Buzz Osborne, The Melvins

0:04HostWelcome to Interceptor Beyond Podcast. My name is Arthur and today we have a special guest, Buzz Osborne of the Melvins, recorded at the Arena before the gig. Our regular photographer Julian was on vacation, so we had a talented cartoonist Laura filling in for him. You'll hear her on the recording. Before we dive into our conversation with Buzz, I'd like to remind you about our upcoming live talk show, the Interceptor Beyond show, which takes place once a month at Arena Beisels. And the next show is on July 15th. So you can join us for the exciting show filled with guest interviews. I call them torture, actually, not interviews. Trivia games and the chance to win prizes. Yes, you have a chance to win prizes. So make sure to attend, prepare your name tag. Basically, your name on a piece of paper or some any other way, creative way, because the guests will choose name tags and they might choose yours and play on your behalf. And the guests will win. One of the guests will win and you might win all the amazing stuff that the guests bring. Anyways, don't forget to follow our podcast on Spotify, YouTube, or any platform of your choice. Also, please take a moment to rate our show on Spotify and Apple podcasts. And lastly, be sure to follow the podcast on Instagram at Interceptor Beyond. Now, let's talk to Buzz.

1:42Buzz OsborneMy name's Buzz. I play in a band called The Melbourne.

1:45HostBuzz. So we're in the middle of the tour at the moment. How's it going so far? Like today, I was watching a live stream, the German one. They already put it online.

1:53The MelvinsYeah, it was online, I think, that night. I think it was online that night. Yeah, I think so. Yeah, it's good. It's a good show.

1:58HostYeah, I mean, I saw it, not the whole thing because I didn't have time, but it was pretty cool.

2:03The MelvinsYou will see the same show tonight.

2:05HostI know. That's why I checked it out, because I went to see. Maybe I could ask something regarding that. That the show was great and you're going to play some really good songs tonight.

2:13The MelvinsYeah, I think it went well, that show. It was good.

2:15HostYeah, and then you went to Czech Republic, I think, at some time, and now you're here.

2:19The MelvinsHamburg, Berlin, and then Czech Republic last night.

2:24HostI mean, I couldn't check that properly, but did you play something completely new, like new material there?

2:31The MelvinsWe played two songs that are on our new album, Bad Mood Rising, and we played Never See Your Sorry and Hammering, both.

2:39HostSo, Batman Rising came out last September, August, September.

2:43The MelvinsNot quite a year. Not a year. Less than a year ago.

2:46HostLess than a year ago. But you know what's interesting? I was checking all the interviews, but I have a feeling that you have more in the can, that you're more prepared.

2:55?Music? Music, yeah.

2:57The MelvinsYeah, we have a new album almost done. Yeah.

2:59HostIs it with the ministry guy?

3:01The MelvinsYes, he's playing part of the, he does some drums on some songs.

3:05HostYeah, because from all the interviews, all the interviews were in September, October, November, December, and then you said, like, there's going to be a lot of new stuff, especially for the 40th anniversary.

3:15Buzz OsborneYeah, we have three limited edition things that are coming out. One of them's came out already, and then two more are coming out. One is a throbbing album, an entire album of us doing covers of Throbbing Gristle, and then another one is a record we did with the band Helms Ali.

3:30HostYeah, the cover, it's one of the songs that you like when they did the cover of your song. Oh, no, Dale, Dale said that.

3:37Buzz OsborneYeah, we do that, we actually re-recorded that one.

3:39HostYeah, we recorded it for the album.

3:40Buzz OsborneMm-hmm, and then we re-recorded one of their songs as well.

3:44?Ah, all right.

3:45The MelvinsAnd then some other stuff is too. Yeah, wrote a new song, the new song, and then some other stuff.

3:50HostWith them, or? Yeah.

3:52The MelvinsWell, it was my riff, but then we, you know, work together.

3:55?Together, yeah.

3:55HostSo how many songs, I mean, what's the new, new album? Like, do you know when it's coming out? I mean, knowing you, it's like really fast.

4:03The MelvinsHopefully I'll get it done by the end of July, so it'll come out next spring.

4:08Buzz OsborneOkay, so for us records, I mean, with Bad Mood Rising, it was a year by the time we had it done before it came out.

4:13?Oh, really, yeah?

4:14The MelvinsAlways, that's how it always is.

4:16HostOkay, because I thought like you're...

4:18The MelvinsIt seems new to everyone else except for us.

4:21HostBecause I thought you have an idea, you record, and then it's almost there.

