I'm Now: The Story of Mudhoney (2012) - full transcript

- Any time you're playing music

for the crowd
instead of yourself,

you're fucked.

["I'm Now" by Mudhoney playing]

♪ Well, I still see
that look in her eyes

♪ Passing through
security, waving goodbye

♪ I had no idea that
would be the last time

♪ I had no idea about
that look in her eyes

♪ No

♪ Aw, that look in her eyes

♪ That look in her eyes



♪ Well, the black
light was my baby

♪ And the strobe
light was my mind

♪ The past made no sense,
the future looks tense

♪ The past made no sense,
the future looks tense

♪ I'm now

- [Voiceover] You
turned 21 this year.

- [Voiceover] It's not a
matter of referencing the past,

although you can,
and there's certainly

things you can draw from.

It's not a matter of
trying to be the future,

'cause you don't know
what the future is.

You know, their point
is, we do it now.

We do it our way, and we
continually do it now,

day after day after day,



which is why they've survived.

♪ I'm now

["Touch Me I'm
Sick" by Mudhoney]

♪ I've been bad

♪ I've been worse

♪ I'm a creep

♪ Yeah, I'm a jerk

♪ C'mon

♪ Touch me, I'm sick

- You know, I'm grateful
this whole thing

didn't peter out 15 years ago,

that, you know, people
still give a shit about us

and that we can go
virtually wherever we want,

you know, when we want to,

and people are happy to have us.

I mean, I feel incredibly
lucky to be able to do that.

- I mean, we're
pretty much outside of

any kind of cultural existence.

We exist in the past in a lot
of people's minds, you know?

So there's a certain amount
of nostalgia and stuff to it,

but I mean, you can't get
away from that, really.

If it's valuable
to other people,

if they like it, that's great,

but I think we would do
it regardless. [laughing]

We would still play in the
basement sometimes, I think,

you know, no matter what, so...

Ah, can I get a beer?

[crowd cheering]

- People oftentimes believe

that if they have
heard of a band,

that the people in that
band are well-to-do

and that they have a
super glamorous lifestyle

and life is easy

and it's not always
that, especially with
independent bands.

So the funny thing is when
we send out our packages,

it's actually
listed as Mark Arm,

as the person having sent
the package to anybody,

so this is to record stores
who receive our records,

these are to mail-order
customers who get our stuff.

Mark Arm sends all of
our shit to everybody

in the world, basically.

- It's unbelievable
that a legend

have to work a normal
work to live in,

they can't live only
doing the rock and roll.

Some people think that
making rock and roll

as a second work, as a hobby,

helps to stay pure
to the spirit.

- That's a working
man's aesthetic.

I'm gonna certainly make sure
that whatever I'm sending out

is gonna go to the
right address on time

to the person that
it's addressed to.

You know, in a way, that's
what a great rock band does.

You know, they go in,
they write their songs,

and they go out and play them

and they address them to
the people they wanna reach,

and they do it directly, and
they do it with no bullshit.

- Right, OK, I'm here backstage
at the [mumbling] Theaters

[laughing] with Mudhoney,

and we're just going
over some of the

finer parts of
their European tour.

- So, night after night,
another motel room,

another backstage,
are you getting tired

of the rock and roll life
at all, Mr. Mudhoney People?

[rock playing]

- Here's a fuckin'
band that got it right.

It was like the coolest
thing I've heard

since like Fun House, as
far as that kinda rock goes.

I mean, Steve and Mark's
fuzzy guitars together

fuckin' sounded awesome.

Their ability to kind
of connect the 60s

to 80s punk rock, and they're
a very 60s-sounding band.

They don't get a lot
of credit for that.

- There's a certain
amount of chaos happening

because Steve's guitar
tone is so distorted,

but in a beautiful way,
just the perfect way.

A distorted guitar that
was like a jagged knife

ripping through like
a whale's belly,

and then the guts come out

with Mark's voice
when he's screaming.

[screaming]

- I remember when
they first started,

sort of being a little
puzzled and going,

"Are you sure you want the
guitars to be this dirty?"

I think was probably
the only comment I made

at the beginning of
the session, like,

"Boy, that's pretty
dirty, guys."

Of course, the word,
the adjective "grungy"

had not occurred to any of
us, I think, at that point.

[laughing]

But it's pretty goddamn grungy.

[laughing]

- The Seattle scene was theirs.

Being with them was
being chauffeured

through town by the mayors.

The parties were all fantastic,

and it was just a
great moment in time.

- The critics said,
"Well, Mudhoney's this"

and, "Blah ba dee blah,"

and, "They're
unsuccessful because

"they didn't have the success
of Soundgarden and Pearl Jam,"

and it's like, "Fuck you!"

That's a fucking amazing band!

- They were the powder keg.

They were the
first great Seattle

quote unquote "grunge band."

[rock music]

- No pretensions, no big egos,

no hassle, just

having a good time all the time.

- They are the people who
would be watching them.

That's what makes them an
incredibly honest band.

- They got nice pants.

- Amazing vintage guitars.

- Yeah, good equipment,
good hairdos.

- Amazing songs.

And they love to drink.

- They would just pour beer
and fill up everybody's glasses

and you'd have the
funnest fucking time

you could ever imagine.

- Everybody was
welcome, actually,

in the dressing room to party.

We had like seven crates of beer

and four bowls of strong liquor,

and it would be gone
before they would go.

♪ Revolution

- [Voiceover] So you feel
that you can communicate

to the public regardless
of any language barriers.

