coverage from Zensurance before your policy renews this year. Zensurance does all the heavy lifting to find a policy, covering only what you need. And policies start at only $19 per month. So if your policy is renewing soon, go to Zensurance and fill out a quote.

Zensurance. Mind your business. Death is in our air. This year's most anticipated series, FX's Shogun, only on Disney+. We live and we die. we control nothing beyond that an epic saga based on the global best-selling novel by james clavelle to show your true heart just to risk your life when i die here you'll never leave japan alive fx's shogun a new original series streaming february 27th exclusively on disney plus 18 plus subscription required I just created a file. It's called Pashman for no reason.

I feel like all of our conversations could be called that. When I saw that you texted me, you're like, I just want to see the house. I thought, well, do you want to, is this to get on the show? Well, it was to see you first and foremost, to see the new place. Was this in the back of your head? It was in the back of my head that it could happen, yes. But I would have been very happy with the visit had it not happened. But the fucking thing is, I was about to just sort of like, all right, see you later.

And then I'm like, we're standing in the garage. And I garage and i'm like all right well let's just get on the mic and do whatever it is because i did see you in new york i i you know i don't usually do stuff like that like you know it was a live uh sporkful and uh i brendan told me about it and it was down the street where i was staying and it was a live debate about pasta shapes, and I thought, what could be more relevant? But what could be more pashman? I don't know that you accomplished much that night. Do you feel like you made any headway on the pasta shapes thing?

I mean, I don't know if I give a shit, but I have opinions about it. Well, that sounds like you give a shit. Well, I agree. Well, I mean, I hardly ever eat pasta shapes thing. I mean, not, and like, I don't know if I give a shit, but I have opinions about it. Well, that sounds like you give a shit. Well, I agree. Well, I mean, I don't eat, I hardly ever eat pasta. Okay. But there was a time, I remember when someone introduced me to Pappardelle and I was like, this is pretty amazing.

Yeah. You know, with the rabbit ragout of whatever sort. Or orchette, orchette with the- Orecchiette, that's like the little ears. Orecchiette, it's called little ears. Orecchiette. It's called- Yeah, Orecchiette. Well, I made it for a while.

I had a recipe from some Bon Appetit Mediterranean edition, and I made it with broccoli rabe. That was the angle. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I made it a lot. And I also mastered Bucatini La Miciacana. Oh. I mastered Bucatini La Micciacana. I mastered it because I dated a girl who loved it.

And I actually had to kind of scour L.A. at that time to find guanciale because it was before the big artisanal meat explosion. So finding guanciale in L.A. was not easy. I had to track down an actual, like I went to one Italian deli. They're like, what? And then I found another one who had it and because it does make a profound difference in that recipe this must have been a special girl well i wanted to impress her and i also liked cooking and it was a challenge but and it's a very specific sauce that bucatini la matron how is it yeah yeah you know but the

guanciale which is a pig jowl, you can use pancetta, right? But it's not the same flavor at all. Yeah. It's a definitely different flavor. What do you think about, and bucatini people should know, it's like a similar spaghetti. It's like a long pasta. Yeah. It's hollow down the center.

It's shaped like a drinking straw. Yeah. What's your take on bucatini? I don't know. I don't know that I would have used it outside of the recipe. I don't know what it's, I heard the argument on the show about the sauce gets in there. I don't know. I don't know that I would have used it outside of the recipe. I don't know what it's... I heard the argument on the show about the sauce gets in there. I don't know. It's a different texture.

And it's kind of a fun texture. I couldn't really identify whether sauce was getting in or not. But when you chew it, it feels different than other things. Yeah. That's really what it comes down to, really, with the pastas. It's the chew. Yeah. I mean, that's the fun of it. It's all sort of made of the same shit so you know what does it do in your

mouth well that's what but that's what makes pasta shapes fun and exciting right because it's all you know there are a couple variations on the dough you might use but still like it's not a huge variation so like the shapes are what makes the different pasta different yeah yeah i mean i thought it was a pretty good discussion. What's on your mind? Well, I want to ask you, I'm curious, since I look up to you as a performer, like you got any pointers for me? About what?

About the live sporkful. Like how can we do live sporkfuls and make them better? Well, I wasn't sure whether anyone was going to adjust someone's mic and I think it happened out of necessity. Like there was some, for you personally, no, I thought you did good. You felt comfortable. You listened pretty well.

I don't know what, it was pretty no frills. Yeah. You know what I mean? I love, we had a projector projecting the Sporkful logo on the curtain on the stage, and the first thing you walk in, you're somebody like, oh, what, you got your own curtain now? Classic old guy. I'm like, no, what, you got your own curtain now? Classic old guy.

I'm like, no, we don't have curtain money, Mark. It's just a projection, okay? It looked solid. It looked tight. I was like, wow, that's impressive. And you take it on the road. No, I thought you did a good job. I thought you were funny off the cuff at times.

You know, I always like when people are recording a live show where they stop and they do things over. You did that. Yeah, I did that a couple times. But I thought you engaged well. How'd you feel about it? I felt good. I don't know if you find this. I feel like I've realized that I'm a bad judge

of how well a... I can tell if the live event is good, but I can't tell if it's going to make for a good podcast when I'm up on stage. Yeah. Like you'll feel a strong reaction from the crowd, but then you listen back and it's just like it falls flat. Well, you got to mic the audience.

I was going to tell you to do that. We did. We did mic the audience. Oh, you did? Yes. We can run. Maybe it didn't go well. We can ride.

I didn't want to say anything, but it seemed like at least you had people who liked the show there. But my goal. I thought they were supportive. Yeah. Yeah. They were. That's why I invite my family.

Yeah. Well, I mean, I, I, but I also think like, I also think you are just arguing about pasta. So how do you know if that's going to kill? There were some good laughs and there were some pretty emotional moments. In terms of your original question, what are we trying to get out of it? My goal with that was really just to get people thinking about pasta shapes. Why are some shapes better than others? Do they have different surface area to volume ratio?

The sauce sticks to them better? Do they feel better in your mouth? Do they stay on the fork better? Whatever it is. There's not one all-knowing pasta. Different pastas are for different purposes, but some are better than others. And I think a lot of people have opinions about these things but don't realize they have opinions. And I wanted to get people thinking

because I am going to try to do this. I want to set off on this mission to create a new pasta shape. Oh, okay. So this episode, this live show will be like the beginning of that journey. You are aware that the world is ending. I guess this is what we need to be doing.

Yeah. Yeah, I mean, you know, we got to keep our interests intact. I guess this is my coping mechanism. Yeah, I think that's know, we've got to keep our interests intact. I guess this is my coping mechanism, Mark. Yeah, I think that's what everything on television should be called. That's what all things should be called, the coping mechanism. That's what we're all doing. I mean, I have been thinking so much lately about that bit you used to do

about maybe the people who are depressed are the ones who actually know what the fuck is going on. Oh, yeah, maybe the happy people are really the ones in question. Maybe depression is a reasonable response to the shit we're going through. Yeah. Right. Well, no, I always kind of thought that. Right, but it seems like now more than ever.

I wonder if there's like a sequel or a follow-up or extension of that joke that you could bring back that could be relevant to today. Yeah, I mean, I think I could probably bring back that joke. I mean, the only argument about it is, like, what's trauma-based? What is biological? Can people track their bad feelings? You know, I mean, that's what the real question is.

But I think a lot of it is obviously a reaction, if not to the world, to whatever is in your life. Do you know what I mean? That can trigger and stick do you feel like you resent people who claim to be truly happy no because i've i've learned that that you know if people say that that's a red flag you know i guess you know but there are people that seem grounded and have things in perspective, have peace of mind, you know, feel good about what they're doing in life. And you can feel that, you know, the happy thing as my new joke on it is that like, look, I'm, you know, happiness is a long shot.

