Shazam Meets…Mudhoney
Seattle grunge instigators Mudhoney are the Sub-Pop record label success story, inspiring a whole generation of musicians to go forth and be Superfuzzed. In October the band will embark on their biggest run of dates for years playing Scotland, Ireland and England. Shazam got the opportunity to chat to the incredibly smart and witty lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist Mark Arm who, in between fits of laughter at the strange world of being in a successful band, managed to tell us about the upcoming tour and the potential of a new record.
You are doing a tour in October in the UK, are you looking forward to that?
Yeah you know we haven’t done a proper UK tour since probably the early ‘90’s like ‘95 or ‘98.
Do you still enjoy playing live?
It’s important to me – I think it’s my biggest strength. Unfortunately I don’t think we get to do it as much as I would like, but I would rather work with these guys in the band than ones that don’t work as well together, you know what I mean.
What are the constraints that prevent you playing more shows?
Well, day jobs, families – you know the kind of s**t that happens when you’re in your 40’s (laughs).
When you play in the UK, what does the audience expect?
Well you know last year we did a couple of shows in the UK and we did a mix of old and new stuff and I was pretty pleased to see people singing along to the new songs as well as the old ones and I was super pleased to see the audience wasn’t just full of old people. Don’t get me wrong, I love the fact there are people who saw us 20 years ago who still come to our shows and I don’t want to discourage them at all but to get someone as old as us out of the house is a pretty great thing (laughs).
Does a UK show feel any different to a US show to you?
Shows feel different just within the UK and sometimes a show in the same city can be different year to year – it’s difficult to generalise an audience and compare it to anything.
But for the most part we have a great time in the UK, we have a limited time and we chose the UK to tour! Last time we did a tour in Europe we did one show in Paris then Berlin and ended up in Tel Aviv. We like to fly to wherever we can, but a tour with 9 hour drives every night is difficult, so we are concentrating on the UK. Also you guys speak a version of American!
So are you working on a new album?
We are not laying tracks down at the minute but we have a home recording device which we put some ideas down on, so we have five new songs written but we don’t know them well enough to play live. The intention is to get in the studio 2011 but if you had asked me six months ago I would’ve said we would be in the studio 2010, the deadline keeps shifting.
You don’t feel the need to rush to produce an album; you must have a good loyal following?
Yeah it’s not a question of striking while the iron is hot, we don’t need to capitalise on our last hit (laughs).
You are often referred to as the originators of Grunge, how do you feel about it as a reputation or title?
I don’t really think about it apart from when people ask me about it, I won’t spend my life dwelling on what happened 20 years ago. It was an exciting time for us as a band, being able to tour and travel the world was exciting – but we still get to do that now.
Also the novelty hasn’t worn off, this is going off on a tangent but by the mid 90s we had taken things for granted; we went 10 years without having to work real jobs but we are living in the real world again now and we really appreciate what we get to do. It means more to me now than it did 15 years ago.
I’ve read you work for Sub Pop Records as their warehouse manager is this true?
It’s true; it’s great working for them. Because of all the band members in Mudhoney that have to answer to an employer, I get the most leeway! The label understand that if I tour they sell records whereas our bassist Guy is a staff nurse at a trauma hospital in Seattle and the people he works for care a lot less about record sales (laughs).
Finally if you could have written any one song from history what would you choose?
Oh that is a tough question, I’m going have to say ‘Big Eyed Beans From Venus’ by Captain Beefheart. It’s a great song; it’s one of many I like.
Mudhoney are on tour in October 2010 at the following venues:
30-Sept Cork Cyrus Avenue
01-Oct Dublin Button Factory
02-Oct Galway Roisin Dub
03-Oct Belfast Limelight
04-Oct Newcastle Northumbria Uni
05-Oct Brighton Concorde 2
06-Oct London Electric Ballroom
07-Oct Leeds Uni Stylus
08-Oct Aberdeen Tunnels
09-Oct Glasgow Arches