- Well, I think the
penis is international.

- Dealing with those guys,
you always kinda knew

that you would get
them aboard of an idea,

but then they
would take the idea

and do it completely
their own way,

so there was a cheesy
soundtrack that was coming out.

It's a scene where
a guy is running

through a college campus,

so they wrote a song
called, "Run Shithead Run,"

and then they sent it
off to the filmmaker.

♪ Run, run

♪ Run

♪ Run, shithead, run

- So that song is
on the soundtrack

and every once in awhile
we get these nice little

50-cent royalty checks for a
song called "Run Shithead Run."

- That was the last
soundtrack we did. [laughing]

[rock music]

- They also were
certainly leaders in

sort of sculpting Seattle
rock and roll history,

from fashion to the music.

- Take away Mudhoney, nothing
would've happened. Nothing.

I honestly believe that,
because they got people

from beyond the Pacific
Northwest interested.

[rock music]

- They were, like, kind of
inspired us to play harder.

Going on after them was
so hard all the time

because they had so much energy.

- I mean, it was these two
guys with these shitty guitars

rocking, just rocking out.

[rock music]

- [Voiceover] They'd
throw out a trampoline.

The set would start
and they'd jump around

and flail their guitars about.

- I'd see Mark bend
all the way backwards

to where he was on his
knees and all the way back

and then he'd come back up,

and they're flying
around the stage

like a bunch of marionettes.

- They reach a
kind of apotheosis

where everybody in the crowd
had like an epiphanic moment

where the future of music was
revealed, just for a moment.

[rock music]

- They really motivated
a lot of musicians

and photographers and producers

and you name it, they were
just a motivational force.

- Even in Seattle, where
you had this gold rush

for two, three, four years,

this intense attention of media,

record companies, business,

the guys in Mudhoney were
kind of seen as stable,

as guys who actually
had their shit together.

- I've worked with a
lot of other bands.

They get together
for sound check.

When it's done, they all
go their separate ways,

and then they come back
together for the show.

The Mudhoney guys, except
for the odd occasion

where someone's got a friend
in town or something like that,

and a reason to go
off on their own,

they all just basically
stick together,

and I think that they're
some of the best of friends.

I guess put it that way.

♪ I'm a creep, yeah

♪ And I'm a jerk

♪ C'mon, touch me, I'm sick

♪ I'm diseased

♪ And I don't mind

♪ Gonna make you love me

♪ 'Til the day we die

♪ Oh

♪ Touch me, I'm sick

♪ Come on

♪ Touch me, I'm sick

♪ Come on, baby,
now come with me

♪ If you don't come

♪ If you don't come

♪ If you don't come

♪ You'll die alone

[crowd cheering]

- [Voiceover] Mark Arm,
you just played Pukkelpop.

What next?

- I wanna get high!

[rock music]

I think my voice is
basically genetic.

I moved here when I
was four years old.

Before that, I'd been
living in Germany

on an air force base.

I just, I guess, felt
like kind of an outsider,

a foreigner, strange.

Yeah, music was always around.

My mom was an opera
singer whose career

got kind of cut off because
of the Second World War.

She was in Germany and, you
know, kind of at the time

that her career would've
been taking off,

that's when the war broke out.

You know, I gravitated
towards rock and roll.

It was music that was kind
of forbidden in my household,

so that was like
another kind of thing

that was another
attraction to it,

and my parents had a Volkswagen,

and the great thing about
Volkswagen Bugs in those days

was you could just go into them

and turn on the radio
and it would work,

so I would listen to the top
40 radio station at the time

and hope to hear, you know,
the kind of more rocking songs.

As a kid getting into punk rock,

I kept reading about
and hearing about

this band The Stooges.

The third album, "Raw Power,"
you could find as a cutout.

It was like three dollars
or something like that,

but the first two records
were impossible to find.

I finally found them in a
small record store in Oregon.

I bought the first one,
listened to it a ton,

and then like a
week or two later,

when I had enough money
again, I bought "Fun House,"

and it was like, "Holy crap."

You know, like, "This is it."

Mr. Epp had been kind of an
imaginary band in high school,

named after a math teacher.

The full name of the band was
Mr. Epp and the Calculations.

At some point it kind of
turned into a real band

where we actually
bought instruments.

We would just get feedback and
think we were Jimi Hendrix.

You know, like the part in
live Jimi Hendrix records

between the songs. [laughing]

[rock scream]

To kind of promote Mr. Epp,

I wrote a letter to the editor

from the point of
view of someone

who had gone to see Mr. Epp
and thought they were crap.

I think I said something like,

"They're pure
shit, pure grunge."

You know, that's
not the first use

of the word "grunge"
to describe music.

In Australia, in the early 80s,

there was like The Scientists
and The Beasts of Bourbon.

Those bands were called grunge

by the press down there.

Tex Perkins at one point was

called the high
priest of grunge,

which apparently caused Tex
to punch that guy in the face.

- [Voiceover] But what
we've all heard about

is the so-called "grunge
rock" from Seattle.

Grunge is not a term Seattleites
are particularly fond of.

- You know, when all
that shit was going on,

I said, "Yeah, it's your fault,

"you fucking invented grunge."

- You didn't label the genre
by just describing the sound.

From there, so and so,

"Oh, that's the genre
reference we'll use."

At the time, no one accepted it.

Everyone thought, "What?"

- Grunge is stuff that
gets on your dishes

that you try to scrub off.