If I can have relief for 10 minutes, like, you know, that's how I'm geared. I mean, I've been doing a joke about that, like, like about how people, some people actually say that. if I can have relief for 10 minutes. That's how I'm geared. I mean, I've been doing a joke about that, like about how some people actually say that, hey, that would be fun to dot, dot, dot. I've never said that about anything. You know what I mean? Like if I can not think about me for 10 minutes or feel some relief,

that's as close as I get to joy or happiness. Right. I don't know if that's completely true. I think I stopped myself. But I feel like when we started working together oh my god that was insane it was and it was a long time ago it's now like 14 15 years ago is it yeah we've known each other for almost 15 years you haven't really aged that much i don't think really i think yeah but i feel like i was a lot more upbeat and optimistic back then and i feel like you always had a skepticism of my uh outward happiness like there must be something underneath this guy.

Yeah. Well, I think it's also your disposition. I don't know if it's a coping mechanism, but I think you are sort of like an excited guy. Don't you? Yeah. You're starting to get humbled? You're starting to get beaten down, Dan? Beaten down?

Yeah, the weight of life. Yeah, eventually this Borgful is going to be like, yeah, it's not helping. The soup, it's okay. But nothing is doing it anymore. Yeah, that's right. So what else? So now you're down here, you're in Glendale for what?

I got some sporkful tapings. I'm going out to have Shabbat dinner with some old Jews in Palm Desert. They do Shabbat dinner every Friday at Wendy's. But does Wendy's do anything different for them? They allow them to drink wine. They bring in their wine and their challah. And the candles? Yeah, yeah.

And the challah? And they do it in the Wendy's. And then they just order a single or a double or a triple? And then Lou gets a Baconator. Oh, the baked potato? No, the bacon burger. It's a burger with bacon on it. On Shabbat dinner?

Yeah, yeah. Uh-huh. So that's what you're going to do? No, the bacon burger. It's a burger with bacon on it. On Shabbat dinner? Yeah, yeah. Uh-huh. So that's what you're going to do? Yeah, yeah. Actually, I'll tell you a couple interesting things I was working on recently that I was going to tell you about. One was about, have you ever heard of these underground tunnels in Los Angeles? Yeah.

They used to go back to Prohibition. Oh. And they were used to smuggle booze under downtown LA. Oh, yeah? And there's like a secret elevator near this municipal building in downtown LA, and you can go down there and go into the tunnels, even though I think you're not supposed to. Uh-huh. And I did this episode where I was just kind of like wandering around LA, kind of in search

for this cake eventually that I needed to eat, but then I just was kind of- Where do you stand on Tres Leches cake? Love it. It's the best. Fantastic. The best. You know what? I always thought someone should make a Tres Leches cake? Love it. It's the best. Fantastic. The best. You know what? I always thought someone should make a Tres Leches cake with a Twinkie.

Why diminish it? Why lowbrow the Tres Leches cake? Does anyone not like Tres Leches? I don't know if everyone knows about it because I've made it before. It's the three milks. I think it's like sweet condensed milk, regular milk and cream or something like that. Something like that, yeah. And you mix them all together and you just make this cake that's essentially a sponge.

Right. And you pour it right on it. It's so good. So it absorbs it. That's one of my favorite desserts. All right, so wait. So did you find the tunnel? Yes.

You did? Yes, I found the tunnel. The entrance of the tunnel looked like the hospital in Stranger Things. Oh, yeah. It was like super creepy. I couldn't believe it was actually like an official municipal building. And then I followed the tunnels for a while and almost got arrested. But then I came out and walked above ground to this bar that's like the oldest bar in LA.

And I convinced the bartender to take me down to the basement. And it was amazing. You would have loved it because you're interested in history. Yeah. Actually, I'm going to show you the picture. On the wall, the basement used to be a speakeasy. Yeah.

On the wall, they have a mural of a tree with all these winding branches on the tree. And it's actually a secret map to all the underground tunnels and the prohibition bars. It's a prohibition map. Oh, wow.

Does anyone know about this? I found it on Atlas Obscura. Oh. I'm going to do a Sporkful episode where I just wander LA with no specific mission and see what happens. And I just started the episode by Googling Weird LA and clicking on the first link that came up and just following it. Oh, what was the cake you had to get? Oh, so a couple years ago I did a Sporkful taping at Patty's Diner in Burbank. You know that place?

It's just over the hill. It's been there since the 60s. Old school diner. And I walked in before my guest, and I saw this huge coconut cake, like classic diner, three-layer coconut cake. And I love a coconut cake. Yeah. It looked amazing.

But it was like 11 in the morning. Yeah. I was starving, but I'm not going to have cake. But then we sit down for the taping. Man, you've changed. I know. I really lost it. Yeah. Lost was starving, but I'm not going to have cake. But then we sit down for the table. Man, you've changed. I know. I really lost it. Yeah.

Lost my edge. I had an omelet, and I had coffee and an English muffin, and I did the interview. And then it's like 1230, and now I'm just full. And I'm like, I don't need cake. Oh, you did it. Right. Then I get back to the hotel that night, and what happened? What?

I was like, I'm a fucking idiot. Why didn't I get that cake to go? I should be eating it right now. Oh. So you went back. So two days later, I ended up back there. I was seeing a friend in Burbank, and I was like, we gotta go to Patty's. I gotta get this coconut cake. And we went back there, and it was they were out of it. Oh, man. You blew it.

I was crestfallen. Oh, so but then you went back this last... I set out to make my way from LAX to Patty's in Burbank. On foot? Lift, foot, underground tunnels. Yeah. Hooker crook. What is this?

Hookers? Hooker crook. What is this grilled fish you were telling me about? Oh, you got to go to this place. Huh? It's called Coney Seafood, C-O-N-I apostrophe seafood. It's in Inglewood. I went there because it's near lax and i wasn't going

to be by the airport again yeah but this is like one of these jonathan gold specialties okay uh it's not expensive it's not fancy but it's like uh uh latin american seafood oh um tons of shrimp dishes like amazing like agua chiles like bright fresh lime and spicy. Oh, nice. They do this whole grilled fish with these onions and the corn tortillas. Oh, great. It's ridiculous. Oh, okay. I'll write that down. Now, let me just ask you before I make you leave.

When you produce a segment like this where you're going to go to this Shabbat dinner at Wendy's, I mean, like, what are you thinking? Are you going to ask them, you know, like, where the tradition started for them and why do they continue it? Well, and also I think it's interesting, like they're all older people. Yeah. So I think, you know, we don't have that many older guests on our show.

And so these are voices you don't hear as often. And I think it's interesting to hear like, you know, the role of this, like some of them were not religious growing up. So it's interesting to me that that that food and Shabbat dinner is this way of connection for them. A lot of them are widows or widowers. Right. And so, you know, there's a loneliness to old age. And this, like, sort of quirky tradition actually has started off on a whim and has now been going on for years. And it's taken on a lot of meaning for these seniors.

So I think that's kind of cool. Yeah, it's cool. And then, like, you know, anytime you can just talk to like cantankerous old Jews, that's going to be fun. Yeah. I just wonder like, I mean, I wonder like why, you know, how many of them grew up with it

and where they grew up with it. You know, like, did you bring that up when I was? Yeah. When you were not paying attention. When I was talking too long without making it about you. No, I just saw that I had some messages. I picked the phone up to show you a picture, and then I got lost. Yeah, that happened at Carnegie Hall.

I know, on stage. That was such a great show in a million ways, but that was probably my all-time favorite moment. I had to wait for the phone, and then I wanted to read the email from my dad, and then I started checking my messages. Yeah, you're literally on stage at Carnegie Hall. You walked on stage, you were almost in tears. It was such an intense moment.

Halfway through the show you're like, I'm just going to check my text here. Hold on a second. Well, I wanted to read that email from my dad and then I had to get

my phone from backstage which was a whole thing. And we were all sitting and you got whatever, 3,000 people waiting and you're like, can someone on the backstage please bring my phone?

