Mackie Osborne
To find Buzz Osborne, aka King Buzzo, look for the dude with the craziest hair.
If you haven’t heard of the Melvins, what’s wrong with you? For more than 27 years, the acclaimed grunge-punk outfit has reinvented itself through many highly varied albums. I recently spoke with singer/guitarist Buzz Osborne in advance of the Melvins’ Santa Fe show.
SFR: Hi, I’m looking for Buzz.
BO:
This is Buzz.
This is Alex from the Reporter in Santa Fe.
Never heard of it. Just kidding. I know it. Santa Fe’s a weird town. It seems like it’s not a normal town of that size…like there are educated and monied people there.
There kind of are.
I knew it!
So how’s the tour going?
Well, I think this is our 9,000th tour, and I still love doing it. After all these years, I still get excited hitting the road. This tour is really cool because we’re playing a lot of smaller places, and I grew up playing the smaller places. I will, however, play with the same enthusiasm as if I were playing a huge show. But in reality, I honestly can’t think of the town I’m in. I mean, we try to do our best wherever we are…big shows or small. It’s not like I say, ‘OK, I’m in Chicago, so I can rest easy because I’m in Chicago.’
How did Seattle grunge/sludge duo Big Business wind up as your rhythm section?
We lose a lot of bass players. Seriously, our last bassist basically imploded thanks to extracurricular boozing. We always think the guy we have is going to be the guy forever and, when we lose him, it’s gut-wrenching. Anyway, when we lost the last guy, quitting wasn’t an option, so we thought about who we wanted to play with and, after we played a show with Big Business, I figured we should just get them.
Your latest release, The Bride Screamed Murder, debuted at No. 200 on the Billboard 200. Is that a big deal?
It shows you how far down the ladder the Billboard charts have come. [Laughs] But it’s not really going to help us because that’s actually not a whole lot of records. It’s kind of cool because I don’t know how many records, in the traditional sense, we have left in us. The digital thing is what it is. When nobody makes money from traditional record releases, there aren’t investors anymore. Anyway, I have no reason to believe anything is going to stay the way it is and, if things keep going this way, the labels are going to start wanting a piece of everything bands do, like live shows and merch and so on. That’ll be the only way they can survive.
Is it weird that your band is still popular while other late-’80s grunge bands have gone by the wayside.
No. You’re only as good as your last album, and we keep putting out albums.
With nearly 50 albums, how do you choose what to play?
We work out a set before we go, and that’s what we play. It’s supposed to get better every night. People get a better show if we know what we’re doing. Think of it as performance art and, if we’re up there an hour, that’s all that’s important. It’ll be a well-rounded, nicely put-together show. We know what we’re doing, and people should let us do the driving.
Will you play any new stuff?
Maybe. Maybe not. Will you be going to the show?
Yes, I will.
OK, well, then you’ll find out at the show. So will your readers.
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