♪ Losing myself again

- If he coined the
word, God bless him,

he should be getting royalties.

If he didn't, I think he
should consider himself lucky,

because it's a nasty word,
and I think it actually

became kind of an epithet.

It was a way to very
briskly, conveniently,

and almost dismissively describe

a style of music
that I think had

much deeper roots in discontent.

- You know, people, when
they think of grunge,

they think of, like, heavy,

like a lot of trees
and a lot of rain, and,

I was gonna say mud. [laughing]

- [Voiceover] I mean, it
was just, essentially,

a different way of saying
"punk rock," I guess.

- Just because you're nerd rock

doesn't mean you're
smarter than us.

- Well, look, see these glasses?

- [Voiceover] Steve invented
kind of being a hip nerd.

Back in the 80s, 90s, it
was not cool to be a nerd,

but Steve was like
an intellectual.

- [Voiceover] Steve
Turner was called

"the Eric Clapton of Grunge"
in Rolling Stone Magazine.

- "The Eric Clapton
of grunge." [laughing]

- The next records,
still to this day,

kind of like goes against the
guitar solo whenever you can.

- A lot of his old
solos were almost like

lampooning the idea
of a guitar solo.

They were anti-solos.

[rock music]

- My brother had
an acoustic guitar

and then he had the
Beatles songbooks

and the Eagles.

Learned how to sing and
play "Rocky Raccoon"

and "Desperado" in eighth grade,

and then I didn't
touch a guitar again

'til a couple years later,

after I'd gotten into
punk rock a little bit.

Black Flag and Devo kind of
showed up at the same time.

That summer, they
came to Seattle

and that was my first rock
concert I got to go see,

and that was huge,
because they used

skaters in their videos.

All the skateboarders
around Seattle went to it,

so it was this huge thing.

That's why my parents figured
they could allow me to go,

because they figured
a group of tin skaters

couldn't possibly get into
any trouble. [laughing]

The punk scene was
just so different

from what I thought it was
gonna be like, you know?

And they seemed so much smarter

and cooler to me than any
other group I'd seen so far

as far as at gatherings,
social gatherings.

- Steve and I early on had
a kind of musical kinship.

He was one of the
few people who,

when he met me, said he actually
liked Mr. Epp. [laughing]

- I joined a band
called Spluii Numa,

and I left that after
just a couple practices

'cause they told me I
had to get all new gear.

The guitar player
was a real tech guy.

He looked at my
amp, said, "Nope,"

looked at my
guitar, said, "Nope,

"none of this is good enough."

So then, right after
that, that summer,

I joined Mr. Epp with Mark.

- The first time I met Mark
Arm, I saw Green River,

and it was a pretty
awesome show.

It was at the Central.

I remember walking
up to him and saying,

"Man, that was a
great show, dude.

"I got some pot, you
wanna go smoke some?"

[rock music]

- At the time, the
Green River Killer

was in all the headlines.

I think it was just trying to be

as provocative as we could be,

and it retrospect
it's regrettable.

It's what you do when you're
20 years old and obnoxious.

- I remember the
first time I saw them,

I was like, "Holy cow,
what is Mark doing?"

He really was able to
sort of express himself

and let out his angst.

- They went from being folks
that I had seen around town

and that I'd do shifts with

to being like rock heroes.

There was a lot of
stuff that went in

to what made Green
River who they were.

Some of the components were

this kind of glammy metal.

- He definitely took
that stage persona

through into Mudhoney,

sort of minus the sequin pants.

[laughing]

- I do remember
going to check out

the early Green River shows

and being, really, kind
of blown away by them.

Steve Turner was in
Green River at the time.

- We didn't really know
Jeff Ament that well,

but we'd seen him play
with Deranged Diction,

who we thought were cool,

and he jumped really high and
played through distortion.

Seemed very important
to us at the time,

so Steve kind of
went on this campaign

to get to know Jeff
by getting a job

at the same espresso place
that he worked at. [laughing]

- I could tell that
Mark and Steve were

into music and into kind
of making something happen,

so I went to a couple practices.

- That's how Green
River started.

[rock music]

- The "Rehab Doll"
album by Green River

was the first record
that Jonathan and I

put out on Sub Pop
in spring of '88.

We emptied our coffers
of about, I think, $5000,

which was like

a massive fortune
for us at the time.

♪ Now I wouldn't mind

♪ If you swallowed my pride

- And, unfortunately,
as soon as the band

handed us a master tape, they
told us they were breaking up,

so that was kind of our
grand opening release

and we realized we
were probably gonna

go out of business
within a month.

- [Voiceover] We're down
in L.A., opening up for

Jane's Addiction and Junkyard.

- I remember Stone and I were
up on the side of the stage

watching Jane's Addiction,
just going like,

"Oh my god, this is incredible."

And I remember Mark and Bruce
coming up at different times,

saying how lame
they thought it was,

and I remember thinking, "Wow."

I think any hope that I had

that I thought that
Green River could be

as good as Jane's Addiction,

because Mark didn't
like Jane's Addiction,

for me, that felt like
there was a big chasm there.

I remember just
being kind of bummed.

- Whether people say Jane's
Addiction split them up,

it was just a moment in time

where it sort of
became more evident.

- And then when they split into

Mother Love Bone and Mudhoney,

there was no doubt that we were
going to work with Mudhoney.