Is it going to happen? Is it going to happen? It was a while. And then she showed up and everyone's like, yay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then I read the email

from my dad which is worth it and then I was just scrolling a little bit. Right, and then you caught yourself and you're like, yay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I read the email from my dad, which is worth it. And then I was just scrolling a little bit. Right. And then you caught yourself. You're like, oh, sorry. I'm not going to check my text right now. That was so great.

I was very present. Yeah, yeah. All right. Well, so Sporkful, when do you drop them? Mondays, usually. Yeah? Yeah. And well, have fun out there in Palm Desert.

Thanks, buddy. It was good seeing you. You too, man. Take care. Oh, you take care. You want to was good seeing you. You too, man. Take care. Oh, you take care. You want to say take care again? You too, man. Take care.

Yeah, because I stepped on it before. That's cool. No, we're going to put both of them in. All right, Dan. Talk to you later. Thanks, buddy. Dan Bashman, the podcast, his podcast, The Sporkful. You can get it at thesporkful.com or wherever you get those podcasts.

It's always kind of nice to see Dan. No, it's always good to see Dan. So, look, I'm pretty excited about, I was pretty excited to talk to Mark Arm. I've been a Mud Funny, Mud Funny? I've been a Mud Funny Mud Honey fan. I've been a Mud Honey fan for a long time. And, you know, it was brought to my attention that a lot of times if I get packages from Sub Pop that Mark is sending them. Because he works over there on the dock, on the loading dock or whatever. He's the guy in charge of sending shit, I think.

But he was here. He was in town. So I thought, fuck it. They got a new record out, pretty new at this point. The new one is called Digital Garbage. They also put out a live album of their European tour called Lie. But this is me and Mark Arm of Mudhoney. What brings you down here?

Well, I came down here for this, actually. You did? Yeah, and I came down a day early and stayed close to my friend in Venice, and we went surfing yesterday. You went surfing? Yeah. Look at us old men and you doing things that are healthy. I went on a hike up the mountain.

Yeah. Yeah. Do you surf in Seattle? Not in Seattle, but in the Pacific Northwest, yeah. You do? Yeah. With a wets Seattle? Not in Seattle, but in the Pacific Northwest, yeah. You do? Yeah. With a wetsuit? Yes, of course.

I don't know anything about surfing. It's cold there. I mean, well, I know that, but it's probably cold here too, right? Yeah, yeah. Not as cold? Not nearly as cold. Really? So like in my, from what I can see from surfing, when I look at it, it seems to be a lot of

waiting. Is it a lot of- to be a lot of waiting. There's a lot of waiting. But that's part of it, right? You just sort of like, I'm out here, I'm floating around. Sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And what do you get?

Like one wave a day? Oh, no, no. Hopefully not. Is that a bad day? Well, yeah, that's a bad day. Michael, okay, so you went surfing yesterday. How many waves did you get? Like 15 to 20, something like that.

Really? Yeah, yeah. And how long are you up on the board for? Like seven seconds? Hmm. We were at Malibu, and so the rides were kind of long. I don't know. I didn't have a watch or a timer. I'm just like, well, I'm estimating.

I mean, you know, I'm just like, I'm curious about the buzz of it. Like, for me, like, I go up this fucking hill, but I'm not, I'm not having a good time. I'm happy when I get to the top. Right. But like with surfing, it seems like the payoff is like, I'm up. It's good. Well, I grew up skiing and then in the seventies started skateboarding. And then like, as I got older, falling skateboarding hurt way too much.

And skiing got way too expensive. Yeah. Yeah. You can't skateboard now. Oh, I have friends who are older than me who still do it. Yeah, but how often do they break a thing? They, not that often really. Really? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, but at this point they're pretty practiced.

Yeah. I never just stayed in practice. You got 50-something-year-old friends doing pools? Yeah. Oh, man. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's crazy. Yeah.

They're not doctors or anything. What are they doing during the day? Some of them are in bands. Yeah. So wait, so you skied. Where did you grow up? Did you grow up here? You didn't grow up here.

No, no. I grew up pretty much in Seattle. Like my family moved to the suburbs of Seattle when I was four. Oh yeah? For what? Was your dad in that Boeing guy? Yeah. He was?

Yeah. So you're a Boeing kid? I guess so. Yeah. That's like everybody up there. What part of town? Not anymore. Now it's all tech shit, right?

Yeah, yeah. What did he do? Yeah, Seattle used to be like a really working class town. Yeah. What part did you grow up in? I grew up in the suburbs. What neighborhood? Outside of Kirkland.

Oh, yeah, Kirkland. Totem Lake area. Kirkland. Wasn't there a club? Didn't you come see me in Kirkland? No, you saw me at the old Giggles. Yeah, I saw you twice at Giggles. Yeah, I think you saw me record that dark night.

Yes. One of those dark nights of final engagement. That was one of the most Amazing sets I ever saw I was like My jaw was on the floor I'm like

This must have been What it was like To watch Lenny Bruce It was fucking It was a dark time man I kind of figured Because I saw The last of your four shows

Oh you did Yeah And I kind of figured That maybe After hearing like the CD That came out Later after yeah and i kind of figured that maybe after hearing like the cd that came out later after in the album yeah i figured that maybe well mark kind of must have gotten everything down that he wanted to get down for the recording yeah and this last set he was just fucking out there free-forming it was so it was mind-blowing i was so happy you were there i was excited yeah yeah i was like fucking mark

arms here thanks to dan for swizzle yeah yeah for bringing me out yeah well i mean like you know before i knew i'd never been to giggles before really ever you're not a comedy guy not not i mean you know i saw like uh stephen wright in the 80s at the college you know yeah yeah right and that is not a thing you do go to comedy and that club is so weird it was so weird it was totally weird you know the guy who runs the place he sells you the tickets he makes the drinks he serves the drinks he goes up on stage for five minutes before you go on and now it's gone yeah yeah so kirkland yeah there was another there was a place wasn't laughs it laughs was over in kirkland in that strip mall they i

don't know if he's there yeah that was kind of not too far from the neighborhood that I grew up in. Okay, so you're growing up. Where'd you go to high school? Bellevue Christian. Oh, yeah? Where you brought up Christian. What'd your dad do over at Boeing? He was an engineer, but he never got a beat on exactly what he did.

I talk to so many people who have no fucking idea what their dads do or their parents. What'd your mom do? She, for a while, was an avon lady and then like got a job as a receptionist for a paint company she did some avon yeah had the products at home yep yep used them wondered why you were using them are these good i don't know they don't quite the labels are weird right why is my son wearing lipstick? Well, that became explained later because it was necessary. So, okay, so she's working, she's a receptionist. So how Christian were you brought up?

Well, that's a weird thing. I don't think my parents really went to church until like they moved into my neighborhood. I don't think my parents really went to church until like they moved into my neighborhood. Yeah. And I was the only kid. So like I was, you know, they're. You're the only child? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Is that a lot of pressure? Yeah. Especially with my parents. Yeah. I always ask. I always ask only children if they felt this weird pressure. None of them say yes. But you did? On my mom's behalf.

Oh, yeah. Like, you know, before before i was born she bought a baby grand piano like expecting me to be a concert pianist oh that would have been good the kind of you went the other way but you picked up an instrument yeah but you know it was brutal well at least she wanted to pressure you to be uh in the arts yeah yeah that's nice that's supportive but what she i mean she she'd uh wanted to be an opera singer but you know like she grew up in germany and was born in 23 or 21 oh gee check it out uh i guess she didn't they were they were the winning team for a while she got out after the war uh oh really my? My dad met her. Oh, really?

Stayed for the whole thing? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I guess if you were German before the whole shit went down, you could stay. Yeah. Was your dad German? No, he's from Kansas. Oh. So what, he went to Germany?

