Mudhoney are playing the Free Yr Radio benefit show for KEXP. How important do you think radio is today?

Regular radio, to me, is irrelevant. But I think independent radio is still very important. People can go and search things out on the internet, but they have to know what they're looking for. Chances are, if they're listening to a cool radio station that plays something that isn't in their vision, something they've never heard before—that's almost like a Gary Numan quote—it could hip them to something that's totally cool.

A lot of people say that radio is dying.

People are always very quick to say something's dying or something's over. How many times has rock and roll been over? It started in the 1950s, and in the early '60s rock and roll was "over." Everything just ebbs and flows, and hopefully some day it will be over. [Laughs]

Radio or rock and roll?

Both.

What will you do when that happens?

Oh, I'll be long gone.

Rock and roll is a hard lifestyle, I understand.

Yeah, it's brutal.

Whose idea was the Green River reunion?

That was Jonathan [Poneman]. Over a year ago, Jonathan asked me if I would be up for it, and I told him I would ask everyone. Surprisingly, everyone was like, "Sure, why not? Yeah!"

What was the first practice like?

It was good to just ease the fears. I was surprised at how easily some of the lyrics that I hadn't thought of for over 20 years came back. And some of them, of course, were a little more difficult. But they're in there—for better or worse.

Mudhoney is back on Sub Pop; you just released a new record. But you had a stint on the major label Reprise—were you worried at the time that it might suck?

We were very leery of going to a major label. When we decided to leave Sub Pop, we met with the distributor of Sub Pop, which was Caroline out in New York. They told us that we would have to tour for nine months because the Smashing Pumpkins, who were on the label at the time, were starting to have some success doing that, and that we couldn't have any side projects and we would have to sweeten up our guitar sounds. At which point we were just like, "Well, if this is going to come from an independent label, we might as well see what major labels have to say."

At the time, with things kind of taking off for bands like Nirvana and Pearl Jam, we had a certain amount of bargaining power. We went for creative control instead of a big bidding war. And for a little window there, the major labels had no fucking idea what was going on, so they let us be who we were.

To make a point of things, we recorded our first major label record in Egg Studios, the same place we recorded the last Sub Pop record. It could've been viewed as a reactionary move, but it was a small way of trying to keep our integrity. For all of the records, except for the last one, we had no problem with the label. I think we were in a weird, unique position. We saw the last years of Warner Bros. being an artist-friendly label; that kind of died out as we were on the label. In '94–'95, suddenly it wasn't Warner Bros. anymore, it was Time Warner. And then it was AOL Time Warner, and when something like this goofy internet thing—where no one really knows how it's going to make money—is taking over Time and Warner Bros., these established companies, you know something is really, really wrong.

So you jumped back to Sub Pop?

Yeah, they're our de facto record label.

Do you plan on sticking with them for another 20 years? Do you feel like you have a place in the new catalog—Fleet Foxes, Tiny Vipers, Flight of the Conchords?

Well, yeah, there's also Comets on Fire and Kelley Stoltz and Pissed Jeans. And Obits got signed to the label. There's always room for underground rock here, as well as underground folk.

All you need, then, is room in the music community?

Fuck the music community. You can't do things based on anyone's expectations. Once you start second-guessing what things are supposed to sound like in order to appeal to people, then you've totally lost it. Once you start thinking "Oh this is a trend, we should do that," it's already gone. The train's left the station.

If there's one thing Mudhoney has proved, it's that if you stick with what you've got, there's always going to be an audience.

If you're retarded and stubborn and don't know when to stop and don't know what you're doing...

After 20 years, you still don't know what you're doing?

We know a little bit what we're doing. But, you know, we have a limited scope.

Mudhoney play Wed July 23, KEXP parking lot, 113 Dexter Ave N, 8 pm, free with e-ticket from www.freeyrradio.com, all ages. With No Age.