- The separation that
sort of launched Mudhoney,

which is fantastic from a
marketing point of view,

it's like, you know, the two
sellouts went one direction

and the purists--
[laughing]

the purists went the other,
and we've got the purists,

and they had a fantastic
band, you know,

I mean, Mudhoney was fantastic.

We saluted them as
soon as we saw them.

We were like, "Wow,
that's so much better

"than Green River was."

[rock music]

[rock scream]

- Green River broke
up, I was like,

"What am I gonna do now?"

The first thought
that occurred to me

was, "Maybe I
should call Steve."

He was going to school up
in Bellingham at the time,

and I called him and I was like,

"Hey, Green River broke up.

"Why don't you drop out
of school?" [laughing]

[orchestra playing
"Auld Lang Syne"]

[rock music]

That is the day, New
Year's Day, 1988,

that we mark as the
beginning of the band.

That's like the band's birthday.

- The night before,
everybody was

kind of converging on
the Seattle [mumbling]

to go to the Coliseum
to see Motorhead

open up for Alice Cooper.

Matt was coming into town
for that show, so we figured,

"OK, we'll get together
the next day with Matt."

- It was really not a
whole lot of thought.

We weren't, like,
auditioning. [laughing]

There was very little thought.

It came together really easily.

- I was 20 at this point,
so I couldn't buy beer.

I walk into the store with Matt,

and just kind of meeting him,

and I'm like, "Hey,
wanna buy me some beer?

"I'll give you some money,"

and he was like, "Yeah,"
and I give him some money,

and he grabs himself
a half-case of beer,

he's like, "Well, I got mine,"

and I'm like, "Whoo,
he's got his,"

and it was like a
half-case of beer,

and I'm like, "Well,
can you get me one too?"

- I knew of him, just
from the bands he was in,

but I never really
personally met him

until I was in a car with
him, being taken to practice,

and he steps in the
backseat with me.

"Hey, nice to meet you!"

He was wearing a
beret. [laughing]

That's another thing I
forgot about until just now.

He was wearing a
beret, and I'm like,

"Oh, what's up with this
drummer?" [laughing]

But I fell in love
with him. [laughing]

- [Voiceover] Mudhoney can
influence your very life.

A rewarding experience that
you shall never forget.

- Steve and I were
very into B-movies,

psychotronic movies.

One of those directors that we
really liked was Russ Meyer.

- [Voiceover] Ladies and
gentlemen, welcome to sex.

You have just
witnessed some scenes

from Russ Meyer's sadistically
sensual motion picture

"Mudhoney," a taste of evil.

- I thought, "You know,
that's a pretty cool name,"

and kind of stored it, you know,

like, "If I ever
have another band,

"that might be a really
good name to use."

- You better get your
hands outta there!

You're gonna get in trouble!

[maniacal laughing]

- I haven't seen it for so long.

It's the one with the preacher
talking in black and white

and spouting off all sorts
of Biblical nonsense,

and there's a buxom blonde
white trash kind of lady

running around
the swamps, right?

- There's a preacher.

I don't know, it's boobs.

[laughing]

- [Voiceover] Steeped
with the flavor of evil.

- I don't remember much
of it other than that.

[laughing] Seriously!

- [Voiceover] For a taste
of evil, see Mudhoney.

- I remember Mark saying
that he introduced himself,

I think, to Dan Peters,

and told him he
should join Mudhoney,

while pushing in front of
him at some Seattle Club

in the queue for the
toilet so he could vomit.

It was like, "We're
starting a new band!

"It's called
Mudhoney!" [vomiting]

Like that, you know.

- Dan Peters, greatest
fucking drummer in the world.

[rock music]

- Nobody sounds like Dan Peters.

You can hear
drumming on anything,

even if he's like on a Mark
Lanegan record or whatever,

sessions he's done,
you can always tell

in about two seconds, "That's
Dan Peters on the drums.

"I recognize that feel, I
recognize that drum fill,

"I can totally tell by the way
he's hitting the snare drum."

Danny is completely unique.

[rock music]

- My mom was a lounge singer.

She had bands

and sang six, seven
nights a week.

I got my first pair
of drumsticks at a
fairly early age.

I used to sit around
and, you know,

act like I had a drum
set in front of me.

My uncle was in a band,

and the singer of
that band told me

he had an extra drum set.

A band like Gang of
Four really changed

the way I thought of music
and listened to music.

X. Dead Kennedys.

My math teacher knew that I
had listened to punk rock,

so [mumbling] this weird guy.

He asked me to bring
in some punk rock

to play for the class, I'm like,

"Ah, all right, I'll do that,"

and I made a cassette tape
of a Dead Kennedys song.

So the whole class is
sitting down, getting ready,

they're like, "Dan's gonna
play you some punk rock,"

I'm like, "Yeah, this
is gonna be good."

So I press play.
The song starts up.

["Forward to Death"
by Dead Kennedys]

Like the lyrics are like, "I
don't need this fucking world,

"I don't need this
fucking world,

"This world gets me down,"

and he's like, "OK,
Dan, stop!" [laughing]

Kinda like, "Ah, well,
you wanted to hear it."

♪ I don't need
this fucking world

♪ This world brings you down

- [Voiceover] One beer down,
and he's fucking gonna snap.

- What?
- [Voiceover] Nothing.

- Look at this, I got
a disease last night.

- [Voiceover] Where'd
you get that at?

- [Voiceover] I don't
know, I had a bunch of

open sores on my hand and I
was rolling around on my floor.