4:25The MelvinsIt doesn't always come out right away.

4:26HostBecause I know that you can record in four days or something like this.

4:30Buzz OsborneYou can, but that doesn't mean the record's going to come out that fast. Then the record label has to have a spot to put it out. You have to get it all together. You have to wait for the pressing. You know, the pressing at that point was almost a year. We had to wait. We turned it in in September, and we got it a year later.

4:44HostI think you were writing the music for the Bad Mood Rising during the pandemic.

4:48Buzz OsborneYep. Well, some of it I wrote a long time ago, but before the pandemic, but we just never made it on a record. Everyone always thinks that whatever your new record is, is new, brand new material. It's rarely, maybe one or two songs would be new, pretty new. The rest of it is stuff I've had working on for a long time.

5:06?Always.

5:07HostBecause you're working as a musician, you're always doing some music, and it's like you're putting them in the can, right?

5:12The MelvinsI can have an idea for a song, but not necessarily have it done. Like, I have half of the song, but I don't know what else to do, and so I'm sitting there thinking and thinking, and so then it just doesn't come out right away.

5:21HostDo you write music during the tour?

5:24?Never.

5:24Buzz OsborneMaybe a little bit at soundcheck. I'll go down and play my guitar after I set my amp up. I'll play my guitar for about 45 minutes on stage, you know, just playing it quiet. And sometimes I come up with some riffs, but a lot of times I just record them on my phone, and I have hundreds and hundreds.

5:39The MelvinsLike, if I look at my phone now, let me see, I look at my phone, now I have, I'll record little ideas on here, you know? Let me see, I have 383 riffs.

5:53HostThat's correct, he showed it to me, I officially confirmed, for all the people at your forum.

6:03The MelvinsAlmost 400 riffs, so they're not all going to get used, and not all of them are good, so.

6:10?That's how it goes.

6:10HostWell, so, I mean, your methods, you're a working musician for 40 years, so I guess you're doing something right.

6:19The MelvinsYeah, so far so good. That's all I ever wanted to do is play music, so.

6:22?Yeah, that's it.

6:25HostBut also, what's interesting is that, like, because when I interviewed Clutch, you had the similar story, a little bit, right? So.

6:34The MelvinsWell, kind. Wait, wait, wait. Another story.

6:37HostThe story is simple, right? So, around 90s, everybody gets picked up after a grunge becomes, like, super popular. In their case, they got a couple of albums, and then they went independent, right? You also, like, got picked up, and then you decided to leave the label.

6:56The MelvinsNo, they didn't want to do any more records.

6:57?Or, yeah. We did three albums. Yeah, yeah.

7:00The MelvinsAnd then they were like, that's it.

7:02?Yeah.

7:02The MelvinsSo, we had another album already done. Honky record.

7:05?And they didn't want it. We didn't tell them. Oh, yeah. Cool.

7:08The MelvinsWe just were waiting until they dropped us, then we put it out.

7:11?Yeah, yeah.

7:11HostYeah, we were waiting strategically. Yeah, that's what they meant. It's like, them and you had this kind of story. And after that, you became, like, independent, independent, in a way.

7:23Buzz OsborneYeah, we were on Ipecac after that. And then Amphetamine Reptile Records as well, both. We do stuff on both of them. So, for 20 years.

7:31?Yeah.

7:31Buzz OsborneDid you ever... I was looking for a... I mean, I never was looking. The major labels came after us.

7:36The MelvinsWe didn't try to find someone. Like, I've never went to labels and tried, well, you put our records out. I've never done anything like that. Never.

7:44?Is that because you don't want the mainstream thing? Just, it's not your thing?

7:49The MelvinsNo, I think we should be selling millions of records. It just doesn't happen.

7:52HostI was thinking about it, you know? Like, everybody says that you are, like, against the mainstream. But I just... But I don't think that you are against the mainstream. It's just you're doing stuff that people say. It's like a...

8:05?It's too weird. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

8:06The MelvinsWe're not against the mainstream. The mainstream's against us. Exactly.

8:09HostSo, if someday the mainstream becomes the music that you do, it becomes mainstream, then you're mainstream.

8:16The MelvinsWell, when we first started our first album, everybody hated it.

8:19Buzz OsborneAll the records we did, all the records, like the Atlantic Records, Houdini, Stoner Witch, Stagg, they didn't get good reviews. And now they're classics in the same world. I remember what it was like when it came out.

8:30The MelvinsOur first album, everybody hated us. They hated us. That was in 1986. And it was not a happy time.