Military? Yeah, military. So he liberated your mother? Apparently. Yeah. Well, good. That was good. That worked out. Yeah. Well, good. That was good. That worked out.

Yeah. But what does that have to do with her not being able to be an opera singer? Oh, because her career sort of, by the time the war was over, she was almost too old. Oh, but she was doing it? She was doing it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Did she go into school for it? She was studying it, and then the shit went down. Sure. A lot of shit. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Did she go into school for it? She was studying it, and then the shit went down.

Sure. A lot of shit. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It was a real mess over there. Does she talk about it ever? I tried to get her to talk about it.

She still around? No. She died in 2015. She was like 94. Wow. Good run, huh? Yeah. Yeah.

I had old folks. Oh, you did? They had you when they were older? Yeah, yeah. Oh. Yeah. And she didn't talk about it? We didn't try to get her to talk about it?

It was weird to me that, like, you know, that whole, like, German thing, like, we didn't know what was happening to the Jews. Uh-huh. Crap, you know? Right. But she would say, like, you know, my friend who was Jewish and her whole family, like, they disappeared. Ugh. You know? It's like like what did you think happened you know yeah um apparently uh after uh kristallnacht my grandmother took my mom through the jewish neighborhood and said i want you to pay attention

look around and don't say a word uh- Like, apparently my grandma was not a fan. Of the Jews? No, of Hitler. Oh. Jesus Christ. No, my mom was an actual Hitler youth. Oh, really? Which, you know, I think you had to be if you were German at that time and going to

school. Right. Right? It was like their demonic Girl Scouts. Right, right, right. And my mom told me that when the radio announced that Hitler invaded Czechoslovakia or Poland, whichever the first one was,

that my grandma exclaimed, oh good, that's the end of him. Oh yeah. And my mom, who was indoctrinated was just like kind of looked at her and was like what and apparently she saw her mom just turn white as a sheet and realized like she has to be afraid of her child oh wow that's heavy now it's a was your mom able to get it out of her system? I would hope eventually. Yeah.

Germans are tough, huh? Yeah. She was always very rigid. Yeah. Did you learn how to speak German? Yeah. Yeah? She spoke in the house?

Well, like the first four years of my life were on an Air Force base in Germany. So German was my first language. You were born in Germany? No, I was born in California on an Air Force base. And then my dad got stationed back in Germany. In Wiesbaden, yeah. Uh-huh. Wow.

So do you have any memory of that? A little bit. Like I remember it was going to be like my first Halloween. Yeah. And this girl that I played with, I like bit her on the face and was allowed to do Halloween that day. You weren't allowed for being a punk rock too early. Bit her on the face. Is she all right?

I assume so. Yeah. So once you get there, so you grew up with this, I mean, an engineered dad, does that mean he was engaged or disengaged or, you know, like. He was kind of disengaged. Yeah. Like a math brain, kind of quiet. Your mom was on top of everything.

Yeah. Pretty much like that. Yeah. Your mom cooked a lot of German food. Yeah. Yeah. Like what? Well, it's just kind of like, you know, meat, potatoes, and vegetables.

Yeah. Nothing fancy. No sausages. Schnitzel. Schnitzel a thing? She didn't make schnitzel. She would do a thing called rouladen, which was like a weird, like pieces of flat beef rolled around ground beef.

Oh, really? And tied up with a string. Oh, yeah. I couldn't really ever see the point of that. Yeah. Was it good, though? It was okay. That's not great. So, were you playing piano? Did she make point of that. Yeah. Was it good though? It was okay. That's not great.

So were you playing piano? Did she make you play piano? Yeah. Can you read music? Slowly at this point. Like, you know, once I got old enough, I kind of put my foot down. I'm not doing this anymore. But were you good?

I could play. Like, you know, I didn't have the caliber to be like a concert pianist or anything like that. Right. Who plays the organs on the Mudhoney records? I played the organ on Kill Yourself Live. Oh, you did? Yeah. You didn't use any organs on some of the older instrumentals?

Yeah. You did, right? Yeah. And you do that? Sometimes. Like Johnny Sangster, who recorded the last record, did the piano on it. Yeah. And Guy, our bass record, did the piano on it. Yeah. And Guy, our bass player, did the synthesizers.

I guess it doesn't require... It's funny. You don't need a professional organ player to play organ. You just need to have the instrument in the room. Right, right. But sometimes, like on our last record, we actually brought in a guy because we wanted like a Billy Preston type yeah thing for for a song and just knew like I wouldn't be able to do that right and

we brought in a guy for vanishing point yeah yeah yeah yeah who was great yeah it's fun right to bring in guys yeah yeah I was listening to what I listened to yesterday I was into that love you live the Rolling Stones record oh right Billy on there. Right. They had that Ollie Brown on a percussion. Like, it's sort of weird, right? When you listen to these bands, you know, how do they, like, you guys keep going, the Stones keep going, but you kind of mix it up a little bit.

Try. I mean, we still have our thing. Yeah, no, exactly. Yeah, so do the Stones, actually. Right. They got a few hits, those guys. Yeah, a few. Yeah.

No, but I like, well, the thing I like about the new record, and I was just listening to, which one? Kill Yourself Alive, that one, today. That song is that, like, it's sort of weird to make it this far. I don't know if we're old, but we're certainly middle-aged, and now we have to. At this point, like like when does middle age start i was uh with a friend last last night and uh oh we're in it buddy and i know but it used to

be middle age was like 35 or something no you know when people like died at 60 my guess i think middle age used to be 40 ish right right but i think maybe it's around 50 now but like i think like a couple centuries ago middle age might have been 15. Yeah. I don't think they looked at it the same way. I don't think they were sort of like resting on their laurels or reflecting about the youth at 15. I think the idea of middle age was probably around that idea where you're like, well, I have to be a grown-up now. Or the midlife crisis. Right.

That whole thing. Did you have one? No, I think I had that earlier. Yeah, I don't know. If you live a life in rock and roll and you stay in rock and roll, it'd be hard to identify what a midlife crisis would look like. Right, right. I never felt like there's something I really, really wanted to do

that I didn't do because I got stuck in this career or something. Yeah, it would probably be the opposite. It's like, I'm going to buy a suit. I'm going to get a nice desk. Yeah. I need a desk that I could sit. I got to build a cubicle at the house. But, but there is sort of like, you know, the tone of that, of a kill yourself live,

that song and the, and the words are like, I've done bits about that. I wrote a my last special i did a line it said that we will all be immortalized as content which is sort of oh yeah yeah it's a similar idea right right here's a little more dramatic but there is that like it's weird to have a sort of point of view that we have on this this trend this kind of like weird paradigm shift in terms of how people engage in life. And, you know, you sort of like the satire of Kill Yourself Alive or the lyrics of that song,

it's brutal because, you know, people have done that. They've actually killed themselves alive for the likes. You've had that line in there, for the likes. But like, what do you find with these records? I mean, how old are the people coming around? To the shows? Yeah. but like what do you do you what do you find when you with these records i mean how old are the people coming around to the shows yeah uh it seems to be like a good range um yeah yeah yeah you know there's people our age of course you know them probably by now some of them yeah oh yeah 30 years in isn't that weird i've seen you yeah yeah yeah that dude's here again yeah yeah hey what's up i'm like hey? Oh, I've seen you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That dude's here again.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Hey, what's up? I'm like, hey, how you doing? Like every year you see him, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's kind of cool. Yeah. Yeah.