I passed out, and [mumbling]
somebody diseased me!

- [Voiceover] Matt Lukin
was the mud in the honey.

- The guy had a brilliant
and surreal sense of humor.

He was a work of art.

- I woke up at about 11:00
in the morning and came down,

and he was sitting in
front of the TV, smoking,

taking hits out of a bong,
and watching an AC/DC video,

and I thought, "This is
exactly what I would imagine,"

almost too much so,
like he staged it,

but he was serious,
he wasn't joking.

That's what he did.

- His whole family said, "Don't
go into the music business.

"Don't do it. Get a job,
become a carpenter."

So pretty soon he was like,

"Yeah, they didn't want
me to be a musician,

"but I'm the first fucking Lukin
who ever made it to Europe,

"to Japan, to
Australia, whatever."

So he was the first Lukin
going around the world,

being a rock star.

This is Matt Lukin,
right there for you.

[laughing] So crazy guy!

Amazing guy.

- As a young kid, I
remember playing singles

of like Black Sabbath
and shit like that,

but it scared me at the
same time. [laughing]

But when I got
older, I was like,

"Yeah, this is the
stuff." [laughing]

I didn't really get into guitar
until I was about 13 or 14.

Then I got one and I'd
sit there and pluck away.

We were just friends or
whatever, hanging out.

The guy who played bass was
the cousin of the drummer

but he would rarely show up,
but he had a bass and an amp,

and I'd be there with my
guitar, but it's like,

"Well, there's no one
here to play bass.

"Why don't you play bass?"

[rock song]

Buzz's girlfriend played
bass and she replaced me,

so that was pretty much,

since I didn't have
a pussy [laughing]

I was no longer
needed in the band.

He found a bass player that
had a pussy and would fuck him.

[laughing]

[bass riff]

Then when I joined
Mudhoney, I was like,

"This stuff's fucking great.

"It's just good rock and roll,"

which is all anybody
wants anyway, isn't it?

It's just good rock.

- I was working at a
Japanese restaurant,

and this chef there seemed like

he'd already been
through the punk wars

and, you know, had
gone pop, sort of

and was into kind
of synthpop stuff.

I was talking about
guitar and I was like,

"I just can't really get it to
sound the way I want it to,"

and he asked me what
distortion box I was using,

and I didn't know what that was.

I was like, "Huh?"

He just kind of smiled
and the next day,

he handed me a Super Fuzz,
said, "Here, try this."

[rock music]

It was a serious revelation,

because it's not just
a distortion box,

it's fuzz, you know.

It's like really,
really deep, thick fuzz.

And so that just blew my mind.

[rock music]

By the time that
Mudhoney started,

I was playing the Big
Muff because it had

more of that
sustain, kind of like

Blue Cheer, Stooges
kind of thing going.

And so Mark used the Super Fuzz.

♪ Sweet young thing
ain't sweet no more

♪ Sweet young thing
ain't sweet no more

♪ Sweet young thing
ain't sweet no more ♪

- [Voiceover] So here's
the original 8-track reel.

Inside is what passes
for a track sheet

at that point in my career.

I think I'd only been
a recording engineer

for maybe a year and a half.

- When we did that
single, we really wanted

to put, like, our
best foot forward.

This is our chance
to make a statement,

and we didn't really know
if we were going to do

anything more than
that first single,

so we were like, "We're gonna
put our two best songs on it

"and that'll be it,"
and that could be

the only document that
this band would ever have.

- You know, here's
the initial salvo.

It's kind of the opening salvo
of grunge, in a lot of ways.

I think people would
look at it that way now.

[rock music]

- What you're going
to hear about today

is nothing short of a miracle.

It's dramatically new.

["Touch Me I'm
Sick" by Mudhoney]

♪ I've been bad

♪ And I've been worse

- [Voiceover] That's
the apotheosis

of what rock and roll
should sound like.

♪ Yeah, I'm a jerk

- "Touch me, I'm sick"

is a pretty extraordinary
thing to say.

♪ Touch me, I'm sick

You think, there are
eight million ways to say

"I love you" or "I don't
love you" in rock and roll.

"Touch me, I'm sick," that
was one I hadn't heard before.

- It was exciting and vital.

It sounded really
punk as fuck, too.

♪ Touch me, I'm sick

- That record was so in demand
that they flew out the door.

One of those classic singles
that captured the time.

♪ If you don't come

♪ You'll die alone

- It did not get on radio in
any kind of widespread way.

There was something
that the insiders,

the know-it-alls knew,

but it really had a
strong viral effect

to the point now that it
is in its own way a hit.

[rock music]

♪ Sweet young
ain't sweet no more

♪ Sweet young ain't
sweet no more ♪

- As a label, we really tried

to work the collector's market,

doing colored vinyl
editions of all the 45s.

- We worked with Erika
Records for weeks

getting samples of
a good shit brown,

and they'd send us kind
of like a veiny purple,

a baby shit brown,
and we were like,

"No, no, no, no,
this has gotta be

"a firm, adult, dog shit brown."

They finally got it.

- Here's a little-known fact.

I remember Jonathan and
Steve and I went out to lunch

and the whole idea for the
Sub Pop Singles Club came out

during a conversation
about record collecting

and how we could
sell more records,

and Steve was probably the
deepest record collector

of anybody in the band.

- I mean, I remember the
first record I bought.

When I was in first
or second grade,

I bought an Elvis Presley record

for 25 cents at a garage sale.

I still have that record.