8:38HostHow did you keep going? Is it just because it's in your nature?

8:41The MelvinsWell, it's all I ever really wanted to do. I'm not really trained for anything else. I'm sure I could find another job. I always worked jobs before, but just crap jobs. Nothing. I didn't go to college or anything. No school.

8:54?Yeah.

8:54The MelvinsI'm not trained for any kind of typing or anything. I can type, but I'm not. Just what I learned in high school. I have no interest in school. None. I just considered it at the time, like just extending your adolescence and a waste of time.

9:07?Yeah.

9:08HostAnd you don't like colleges?

9:09The MelvinsThey're fine, but I don't have any interest in it. And I would really question anyone who did. It's just like, well, what are you going to do? What are you doing? Besides where?

9:18HostAt the end or in general? At the end of the end of the college or just?

9:23The MelvinsI don't know. I mean, it seems like if you want to go to school, you should maybe work a job for a few years first.

9:29HostMost of the people who go to college, they don't know what they want to do in their life.

9:33?It's a waste of time.

9:34HostHow do you get to know what you want to do?

9:36?I have no idea.

9:37HostSome people are trying to find themselves, and they don't know how.

9:46The MelvinsWell, good luck.

9:48HostExactly. In your case, you're lucky in the way that you figure it out. I mean, it just happened in your case.

9:54Buzz OsborneI didn't know what I wanted to do, but I knew I didn't want to do that. I don't want to go to school. I'm done with school. I hated school. It's horrible.

10:00The MelvinsEspecially now. I mean, you get the internet. You got all kinds of things.

10:02Buzz OsborneThe people that I know that have done the best monetarily, none of them went to college, and they didn't inherit money. And I know lots of people who do okay,

10:13The Melvinsand most people don't make a living doing what they went to college for.

10:18HostI mean, college doesn't equal success. You don't... It equals a lot of debt. It equals a lot of debt in the United States, for sure.

10:25?Yeah. In general.

10:26HostAnd you take a lot of time.

10:28The MelvinsYou've wasted time.

10:29HostYeah, and time, yes.

10:31The MelvinsYou're below zero. You have to start from below zero.

10:35HostJust to get to that zero. I don't get it. You're just a force that you just go... You're doing the thing that you've been doing all the time, actually.

10:44Buzz OsborneI mean, unless you want to be a doctor, obviously that requires college, or you want to engineer bridges or something that's going to take a lot of schooling. Sure, I get that. That makes sense, but that's not what most people don't. You want to go get a humanities degree or some bullshit psych degree.

10:59The MelvinsYou're just wasting your time. I don't understand it. You can be doing something else.

11:04?Yeah.

11:04HostI'm saying, people don't know what they want to do. That's one of the reasons.

11:08The MelvinsIt's a tragedy.

11:09?Yeah.

11:10HostBut how do you maintain... For example, you had a couple moments in your life, for example, when the label dropped you, right? And it was hard, what they mean. It's like, how did you continue going with it?

11:22Buzz OsborneIt wasn't hard at all. I expected them to drop us. I thought they'd drop us after one record. So I didn't think it was going to be anything other than a little side road.

11:29HostFrom the very beginning, you probably thought that something is not going to work out.

11:33?I never thought it would work. So the idea that they would do three albums was absurd to me. I was like, okay. But we had a record deal

11:41The Melvinsthat meant that if they wanted to do them all, they could do seven albums. But by the time they paid the seventh record, they had to give us an incredible amount of money.

11:52HostI think you said that in the beginning, they gave you money to record, but you used your own money, something like...

12:00The MelvinsNo, no. They gave us a modest advance, and we spent some of it on the recording, and we kept some of it.

12:08?Yeah.

12:08The MelvinsSo we did it on all the records.

12:10?Because I didn't think...

12:11The MelvinsI thought that would be all the money we would get for those records, and I wasn't wrong.

12:14HostYeah, exactly. That's it. That's the only money that you get.

12:18The MelvinsThat's all we're going to get. So be careful with it.

12:21?Yeah.

12:21The MelvinsWe probably get enough to each live like a year,

12:23?you know?

12:24HostYeah. Did you give the rights to them, actually? Or some kind of...

12:28The MelvinsWell, I have the right to put the records out, but they don't own the publishing or anything.

12:32HostIs there like a time also, like a limit, how long they can do that? I don't know.

12:37The MelvinsIt's longer than it is now, so... It's been 40 years. No, those records came out a little less than 30 years ago, so they'll probably revert back to us at some point, you know?