It's great. Yeah. But you finding kids? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there's always kids who are just like find out about the old shit and they're interested in it and they're also kind of maybe into some of the younger stuff like the ocs oh yeah you know so those guys are good they're great when did the music start when did you pick up the guitar when did you make your mom mad i made my mom mad well

before that that's why i went to the belfry christian school oh that was a sentence yes that was a sentence well like what'd you do um the final straw was when i stole a bike uh-huh just you know like for junior high school shit well you know like bmxing was a thing yeah yeah that no i had like a regular 10 speed bike and i wanted to get into bmxing because like a lot of my friends were doing that sure and that's pre-skateboard or after skateboard kind of around the same time yeah and uh which is weird because like i was allowed to skateboard but like i wasn't allowed to get a bmx bike oh you were forbidden so yeah yeah yeah okay so my friends and i hatched a plan yeah to get me a bike right and it was just we were immediately caught really did you know the kid who you stole it from

no no he just took it he ended up at the police station uh i don't think we ended up the police station the police came to my house and that was like the maddest i've ever seen my dad oh yeah like he woke him up he was pretty reserved generally yeah his face i remember just being like bright red yeah yeah me kind of like and him being you know going around the dining room table like yeah yeah oh really yeah he's coming for you oh yeah yeah yeah yeah and uh and that was the beginning of the delinquency well no that was kind of actually almost towards the well i'd done some shoplifting before that but that kind of put a the kibosh on that oh yeah um yeah and you know the the thing to me that look looking back on it just seems like

really like my parents must have just thought i was like insane and ungrateful like my mom grew up in bombed out germany my dad grew up in kansas in the depression you know yeah and they're like here we've built this life for you or you just have it easy and you're complaining about being bored right well that's that's what comes with not having to work as hard as they did right right right is the boredom right you didn't have jobs i did eventually yeah not not like in eighth grade no well no i guess that's right so with the christian school so you had to go was there a uniform involved the year that i went was a the previous year was the last year they had uniforms in high school oh got in under the wire oh man dress how you wanted you didn't end up there you didn't end up indoctrinated

uh no but like when we've moved into the neighborhood that we moved into my parents like looked around there was a church nearby it happened to be a lutheran church and they were like we should probably take our kid to go there so he gets you know right as a good influence was your mom a lutheran that's a german thing isn't it it is but i don't think she was anything she told me before that her dad not since she was a nazi yeah like her dad grew up catholic and hated the catholic church apparently yeah so she was nothing but they decided they want to get you on the straight and narrow go to the church be part of the community i guess so yeah yeah but never sunk in so

they didn't get you early enough well like you know sort of half sunk in for a little while in there you know yeah you've got some jesus that video for the new for uh kill yourself alive is the it's the walk with the cross right right right i mean you know you get that shit pounded into your head and you're like you know i remember standing at the bus stop and looking at the like a kind of terrible sky yeah it's going like oh like, oh, this is it. This is the end times. Oh, yeah. Well, it is now. But I mean, you hear all this like-

Oh, sure. There's all this like, you know, end times crap, like great planet Earth. My dad was reading these books. Oh, he was? Yeah. So he was a little obsessed with the eschatology, the-

Trying to interpret revelations and crap like that. An engineer? You know, I think that was just, that was just, they would have Bible study at church. They got more and more into it, and I was just kind of like, this is weird. Wow. So it sunk in with him, though, the revelation? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So he was brought up with it, probably.

I don't think so. Really? Yeah. Got him late in life, an engineer. Yeah, yeah. Because I don't think any of his siblings were particularly religious. Interesting. It is a little nerve wracking when an engineer, when a math brain starts to look at the end

times as a possibility and it's kind of decoding revelations. That's not comforting. I don't think he thought he was going to figure it out or anything. But he kind of thought, well, it's not going to make sense. I think he was just trying to make sense of things. And he was actually just following what was fed him. Yeah. When did you start playing guitar?

My friend Smitty and I, we started our first band just after high school when it became quote-unquote real yeah it was a fake band for a while oh yeah what do you mean you were just uh playing did you take lessons no no just picked it up uh uh we like my first guitar was like uh a pawn shop guitar that had uh the tuning peg of the a string was broken yeah so it had like a pawn shop guitar that had the tuning peg of the a string was broken yeah so it had like a flat old flat wound string on there yeah and it was electric it was electric and eventually you know like learned about tuning but not at first sure yeah so we would just like make noise yeah you know and what year was this what were you listening to like make noise. Yeah. You know, and. What year was this? What were you listening to? Like 79, 80. Listening to, at that point, I'd gotten pretty into punk rock.

It was happening. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, because we're like the same age. How old are you? I'm, I'll be 57 next month. All right, I just turned 55. So that was like the beginning of when punk kind of got to America-ish. Yeah, you know, it had.

It was around, but it was around and uh like people who are maybe a little bit older yeah kind of were into it more but like but it's sort of weird it was kind of hard to get the records i guess by 80 it wasn't but like in the 70s late 70s they had to come up like there was a whole sex pistols were on like a major label right it was on a major label you know right but like the the the actual life of punk rock the zines and all that stuff you kind of had to be in this little network of people you know like for like the minute men or whoever or or or um black flag and stuff to know when they were playing or to get gigs and stuff there was a seemed from the guys talked to, there was a network of young punk rock teenagers who kind of like grew up around,

you know, sort of championed that stuff. Right, right, right, right. Yeah. Were you one of them? Well, I got to be one of them. Right. You know, first I had to kind of discover things. Right.

You know, no one out in the suburb that I grew up with, you know, had I not gone to Bellevue Christian, I probably wouldn't, I don't know if I would have gotten into the music the same way I did. Oh, thank God for the Christian. Well, my friend Smitty and Darren and several other people were like, you know, who were in the very first band,

Mr. Up in the Calculations that I was in. We talked and listened to music all the time. And it went from like, you know, listening to eight tracks of Live at Leeds and Smash, Jimi Hendrix's Smash Hits to like learning about Brian Eno and getting into Devo. That was my first thing too, Eno. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And Velvet Underground.

Velvet Underground, right? Yeah, from Jimi Hendrix's Smash Hits with the three Jimis on front. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Live at Leeds. And then, yeah, someone's got to hip you to Eno. And then you're like, oh, there's another world out there. Yeah, yeah.

What's this about? Yeah, there was a really cool record store in Bellevue that we would go to after school. What was that called? It was called Roboto Records. It was a used record store. And he was your guy? Who was the guy over there? Oh, there was several people.

That guided the youngsters into the world of uh of that of the new music like johnny roboto who owned the store with his wife helena and uh uh tom dyer and uh a couple other people and you know they turned us on to like ornette coleman yeah you know yeah and they wouldn't laugh when i like brought up like a jean-luc ponti record yeah what the fuck no no because i was just like trying to figure things out and they're like totally cool it's like yeah you know find your own path or whatever so then like so what are you guys playing you doing covers with mr f oh no no no we couldn't complain yeah the only thing we could do is make up stuff that we understood yeah which you know like made

sense to us right did you what this was the first band mr ep and the calculations and did you have a following uh eventually towards the end uh it was sort of the nerdier kids in the local hardcore scene yeah oh yeah Oh, yeah? Why? Because you guys were weirdos? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, we were outsiders. We weren't, like, there was a place in the university district, like, the street called

University Way, which for some reason gets called the Ave. Yeah. And that's where, like, all the cool people in leather jackets hung out and stuff. Right. You know, and we were just the suburban weirdos. Yeah. Doing the weird music. yeah yeah and what so was who was in that band that stayed with you was uh who steve turner was steve turner joined that band for the last six months and uh then the band decided to like not be a band

anymore and steven like we're like let's keep playing music and were you getting better was he teaching you stuff did he know how to play no no he didn't know how to play either yeah no i mean by the time i think i think when uh he joined mr up i was a marginally better guitar player but he quickly surpassed me yeah so you're just learning as you went yeah yeah and was it when did you uh so what was the next band? The next band was Green River. That was a good band. Yeah, I think so. You guys had your shit together then.

That was with Stone Gossard and the other guy from Pearl Jam. Jeff, Jeff Heyman, yeah. You guys still friends? Mm-hmm. Yeah? They still live up there? Yeah, Stone does. Jeff's got a place in Missoula and a place down in Encinitas.