Yeah, the two things that
have kind of remained with me,

it's pretty easy, I love
punk rock, I love folk music.

One of my all-time
heroes, Roky Erickson.

Monochrome set, "He's Frank."

Live version of "Hospital"
by Jonathan Richman.

Tumwater, these are
beer ads from the 70s,

like little tiny snippets,
little songs about beer.

[laughing]

First Mudhoney single,
the super limited.

Just a handful of
weird colors made,

because they were
trying to make up

for the fact that
they were so late

and they kept fucking
up all the orders.

The saddest thing about
all these singles?

The sleeve that they put them in

stained them, made
this horrible staining.

I don't know if you
can see that anyway.

It's a crime against
a record, though.

Somehow, like, they
chemically don't mix

with the vinyl, the sleeves.

Very sad.

So they're all
downgraded, unfortunately,

from mint minus to
[mumbling] plus.

[laughing]

- We were just kind
of hobbling along.

We had run out of cash.

That summer, Jonathan
and I went to

the New Music Seminar,

which is a big conference
in New York City.

Spent the last few cents we
had going to that conference.

Amazingly, we met up
with a German promoter.

- And the next thing you know,

Mudhoney, Bruce and
myself were given tickets

to go to Berlin at
the end of October.

- [Voiceover] Hey, we're
Mudhoney, we're from Seattle!

- That was really exciting,

'cause, you know, we hadn't
been anywhere, really.

We just got flown in to
play one show to Berlin.

To us it seemed like
a complete joke,

like, "Who's paying for
this and why?" [laughing]

- [Voiceover] Playing
that show was a huge break

for Mudhoney and also a
huge break for Sub Pop.

- It was fucking surreal,
man, on every level.

People got it.

I mean, in many ways,
they got it much more

than people outside
of Seattle did.

[rock music]

- I was driving up to Seattle.

There was a show that night.

A band called
Mudhoney were playing.

I was just minding
my own business.

I was behind this chick
that had a skeleton thing

hanging from her
rear view mirror.

I remember thinking, "Ooh,
an alternative chick.

"Maybe's she's cute."

Pulled up alongside of
her and it was Matt Lukin.

[dramatic music]

- I would say that Bob
Whittaker, their manager,

was kind of like the
fifth member of Mudhoney.

He was an integral part to
the whole Mudhoney vibe.

- We'd be playing shows and
there'd be some kind of ruckus,

you know, like some
drunk guy in the corner

doing something that
he shouldn't be doing.

"Who the hell is that guy?"

"That guy? Well,
that's our manager.

[laughing] "You're gonna
be paying him later."

- Everything Mudhoney
did was kind of casual,

kind of non-industry-oriented.

Bob was their
manager, and I think

that they split everything
evenly with him,

like he was a band member,

which is not your traditional
industry practice.

They kind of bucked the
system, so to speak.

- [Voiceover] French franc.

- 'Ello. Behind me is ze
White Cliffs of Dover.

[rock music]

- They were the
first band I ever met

where the manager's more out
of control than the band.

- Yeah, he would
definitely throw gasoline

on all kinds of fires.

[yelling]

- Bob's crazy, thoroughly crazy.

- [mumbling] fuck
is going on in here?

- Uh, nothing.

- When we went on
our first U.S. tour,

we brought him along
kind of as entertainment,

and more often that not,
he would get shit-faced

and heckle us from the crowd.

[rock music]

- [Bob] Matt Lukin's
doing what he does best,

you fucking dick.

- You may not have
even seen him,

even though it's
hard to miss him,

'cause he's kind of like
the punk rock Big Bird.

- [Bob] I was the butt rocker
with bad corkscrew hair.

It was such a great
opportunity for me,

college dropout,
go see the world.

- He was drafted in
to be our roadie.

The joke is if you asked
him to help carry an amp,

he's like, "Carry it
yourself!" [laughing]

"It's not mine!"

- No, no, no, Bob didn't lift
a finger moving anything.

- He'd just look at you and go,

"Fuck you, you got two
legs, you go do it."

Like, "Dude, I need to add
someone to the guest list,"

"Fuck you, go to the front
door and do it yourself."

It's like, "No, man,
you work for us!

"You're supposed to do it!"

"Ah, fuck you, you do it."

But he was really great at
finding a place to stay,

'cause, like, back when
you can't afford hotels,

the best place to stay
is to find college girls

living in a house that
her parents are paying for

that's really nice or whatever.

He was really good at
finding those kind of people

that had a lot of room
and a really nice house,

as opposed to finding
the punk rock house

that's just full of piss
and cockroaches to stay in.

- I think the band
and myself mutually

had contempt for a lot of
the industry standards.

I can remember it on
a flight one time,

I just said, "Hey, you
guys, managers are creepy.

"Let me be your creepy manager."

But I just said, "I think
I can shoulder this load

"without screwing
things up too much.

"I can be your point guy."

- [Steve] You know, he
kind of grew with us

as the machine kind of
grew and slowly took on

more and more responsibilities.

And he took it real
seriously, really.

He was learning as we were
going, too, as we all were.

- I was a good
candidate, 'cause I'm

relatively articulate
and I'm ultimately

very concerned about the
band and their credibility

and not talk them into
something they don't want,

and so it was a pretty
comfortable transition.

- For me, part of what
makes a record great

is how it captures the time
in which it's presented.

- This is our B-side to
our #1 hit in England

called "Superfuzz Bigmuff."

