The Melvins (left to right: Dale Crover, Steven Shane McDonald, Buzz Osborne) have been doing things their own way—with varying degrees of ‘success’—for over 40 years.
Melvins "Working The Ditch"
Tarantula Heart is the veteran avant sludge-metal band’s 27th full-length record since their debut LP in 1987, and their 18th with label Ipecac Recordings. They obviously practice a sort of creation that is at odds with the traditional contemporary studio and band business model. Some people might just call it flat-out weird. It’s not uncommon for bands to go three to five years without new material and milk each album cycle for a couple more. So, why produce and release so much music if you don’t have to? Maybe the more interesting question to answer is: If you care about making music, why wouldn’t you?
“It’s a really weird record,” says Osborne. “I wasn’t sure what Ipecac would think. We turned it in, and they were like, ‘This might be our favorite one you’ve ever done.’
“We’ve done almost 30 albums, depending on what you count as an album, and at this point, the idea of doing things like I’ve always done, it doesn’t really excite me too much. I’m always looking for something new, some new idea: see if we can do this, see if we can pull that off. There’s enough bands out there doing traditional music. People shouldn’t expect us to.”
McDonald—who’s been with the band since 2015 and is also a member of punk icons Redd Kross—puts it simply: “It was the Melvins yet again finding a different way to skin a cat.”
“We’ve done almost 30 albums, depending on what you count as an album, and at this point, the idea of doing things like I’ve always done, it doesn’t really excite me too much.” —Buzz Osborne
By the band’s count, Tarantula Heart is their 27th LP of original material in their long and storied career.
If Tarantula Heart sounds at times like listening to a group of musicians simply bashing out ginormous riffs and exploring how far they can push things in a jam space, well, that’s pretty spot-on. The record was created primarily over two days of jamming with both Crover and Mayorga on their own kits at Melvins’ rehearsal space in an industrial area in the San Fernando Valley, which they share with long-time producer Toshi Kasai. Melvins have a history of playing with two drummers at the same time. For nearly a decade starting in 2006, Crover and Coady Willis both thundered along behind the band. “It’s like you’re riding this gigantic beast,” says McDonald of playing with two drummers. “It’s like an earthquake.”
The jams were unstructured and random, but afterward, Osborne took the audio files home and combed them for ideas. He’d find five- to seven-minute sections that stuck out, then isolate the drums and write new riffs, solos, and melodies overtop of them. Good friend and WE Are the Asteroid guitarist Gary Chester swung by to help fill out the chaos, and Osborne and Kasai traded off roles as either string-strummer or pedal and amp knob-turner to create “white noise insanity.” “I know I’m onto something in the studio when you’re not playing the guitar but there’s so much amp noise that it sounds like a vacuum cleaner,” says Osborne. Later, he stitched the ideas together to create the Frankenstein monsters on Tarantula Heart. By the time Mayorga and Crover heard them, they were entirely different songs.
“It’s like you’re riding this gigantic beast. It’s like an earthquake.” —Steven Shane McDonald
That process would be off-putting for many musicians, but Melvins aren’t terribly serious in the studio, says Osborne. He dislikes the self-importance that the environment can promote in musicians. “I feel privileged to be in a situation where I can do this for my living,” he says. “I don’t lose that perspective on it but like, I want to have fun, and I’m really happy I’m here.”
Part of the method behind Osborne’s madness is that he believes musicians will perform more purely, more excitingly, if they don’t have to adhere to any framework. “If you let people own the songs in some way, you’ll get a better performance out of them,” says Osborne. That’s a philosophy he picked up from David Bowie. Osborne claims that when Bowie handed guitarist Adrian Belew a tape of songs to learn, he told him, “Play them like this or better.”
Most of the material on Tarantula Heart came from open-ended jams at the Melvins’ rehearsal studio, with Ministry drummer Roy Mayorga doubling Dale Crover’s thunder.