Yeah, so, okay. As well as Seattle. So now is this scene starting to congeal into something? When does it start to sort of shift the Seattle music scene? Like at that time, when you start Green River, you guys, what, did two records? Three? Yeah. And that was named after the the killer yeah yeah

but that was like a straight up like was you what would you call that punk uh at that point um we were kind of moving out of hardcore. Yeah. Hardcore kind of felt really restrictive. Yeah. You know, and like, oh, I love Minor Threat, but I don't need to hear another band that sounds exactly like them. Right. You know?

Yeah, sure. Like, what's the point of that? Yeah. And it seemed like, you know, punk rock went from this thing that was sort of wide open. Right. To like getting narrowly defined you know right that's right

when it started originally i had mike watt sort of like it told me that originally punk rock was just like whatever you could wanted to do it was just like if it wasn't part of the mainstream it fit under the tree right right right yeah and then it was starting to just be that fast drum yeah yeah yeah yeah and you guys so and you know and you know part of like getting for me getting into when i got into like punk rock i wanted to find out where the shit came from and that's how i learned about like the mc5 and the stooges and you know yeah like the basics. Right. And you were always singing? In Mr. Up, I played guitar half the time, and Smitty and I would swap.

Uh-huh. What happened to Smitty? He's still around. He does cool, weird stuff. Yeah? Musically? Yeah. Yeah?

You guys still friends? Yeah. That's good. I don't see him as you know much as i'd like but sure i don't see so many people as much as i like so when you put the green river together like what's the scene i mean because it seems like you know what was that mid 80s uh 84 yeah so i guess i guess that's smack in the mid 80s so it's starting to come together you're starting to see the the cast and crew of the seattle scene congeal or happen yeah there's this uh very short-lived all ages place called the metropolis yeah that a lot of the people that were kind of like of my generation yeah went to yeah and that shut down and they were like a series of you saw punk shows there oh yeah yeah yeah like that's where they play like black flag misfits oh no no black flag was kind of too big for that place but

like you know who's gonna do would come through oh yeah doa and uh who's gonna do early on that must have been great show yeah yeah yeah okay so that place closes and what happens there's a series of like art galleries and halls and stuff that like get used um and then seattle passes this like teen dance ordinance yeah what is that uh well there was like a club called the monastery it was a dance club and i i guess like some uh city council members kids were going there and getting fed MDA. One of those things. Coming home weird. Yeah.

Got closed down. And they passed this draconian all-ages law. Basically, like, to have any all-ages space, you had to have, like, an insane insurance policy that, like, no one could afford. And that was it. They basically legislated all ages places out of existence. Right. So then you.

Well, like all ages shows moved to like Bremerton across the water. Bremerton. Or down to Tacoma. Yeah. So that was a big shift. Yeah. Yeah. So we would actually, you know, pile into a car and go to Tacoma or Olympia or something, sometimes up to Bellingham to see shows.

Around this point, I was already like 21 and over. So things shifted into like bars. And there was like a couple of bars that would have us mostly in midweek. As Green River. Yeah. Yeah. And who were the other bands playing? Soundgarden was around. Were they? Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. Malfunction was a really cool band. The You Men were around. They were a great, great band, but they weren't like what you would consider grunge by any means. When did Mother Love Bone happen? Mother Love Bone happened after Green River

split off. There were some guys from green river and mother love bone yeah yeah yeah uh three yeah all of them all of them except me and the drummer and then those guys were in pearl jam as well right two of those two of them amit amit and jeff and stone yeah we're in mother love and then went on to Pearl Jam. Yeah, yeah. All right, so Soundgarden's around, you're around, and are you feeling like something's happening? Because everyone frames it like there's just a couple bands. Yeah, it was just like, in my mind anyway, we were just entertaining ourselves.

My friend's band is playing, I'm going to go to yeah all right so green river's happening you guys are getting a following yeah and then how does it break up why why does this happen mark i don't know exactly you don't know you're in it yeah yeah you know i mean i think you know people started wanting to do different things. Oh, yeah? Yeah, and I missed playing with Steve. Steve Smitty? Hmm? Steve who, Smitty? No, Steve Turner. Oh, he wasn't in Green River? He was for the first record.

Yeah. And then he bailed. Yeah. And then we brought in Bruce Fairweather. Yeah. Who had moved out from Montana with Jeff. Uh-huh. With our hardcore band.

Yeah. You know, got to move to the next big city if you want to get anywhere. Yeah, pull them in from Iowa, from the Midwest, from everywhere. They go to Seattle. Yeah. Either there or New York or LA.

But Seattle- Well, Seattle at that point, like no one was thinking of Seattle as like New York or LA. But it was a place where they could play music. Yeah. They knew that much. But you could also play music in missoula you could play music wherever i know but why'd they go to seattle i think because they probably just didn't want to be like

surrounded by cowboys who beat them up all the time there's some rednecks in washington too oh there are for sure yeah buddy like i imagine going down to tacoma and stuff must have been heavy. Tacoma's all right. Yeah. Olympia. How about Olympia? Well, I mean, you know, there was a very strong Olympia independent music scene.

Yeah. That had been going on, you know, mainly based around, like, Evergreen State College and a radio station. Chaos? No. like evergreen state college and uh a radio station uh chaos no i and uh uh there was like a magazine called op yeah and then i think that became option yeah like you know there was a lot of stuff going down there yeah like people down there were like really plugged into like underground scenes right right around the country and one of those people is bruce pavitt okay and that's how the subterranean pop fanzine was a thing oh it started as a fancy yeah yeah yeah yeah oh wild i didn't know that so all right so green river breaks up for whatever reason and uh and turner's back and you guys start Mudhoney. Yeah. And then at that point,

people are coming around looking for bands to Seattle. Some. Yeah. How'd you guys, where were you starting out? Like, by the time you start Mudhoney, it feels you were ahead of the curve you weren't really a grunge band you didn't get kind of put into that right i don't know what we i mean you know i thought of what we were was just like another part of like the uh you know the american underground yeah you know right like in there in there with like bands as diverse as like the

butthole surfers and the replacements you know one's like a straight up rock band and the other one's like total weirdos right and we just felt like a part of that continuum we're saying right right exactly and so but you like your bass player was in the melvins yep that band like they they have a huge following and they're they're actually a band where i listen to them and i'm like i think this might be beyond me oh they're an amazing band they are right yeah but i don't i didn't lock in completely i have all their records but it's hard stuff yeah yeah how come he left the melvins oh he got booted oh he did he picked up the Melvins expelled people. He was the first.

Yeah. But that first Mudhoney record, that was a sub pop record. How did that come to be? Because I remember getting that record. I'm like, what the fuck is this? And I loved it. I loved the first record. What year was that?

89. So that's when things are starting to happen. Yeah. I mean, we went to Europe right away yeah yeah and how were you received over there you know it varied on the very first tour we did like nine weeks yeah and the first couple shows were with sonic youth in the uk and a couple in northern europe oh wow then after that we were on our own for many many many weeks yeah and uh sometimes we would just play into play a room in front of like a handful of people yeah you know sure uh and i think we had like maybe 12 songs

but you're coming together your style's starting to define yeah yeah yeah like i feel like we had you know by the time we started we had a pretty of, like, the kind of thing that we wanted to do. Yeah. And it was informed by, like, you know, of course, like... Stooges. Stooges and, like, stuff that was happening in Australia at the time in the 80s. Who was that?

Oh, like, the scientists and the cosmic psychos. Where'd you pick up on that stuff? Just underground fanzine world. Oh, yeah? Yeah. I don't know eitherzine world. Oh, yeah? Yeah. I don't know either of those bands. What were they? They were just sort of doing like a post-punk rock thing.