12:47HostYou're fine. I mean, you're like a music-making machine. You can... Actually, it's not the point.

12:53Buzz OsborneIt'd be nice to have those records, but I'm not worrying about it.

12:55HostYou'll get them someday.

12:57?Yeah. Oh, boy. I can't wait.

13:00HostAre you planning to do... Like, you just had a reissue of the previous music recently that you played in the 80s. Like, one of the first music that you released now, recently, after Batman, and when you re-recorded it with Steve.

13:15Buzz OsborneYes. We re-recorded our first 7-inch. Yeah. Six songs. The first song we play tonight is, I think, the first song I ever wrote that's on that 7-inch.

13:24?Really? Which one? Snake Appeal.

13:26HostSnake Appeal is the first song you ever wrote.

13:28?I think so.

13:30The MelvinsThat's a big deal. We're playing it first tonight.

13:33HostIt's a big, big deal.

13:35?Yeah.

13:35HostFor you, okay, you're a legend, you're fine, you're touring and stuff, right? But for everybody who's listening to this and for us, this is an important deal, you know?

13:45The MelvinsYeah. I think it's a cool song. Still like it. We don't play it too often, but we thought for this tour, it's a good idea.

13:51HostThank you very much for that. Yeah.

13:53The MelvinsFirst part of the tour, the first part of the show, like the first third of it, is the happy part of the show and then it gets sadder after that.

14:01HostAnd then it gets even more sadder.

14:03The MelvinsYeah, it's more dangerous as it goes on after about a third of the set and then it shifts gears.

14:10HostOh, I like it. Yeah, that's what I liked about when I knew, I knew that you have a set list always the same. I mean, it's like a theater, a performance kind of. And you don't do in course.

14:25The MelvinsMaybe. We'll see.

14:26HostYou do them in general? I thought you hate them.

14:29The MelvinsNot normally, but we'll see what happens tonight.

14:32HostAll right, we're going to do a PR campaign. we need a good...

14:35The MelvinsYou might be surprised. Maybe.

14:37HostAll right, because I've thought that you're doing this on principle.

14:40The MelvinsWe normally do it, but you never know. Tonight might be the first time we ever do it in Vienna.

14:44?It would be...

14:45The MelvinsMight be the only time.

14:47HostIt would be really nice, especially today when we're here.

14:50?You never know. We'll see.

14:52The MelvinsThrough all this sadness in the end. That's right. Let's see.

14:56HostSome light in the end of the tunnel.

14:59The MelvinsMaybe. Maybe.

15:00?Some. Some. Some. Maybe. Yeah.

15:03HostAll right, Bas, I don't want to bother you too much. By the way, I really like the documentary that you did. It's so much better than other documentaries that I've seen regarding that era or around that movie.

15:16?I haven't seen too many.

15:17HostExactly. Also. Exactly. Good ones.

15:20The MelvinsI don't watch that kind of stuff usually.

15:22?A little bit, maybe.

15:23HostThe documentary is really good. It actually showed that they opened up

15:30HostMelvin's as a band. You understand Melvin's a bit better.

15:34?It's good, yeah. I think it was all done

15:35The Melvinsbefore we had Steve in the band.

15:37HostOh, well, he's there, but yeah, it was just before he joined 2016. but it was really good. I highly recommend people to...

15:48The MelvinsYeah, I think it's good. We really like Bob, the guy who did it. He's a great guy. Really cool.

15:53HostSo I really recommend people to check it out.

15:55?Yeah, check it out.

15:56HostDo you know when the new stuff, some new music is coming out, maybe soon?

16:01?Well,

16:02The Melvinswe have a record of Thriving Gristle covers that's coming out.

16:06?Do you know when?

16:07The MelvinsIt's soon. It's all done, ready to come out soon.

16:10Buzz OsborneAll right. And then the thing with Helms Lee and then a new album. So that's a lot.

16:14HostThat's actually a lot, yeah.

16:16The MelvinsWe had a four album acoustic record come out not even two years ago and Bad Mood Rising. And before that we had the Working With God Melvins 1983. I'd like to do another one of those.

16:28HostAll going to be released on vinyl.

16:31The MelvinsI guess so, yeah. I'm sure it will be.

16:33HostAvailable on your website, I think. It's everywhere.

16:36?Somewhere.

16:38HostAll right, Bob, I don't want to bother you too much. The last thing in the end, give us a song that we'll put at the end of the Melvins. Melvins that we'll put at the end that's a good introduction to your band.

16:48The MelvinsMr. Dog is totally right.