Photo by Tim Bugbee
And for Melvins, that ethos doesn’t end when the song is finished. Osborne believes that songs aren’t just allowed to change after they’re recorded, but that it’s necessary for them to do so. When Osborne was a kid, his favorite band was the Who, and when he heard their 1970 live record, Live at Leeds, he was thrilled by how different the songs sounded. Bowie’s adventurous live recordings, too, were instructive. “I learned that lesson really early on, even before I played guitar,” he says. “The live experience is something different. If you go by the record, we’re playing [our songs] all wrong. Things grow. I’m not married to any kind of conventional thing when it comes to how we play live or anything like that.
“The idea that we would want to translate perfectly and exactly how we do it on a record is completely absurd to me. I’ve heard bands say, ‘Well, how are we going to pull that off live?’ Don’t worry about it. Change it. Who cares?”
“I know I’m onto something in the studio when you’re not playing the guitar but there’s so much amp noise that it sounds like a vacuum cleaner.” —Buzz Osborne
Osborne’s unshakeable approach feels like a threat to a modern music industry that, under the boot of a ruthless market, balks at risk and favors a sure thing. And while the Melvins have built a successful, long-lasting career doing their thing, they’ve also watched their peers rocket past them into the mainstream. Crover played drums with Nirvana while they were recording the songs that turned into their debut LP, Bleach, and Osborne was friends with Kurt Cobain, introducing him and bassist Krist Novoselic to Dave Grohl. Like Nirvana, Melvins signed to a major—Atlantic Records—and seemed poised to join their grunge and punk pals atop the charts. But after four years and three records (plus one farther afield release, Prick, which the band released under the name ƧИIV⅃ƎM, allegedly to avoid breaking their contract with Atlantic) the label dropped the band.
The fact of their trajectory versus Soundgarden’s or Nirvana’s is more a curiosity to Osborne than anything else. “We were much weirder than those bands that commercialized it in a way that we never did or never could have,” he says. “You just carve out a spot with all that in mind. The funny thing about all that was that I was making a living playing music before those bands ever got big. It was already working on a smaller scale.”
Buzz Osborne's Gear
The Melvins came up in the same scene as grunge legends Nirvana and Soundgarden, bands that Osborne says were “smarter” in figuring out how to commercialize gnarly sounds.
Photo by Joshua Jennings
Guitars
- Electrical Guitar Company King Buzzo Standard
- Electrical Guitar Company King Buzzo Signature
- Electrical Guitar Company Wedge
- Gibson Firebird
- Gibson Flying V
- Gibson 50th Anniversary Pete Townshend SG
Amps
- Hilbish Design Preamplifier
- Tyrant Tone 2x15
- Tyrant Tone 2x12
Effects
- Hilbish Design Pessimiser
- Hilbish Design Compressimiser
- Hilbish Design Deathimizer
- Dunlop Cry Baby
- MXR Blue Box
Strings and Picks
- Ernie Ball Skinny Top Heavy Bottom
- Tortex Triangle Pick .50mm
Over their years on the road, Osborne has converted McDonald to his strategy of only carrying gear that can be replaced at a moment’s notice from any generic music store. It’s largely the result of brutal mishaps—McDonald guesses that around four of Osborne’s vintage Les Pauls have had their headstocks broken by various airport authorities and baggage handlers. Any TSA agent can open your guitar case upside down, McDonald notes, but he also appreciates the reality check of the approach. “If you get hooked on something that seems like it has that invisible secret mojo, then it’s hard when that object lets you down and you feel like you can’t replace it easily,” he says. Now, McDonald tours with an Epiphone Thunderbird 60s bass that he bought off of Amazon. “If worse came to worst and I needed another one of those on the road, I could have one shipped to the next Holiday Inn Express,” he says.
“I’ve heard bands say, ‘Well, how are we going to pull that off live?’ Don’t worry about it. Change it. Who cares?” —Buzz Osborne
Osborne will still bring new Electrical Guitar Company instruments on the road, probably because they’re virtually indestructible. Built in Irondale, Alabama, they borrow from (and in some cases replicate) the Travis Bean-style aluminum builds which have long been favored by offbeat noise-makers. Osborne counts a couple signature models with EGC—a fitting collaboration for one of guitar music’s freest spirits.