[crowd cheering]

- It almost immediately entered
the indie charts in England,

which was something
that never happened.

American records never made
the indie charts in England.

It was very rare, and it
stayed there for over a year.

- It instantly became
the party record.

To this day, I think
it's the greatest EP

that we've ever put out.

- I had been, you know, a
professional recording engineer

for less than two
years at that point.

Now, what it is, you know, 23
years I've been doing this.

I've made like 350-some albums

in 10 countries or whatever,

and this shit keeps
coming back! [laughing]

♪ Give me love laced with lies

♪ There ain't much
I haven't tried

♪ Give me love laced with lies

♪ There ain't much,
baby, I haven't tried ♪

- You see Mark just
hurling towards the camera

with their hair flowing,

and then it looked
like "Mudhoney"

written in amazing Magic Marker

and "Superfuzz Bigmuff"
written underneath.

I challenge anyone to sit down

and make "Superfuzz" a
better record than it is.

The only way you can do it

is to just make
it longer somehow.

♪ Sliding in and out of grace

- You think of some of the
greatest lines in rock and roll,

that line, that fucking "Oh
god, how I love to hate."

Fuck. I wish I wrote that.

That's the coolest fucking line.

"Oh god, how I love to hate."

♪ Oh god, how I love to hate

♪ Sliding in and out of grace

- They were tapping into
these reference points,

B-movies, there's this kind of

kitschy, trashy thing going on.

It's kind of a bit shit.

Those films are a bit shit.

People who act in
them are a bit shit,

because they're the cheapest
actors they could get,

but there is this
sort of quality to it,

and I feel like a lot of
what Mudhoney were doing

was tapping into that,
like they weren't shit,

but they were tapping into
these reference points.

- [Voiceover] That's
a Lenny Kravitz song.

- "There's a
Tractor in My Balls"

is Lenny Kravitz's new hit.

- But we know Sonic Youth.

[laughing]

- Has anybody vomited yet?

- [Voiceover] Mark did!

- We asked them to play with us

when we were coming out
to do a West Coast tour,

never having seen them
or really anything.

- You know, with the Sonic
Youth stamp of approval,

at that time, it
was a big thing.

- And they were always happy.

They were always just kind
of like eating and drinking

and smoking cigarettes
and just, like,

rolling up to the sound check

and just spilling out of the van

and wrestling on the pavement.

Their whole thing was like,

"Let's just have a
really good time."

So it was kind of an
interesting pairing,

you know, because we were
kind of a little older,

and we were sort of like
egghead book collectors.

- Yeah, didn't they
make fun of, like,

they said something
once about us

just reading in the van
all the time or something.

- Right.
- "What book are you reading?"

- When they'd come offstage,

we'd be in the dressing
room, all drunk,

entertaining them with whatever,

just being degenerates.

I think they needed to
probably drink a bit more

and party a bit more to
make it more fun for them.

They seemed to be into
buying books and stuff.

[laughing] Good people, though.

[rock music]

- One of the most famous
Mudhoney gigs in London

was the gig at the School
of Oriental African Studies.

Mudhoney were headlining,

and they were supported
by Soundgarden.

- All of the British
press at that show,

so there were like
at least 200 people,

press people, on the guest list.

- We played first,
played a great set.

I loved the set.

I remember the
songs that we played

and the sequence in
which we played them

and it was really strong.

- There's nowhere
else in our history

that we ever could have had
Soundgarden open for us.

[laughing] That was
like the one day.

[laughing]

Kind of weird.

- We get up there,
and there's just this

weird energy in the air.

You could definitely sense
there's a lot of anticipation.

- Sometimes you need
a collective of people

to be in the same room
together to realize

how they all feel about
it and to be excited

about how they
all feel about it,

because up until then, you know,

people had been hearing
this stuff on the radio,

people had been
buying the records,

but until you actually
saw the band live,

you never really get a sense
of how you'll feel about it

and how exciting and
empowering that can be.

[rock music]

- Mark Arm always had these

cynical, wiseass jokes.

He decided to ask, "I would like

"to invite everybody on stage."

They did.

♪ I've been so close
to no way out ♪

- We called it
the friendly riot.

You know, this was the
arrival of grunge mania.

- An out-of-control good time.

[rock music]

- But the next day,
all you heard about

in the press was how
great Mudhoney was.

I was bummed that we were
a footnote in the review.

- That really established
Sub Pop in Seattle

and Mudhoney in Europe.

- That started the whole
thing, especially in England.

- The basic feeling was

we were still cruising
under the radar

and nobody really
knew, except for us,

just how big the
scene had gotten,

so it was with that
intention that we said,

"We're gonna do a
show in the Moore.

"And not only are we gonna
do a show in the Moore,

"we're gonna sell it out."

- I just thought
they were crazy.

Nirvana, at that point,
was barely known.

TAD had something out.

- The bands had all been
playing these little clubs.

The Rainbow Tavern, the Central.

There's a club around the
corner called the Ditto.

These are all rooms that
held a couple hundred people.

Playing the Moore at that time,

not opening for somebody

but actually headlining
at the Moore,

that was seen to be a
pretty big accomplishment.

We knew how popular these
bands had become in town,

and we wanted to strut
our stuff a little bit.

Wake people up.

[crowd cheering, rock music]

- Needless to say,
the venue sold out.

People went crazy.

It was total mayhem.

["No One Has" by Mudhoney]

♪ I've been so close
to no way out ♪

- Now it was no
longer these people

in this core group
of musicians and fans

that was always
the Seattle scene.

