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.