Osborne says people still approach him to praise what they believe to be a tone summoned by a Les Paul ripping through a Marshall, a combination that these days prompts Osborne to recoil: “God, wake me up later,” he groans. These days, he’s pretty sure of what he doesn’t want in his sound. But what he does want can be trickier. That can change from night to night, hour to hour.
“I’m one of the weirdos that likes brand new stuff,” says Osborne. “I don’t know. It’s fun to keep moving forward.”
Steven Shane McDonald's Gear
On the road, Osborne and McDonald stick to either new, easy-to-replace gear, or bomb-proof kit like the aluminum and plexiglass guitars from Electrical Guitar Company.
Photo by Chris Casella
Guitars
- Epiphone Thunderbird 60s bass
Amps
- Darkglass Electronics Microtubes X 900
- 8x10 cabinet
Effects
- Boss PH-3 Phase Shifter
- Electro-Harmonix Pitch Fork
- EarthQuaker Devices Hizumitas
Strings and Picks
- Ernie Ball Regular Slinky Bass (.050-.105)
- Tortex Sharp Pick .88mm
YouTube It
Melvins are just as weird and heavy as they were 40 years ago, as this 2023 live set at Germany’s Freak Valley Festival demonstrates.
The design of this Kent 834 borrows from the “violin” guitar craze, propelled by the influential visibility of Paul McCartney’s Höfner bass.
When I began to research guitars, I just simply reached out to people and asked all the questions I could think of. Man, I talked to musicians, studio people, factory workers, guitar designers, and company owners. Almost all of them were a bit surprised at my interest in them and my wanting to know about mostly forgotten guitar history.
I’ve interviewed people from all over the world, from the U.S. to Italy to England to Germany. At one point, I had so much information that it was depleting my hard-drive space and my brain, to the extent that I had to take a breath and organize all this stuff! In that process, I found that I cared for all these people and felt the need to tell their stories. Like any good journalism major, I realized the historical implications and the human element. So, for this month, I wanted to highlight a guitar design by Yasuo Momose. He worked at the famous Fujigen factory in the early 1960s, and later moved to a smaller factory called Hayashi Mokko, where he let his creative notions flow. He’s responsible for all the ultra-cool late-’60s Kent guitars with the racing-striped bodies!
Japanese guitar designer and builder Yasuo Momose.
Photo by Tadashi Ito
This particular model borrows from the “violin” guitar craze, mainly perpetuated by Paul McCartney and his Höfner bass. Dubbed the 834, this Kent was only produced for two short years, from 1967–1969. Priced at $125, the 834 was described as:
“The best of both—all in one! The free-sounding acoustics of a violin-shaped body, plus the charged up excitement of Kent electronics! This semi-acoustic body has an arched top and back, two pickups, two tone and two volume controls, toggle switch for pickup selection, rhythm-solo switch, compensating damper bridge and Kent tremolo tailpiece.”
Ah, to be an ad writer back in those days! In reality, this guitar was supercharged because of those Kent pickups, which are hot as hell, and could drive a small tube amp into the red zone! This is one of the guitars I wish I had never sold, because it’s light but also over-engineered and rather sturdy. Oh well. It has a wonderful headstock and body, “Kent” inlays, and of course, the cool side binding which had a dual purpose: to cover up the wood joining and to act as rally stripes. So cool!
As I was researching my book, I could never figure out which factory made the 834, along with all the other Kents from that era. So, on one of my visits to Japan, I was encouraged to visit Momose-san, who was then working at the Deviser factory in Matsumoto City. He was still making guitars, but they were all high-end electrics and acoustics, sold under the Momose name. I was led back to his workspace and there he was, toiling away at five guitars! He made all of them from scratch and was treated with a certain reverence among the other employees. In Japan, they respect their elders!
“Almost all of them were a bit surprised at my interest in them and my wanting to know about mostly forgotten guitar history.”
We got to chatting and sat down for an interview. At the end, I showed him some pictures from my book, and when I came to the Kent guitars, he started to tear up. He said, “These were my first designs,” and went on to tell me some more history and anecdotes. I tell this story again because Momose-san passed away recently, and I wanted to highlight him once more. He was the same age as my dad, both born in 1944. It turns out there is really only one reason to write about history. Get it straight before it disappears.