Yeah, and the feed time were pretty integral. All right, so like you put that, well, the self-titled record, that was a big break, right? That was supposed to be the big record? Things were just sort of building, you know? Yeah. The next record, Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge, I think sold really, really well out of the gate.

Yeah, I like that record. And then we moved to Warners. Okay. So what happened at Sub Pop? They were overextended and cash strapped. Yeah. I think if we would have realized i mean this is hindsight and everything that like they had points on nirvana record and they would that would keep

them afloat that we wouldn't have felt the need to leave so at the time when when did that when so all right so every good boy deserves fudge comes out around the same time as what, Bleach? No, Nevermind. Oh, so never, okay. So that was around the same time. Yeah. So now all of a sudden that's the biggest album in the world. Right, right.

And Sub Pop, it's a Sub Pop record. Well, no, it was a Geffen record. Uh-huh. But Sub Pop, they bought out their contract from this is a crazy thing in the early days uh sub pop did not have contracts uh-huh and i guess like the guys in nirvana got like kind of freaked out and they want we want a contract you know so that uh uh bruce and jonathan quickly you know scrambled and put a contract together and so the nirvana guy signed that and had they not demanded to have a contract sub pop would have not gotten shit on nevermind and

they would have been long gone probably but they still made money off of bleach after nevermind right yeah yeah yeah so okay so this is all happening and you the reason you went to warner was because you thought sub pop was going under yeah and we first went to like uh caroline which was also a record label and distributed sub pop and that's right yeah they did the smashing pumpkins first record yeah yeah and had a meeting with like the president of that uh company and he told us uh you know what you really need to do is sweeten up your guitars and go on tour for nine months, like the smashing pumpkins. And after we'd done like a nine week tour,

we're like, we're never doing that again. And we're just like, well, this is insane. We might as well just like check other options because in terms of like, if, you know,

cause you get the idea that like the major label is going to be the one like putting the hammer down. And it was's like this dumb little indie label was like putting the hammer down well they want like but you guys like that rawness was what you were i mean they wanted to yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah i mean that that was just ridiculous to us right i mean you i mean i remember the first time we went in and to record with jack and dino he actually asked us like no are you sure you want your guitars to sound like this who's jack and dino he actually asked us like no are you sure you want your guitars to sound like this who's jack and dino uh he's a recording engineer did like a lot of the early sub pop stuff oh okay you sure you want your guitar which was that it was a stoogey sound

right just raw ass kind of like you know that was you know yeah i remember one time uh lee ronaldo asking me like what are you going for with your guitar sound this is in the very early days i'm like well you know at the beginning of I want to be your dog we're like the first three chords come in and then it pauses and everything kind of breaks up I want that right before that part right before the riff starts yeah yeah yeah that was the portal and you locked into it tried yeah and that was it that was the the main uh inspiration so like so did you have arguments with these guys i mean what happened when you went to warner when was it reprise records it was reprise and uh you know we brought up the examples of like husker doing the replacements.

Like, you know, how come like when they moved to Sire and Warner Brothers, like their records started sounding slicker. And Lenny Warnaker, who at the time was like the president of the company, was like, you know, we just gave them money and they did what they wanted to do. Is that true? I don't know. did what they wanted to do is that true i don't know but you know they at that point like things were exploding with like nirvana and pearl jam and the record labels had no idea what this thing was right you know because it just came out of left field from like uh two different it was like two different directions too yeah yeah it was you know like on one hand they had like hair metal bands and the other hand they had like paul abdul or whatever you know and then here's this thing that's just kind of come

organically the salvation of rock from the end well i don't know about that but you know came definitely came from the underground yeah um and a lot of the people were just like kind of caught off guard but they knew there was money there yeah yeah exactly they were like why aren't we mining the money there yeah and you know i knew they knew that we had an association with all those bands and people came sniffing around and you know we found a lawyer who would uh like the last thing we wanted to do was get in like a bidding war that kind of crap because we knew we weren't we knew we weren't going to sell shit you know we we knew there's like a limited appeal to what we're doing like by the history of the bands that we love yeah you know all right yeah you know like your

heroes didn't make it yeah yeah the good the best case scenario was not great yeah yeah yeah yeah you know i mean you know we would say at the time like you know if you look at our record collections like 90 of the records are like bands that are also rams you know sure we got like alice cooper and david bowie and rolling stones and beatles in there but like everything else is shit that no one likes except for a handful of people right and and you're like that's our those are our people those are our people that's where but you never thought at that time like well what could we do to sell more records no okay i mean you know sell more you can't like

bitch about selling records but like we weren't like gonna compromise what we're about and you weren't you you weren't hung up on making a hit no um i don't know if we even could what do you mean i don't know yeah i mean you know you got some hooks yeah we got some hooks but but this was uh but this was a by design not by insecurity right no no no i mean you know by the time mud honey started i was 26 year old and i had a pretty good idea it wasn't like a 19 year old kid like right easily swayed right but you know you did but like at what point did um because alongside of that scene like a lot of guys went down man the dope thing really took a lot of guys out i mean when did you see that happen do you know when it came in uh

um i mean it must have been sort of like it's here it was always kind of there oh really you know you know like with like earlier in like the uh seattle punk scene before like anybody paid attention to it there were like people who were strung out but then it just got out of control um i don't know if it was any more out of control than what was happening in san francisco or la or portland minneapolis or portland for sure not. Yeah. Portland was like, you know, they had a major dope problem in the 80s. Yeah. And you just saw guys dropping, I guess, huh?

Well, eventually. Yeah. You know. Yeah. And some of them lived. A long time. Like one guy like lived for decades and succumbed to cancer oh really it's a management thing yeah did you get fucked up on it yeah yeah on and off how long did it take you to get off

um i did it for a total of about five years and the first two years were like you know like just sort of recreational yeah when you were touring with it and recording with it recording not touring none of the other guys in my band were into it at all and like oh so you became like yeah yeah they were probably just like oh fuck yeah yeah yeah um and then uh like a the last half year before i quit i was like quit for good i was just kind of chipping away at it a little bit yeah and then my wife and i started going out and she was like are you gonna do this anymore and my initial answer was like you know you never know what the future is going to bring and she's like if you do it ever again i am out of here and that was all it took

really yeah yeah and you just got off it yeah do you have kids no wow so when when was that uh that was uh the summer of 1993 oh it's been that long yeah yeah oh well lucky you yeah yeah for sure yeah what'd you replace it with uh i don't think i replaced it with anything no you're not that you don't have that compulsive addictive mindset no and you know surfing well i mean that i guess that's kind of compulsive addictive because i kind of think about it way too much yeah um but luckily i feel like i managed to uh you know like for a while i stopped drinking and everything like that and then did like an interferon treatment in the early 2000s you know which was a brutal brutal thing for hepatitis c you know oh you got those 11 months so you just kind of

you had to have yeah yeah yeah i mean i felt like you know i thought like i got away with this thing unscathed they didn't die yeah i didn't pick up anything and then like later on i found out i'd he had it hep c and uh that's treat that's curable now but yeah you're on that's rough man yeah it was it worked it was 11 months and it worked. Oh, it worked for you. Yeah, yeah. Beat you up though, huh? Yeah. Yeah.

You know, like part of the warnings for it were like may cause suicidal or homicidal thoughts, ideation and tendency and action. Was that true for you? No. an action. Was that true? For you? No. I mean,

I didn't feel like I was going to want to kill anybody or myself, but it was during the run up to, you know, Gulf War II. Yeah. And, you know, you could see what was coming for a mile away and I would just like watch the news and just start bawling.

Yeah. You know, my nerves were just so raw. Yeah. How are they now? They're a little more calloused. Yeah. Oh, yeah.

Yeah, that interferon beats the shit out of people. I've known people that have seether, like, I'm not doing that. I think it's worth it just to get it cleared and out of the way. If it works, it doesn't always work for everybody. But now they got a thing that seems to work for everybody. Yeah, which is great.

It's expensive, but it's good. So I i guess so piece of cake was the last dope record um yeah uh there was you know we recorded in the same uh basement studio that we we did uh every good boy deserves fudge yeah and uh and that was you know one of the things when we signed to the major label we're like we're gonna put our foot down and do things the way we have done yeah and we're not gonna go to a big studio and right try to make a fancy record we're just gonna try to keep it lean and and also one of the benefits of our contract was that uh what we didn't use in the recording budget, we got to keep. Yeah.

So like, you know, we had like $120,000 to record. We used like $30,000 and the rest of it, we just split up and everyone put down payments on houses. That's a good move. Yeah. That was the first time I did anything smart with money. So you've got that house? Yeah.

Yep. Nice. It must be worth something now, huh? Yeah. But, you know, if I sold it, then I would have to just buy something equally expensive. No, no, you stay in it, but it's nice to be able to look back and go, like, that was smart. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So would you do four records on reprise? Three, four? Yeah. There's an EP in there, so. And then you went back to Sub Pop? Yeah. And they're back in the game. They do all right?

Oh, they do great. Yeah, they're putting out a lot of good records.'re back in the game they do all right oh they do great yeah they're putting a lot of work i work in the warehouse i know that was like that that was one of the weird big lessons of uh of like you know the rock life was when schlitzel said you were coming to the show and then he told me like yeah he works over in the warehouse like if you order something from sub pop he's signing it out you're the guy that well i actually don't do mail orders so much but i do like... Did you then? No. I ship to stores and distributors.

Well, you sent me some records. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Those are good records. Yeah. Your record and what, the Spider Bags record? No, there's no... Hot Snakes? Hot Snakes, that's it.

Hot Snakes record is fantastic. Yeah. Your record's good. The new record's... Your record's great. Hot Snakes record is fantastic. Yeah, your record's good. The new record, your record's great. Oh, thank you. Yeah, I mean, now do you feel, how have you changed as musicians over time? I mean, I know you're still doing the same thing,

but it definitely sounds like you've gotten more adept at, you know, at putting, you know, composing stuff and producing stuff. I mean, definitely it's not, it doesn't sound like the early record specifically. No, you know you get better at what you do by doing it over and over again but like how does it how has it changed i mean like in terms of how you guys work together uh well we all have jobs and stuff and uh that aren't music jobs yeah oh really no just to survive jobs yeah like what's everyone doing uh guy is a nurse at the

trauma center in uh seattle he's actually player yeah he's uh um is more in the administrative sides of things uh-huh uh steve works at a pressing plant in portland oregon pressing what records records yeah oh yeah uh-huh yeah and uh dan uh drives uber and lyft uh-huh so everybody okay with that oh yeah you know i mean i think in terms of making music it's a really good place to be yeah because we're not relying on the music to feed ourselves. Right. You're not living that life at this age. Yeah. I like touring and playing, but I don't want to be on the road as much as it would take if that was our only gig.

Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And when you go out, how often do you go out? We're doing a series of weekend weekend shows and then we've got a two-week u.s tour happening in october that's gonna be kind of it for the year yeah and do you like what what kind of venues you playing what are you playing the echoplex here oh okay yeah with the flesh eaters who are like oh yeah they're from the old days too right yeah yeah that's wild and is it nice i guess

like on some level there is there still like some camaraderie between like what is it like to have been because you know you were sort of a mainstay in a certain sound and of a certain time and you guys sort of survived and kept putting out records and you saw your peers become huge and and and in a lot of times not end well i mean you know that must have some sort of impact on you i mean like i don't know how well you like well i mean mother love bone was the beginning of this sort of like you know you know visible people like getting fucked up and dying but like you know between cobain and uh and then the Alice in Chains guy and then a lot of those Seattle guys and then fucking Soundgarden. I mean, like, do you feel that that level of success

that some of those bands had had something to do with them fucking, you know, their demise? Well, maybe. I mean, it gave them access to a shitload of money yeah right so you can just like but it's spend it carelessly right stupid shit i guess so but it also insulated them you know what i mean like it's it's i think it's hard to i don't know like what's the difference between like a pearl jam and a sound garden in terms of how they handle their you know their trip you know, their trip.

You know what I mean? I guess I just don't understand. I guess I, I'm impressed with the idea that you're okay and comfortable with the way your career went, you know, as opposed to like these guys that like, you know, they go up and they come down and they can't handle coming down.

Yeah. I don't, I don't know. I can't get in other people's heads. Sure. Um, uh, but you don't have any bitterness. Oh, I don't know. You don't think about it? I can't get in other people's heads. Sure. But you don't have any bitterness? Oh, I've got bitterness.

Yeah? But not, you know, about that, I don't know. What do you have it about? Oh, just like the state of the world. I've always kind of had a chip on my shoulder. Right. But not about how the music's been received or how you're- Like our music?

Yeah. No, no. It's been gravy. I mean, when we started, like when I started my first band, I never even like conceived of anything like this. Yeah. You know? Right.

I mean, this is crazy. Right. This is crazy to like have been. The funny thing is when Mr. Up started, there was this one guy who was involved named Peter, who like when we decided to like make it real and play our first show, he was like, you know what, guys, I'm out. I don't want to make music my career. And we were just like, you were insane. career and we were just like you were insane like how and he turned out to be right because like here i am like 35 years later still making music and and have another job and have another job well i guess like there that's a certain grown-up kind of like understanding of of limitations and

possibilities to where you know the heartbreak of committing your life to music can be pretty brutal. And he just knew that, like, no, I don't want to live that. I think he wanted to be a writer, which, you know, is like another. Oh, that's another. He wasn't like, I'm going to go live a regular life. I'm going to pick something harder. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, I'm glad that you're okay. But you're so you're in this record. What happens with this record? How many did you make? I mean, is it going to like, uh, does it get radio play? What happens now with records? I mean, it might get radio play on like college radio stations and whatnot. And on the Jesus video for, uh, for, uh, kill yourself live.

Who are all those guys in there? They seem like people, you know, some of them are. Yeah. Yeah. For sure. Like other musicians. Yeah. Some other musicians. Um, the guy who played Jesus, I didn't know before, but, uh, for sure. Like other musicians? Yeah, some other musicians.

The guy who played Jesus, I didn't know before, but the director knew him. Who directed it? Carlos Lopez. Uh-huh. He did also the I Like It Small video. I mean, he's great. Yeah, I liked the video.

Yeah, I liked it. And where does that, what does a music video do these days? Where does it go? You don't know? YouTube. Yeah. I don't know? YouTube. Yeah. I don't know what the point is.

Well, it was good talking to you, man. Yeah, it was good talking to you too, Mark. It was good to see you. Okay, that's it. What a full show. All right? And free the farts. Free the farts. That'sarts that's what i say all right but you know be you know be be prudent about where you let them free that's all uh what's go oh okay you can go to

wtfpod.com slash tour for all my tour dates to see if I'm going to be near you. I'm in San Diego tonight, tomorrow, and Saturday at the American Comedy Club. There's a link to that on the site. All right. So I'm going to play some guitar and probably not fart during it. so ¶¶ Boomer lives. It's a night for the whole family. Be a part of Kids Night when the Toronto Rock take on the Colorado Mammoth at a special 5 p.m. start time on Saturday, March 9th at First Ontario Centre in Hamilton. The first 5,000 fans in attendance will get a Dan Dawson bobblehead courtesy of Backley Construction. Punch your ticket to Kids Night on Saturday, March 9th at 5 p.m. in Rock City at torontorock.com. furniture that grows with you delivered to your door quickly and for free assembly is a breeze setting you up for years of comfort and style don't break the bank cozy's direct to model ensures that quality and value go hand in hand transform your living space today with cozy

visit cozy.ca that's c-o-z-e-y and start customizing your furniture