It's now reaching
out to the suburbs.

♪ I don't lock
the door no more ♪

- That really got the
attention of the main writers

for the local papers.

We couldn't be ignored
after that show.

[singing]

- After the show,
word on the street was

that Seattle was
just blowing up.

[rock music]

They had a relentless
release schedule.

Now, our whole
strategy of attack

was to just keep
putting something out,

and it built to the album,
and the album did great.

- The thing that I
remember the most?

We work radio right
before records come out.

It came in as a CMJ
#1 added record,

and that we had a
#1 record at CMJ

was a huge, huge fucking deal.

- That was at the
height of hair metal.

It was at the height
of so many things

that were considered to be

the cultural rule,

and yet what they
were doing up there

was like, "Fuck it,

"whatever you're doing out there

"has nothing to do with
what we're doing in here."

- We ramped up our marketing
efforts, did some videos.

It was, like, a grown-up

independent rock
record marketing spree.

["Here Comes
Sickness" by Mudhoney]

♪ Here comes sickness

♪ Walking down my street

- I was quickly kind of

underwhelmed by it
after it was done.

- It was kind of more of
the same as "Superfuzz,"

maybe without the urgency.

There's some really good
songs on there, I think.

"Superfuzz," being
a six-song EP,

is really concise
and to the point.

There's no filler on it.

You know, we don't
write an album and go,

"This song is filler,"
but, you know,

after a while you
kind of can step back

and go, "Maybe that song isn't
quite as good as this one."

- OK, well, that was, you
know, the sophomore slump.

We didn't raise the bar any.

♪ At you

- Is it true you
want to break up now?

Why, I mean, what's
going to be the future

for grunge rock and things?

- I don't know, Steve's
going back to school

and Dan's going to
play drums for Nirvana,

so me and Mark are just gonna,

I don't know, something
might come along.

There'll be other
bands in Seattle still.

There are still
good bands there.

- I'm sure I'll play music
of some sort for all my life,

but I've never wanted
to be like a rock star

or like a professional
musician, really.

I just always played
in bad punk rock bands,

and that's what I
intend to keep doing.

We're not really saying
we're breaking up,

'cause you never know,

we might be back
together at some point.

- [Voiceover] You know, at
the time when the band was,

you know, doing
really, really well,

Steve decided that he
wanted to go back to school.

- You know, when the
band started, I mean,

our initial thing was like,

"We're gonna be lucky
to get a single out."

We accomplished that.

At the time, it
seemed like most bands

had three good years in them.

Steve was, more
than anybody else,

kind of really
married to that idea.

And so I think he
probably just thought,

"Well, this is the
thing I'm doing

"at this point in my life

"and I'm gonna eventually
go back to school

"and get that
anthropology degree

"and go become a professor
somewhere or something."

I don't know.

- I still could not imagine
music being, you know, a living.

I don't think I
wanted it, really,

and I think I was in denial
that it could have been.

I know I didn't like
the record very much.

Just wanted distance ourselves

from what was becoming known
as the grunge thing in Seattle.

[rock music]

- I had run into the girlfriends

of Kurt and Krist at a show,

and they had told me Nirvana
was looking for a new drummer.

Chad wasn't gonna be
in the band anymore.

I'm like, "Well, you know,

"I'm not gonna be doing
anything for awhile."

Let them know that I'd
like to play with them

if they were interested.

[rock music]

I had played a show with them

at the Motorsports
International Garage.

It was a big show
for them in town.

There was supposed
to be a photo shoot

the next day after that show for

the cover of Sounds Magazine.

I went to Tacoma and
did the photo shoot,

and then they took off and
went to talk to labels.

When they got back from
that, Kurt gave me a call

and he's like, "Looks like
we're gonna sign to Geffen,"

and I'm like, "Eh, all right."

I'm like, "So what's happened
with that English tour?"

He's like, "Oh, yeah,
that's why I'm calling.

"We got another drummer."

I'm like, "Oh."

Turned out to be,
of course, Dave,

who was at the
show that I played,

who was at the photo session
that I did with those guys.

They all knew full
well at the time

that I was not gonna
be in the band,

but didn't say anything.

The great thing that happened

after the Nirvana
thing didn't work out

was I ended up playing drums
for the Screaming Trees

for almost a year or
half a year or something,

and that was great.

- You know, we were still
practicing and writing songs.

- I'm like, "Steve, what
the fuck's going on?

"What do you got?
What's, you know...

"The Trees wanna go
and record a new record

"and they wanna continue
touring and stuff.

"What's up?"

And he was like, "Uhhh,
I think we should tour."

And I'm like, "All right."

So, I mean, that was
an easy choice for me

to go back to Mudhoney.

The energy and the
vibe and stuff,

you couldn't beat it.

I stopped playing
with the Trees,

and, of course,
they went on to make

one of their most successful
records of all time as well.

[laughing]

Apparently if I join a band
but don't play on their record,

they're gonna go off and
maybe have some good success.

- Well, for Sub Pop, 1991 was

the make or break year,

and I believe it was

the early summer of '91

that Jon and I basically
laid off everybody.

We'd come in the office and
pack up a box of records

to ship to Japan and maybe
get a couple hundred dollars,

and we were really
on our last legs

when "Every Good Boy
Deserves Fudge" came out.

If it wasn't for that release,

there's a very good chance

that we would have
folded the company.

Sub Pop has always been
very grateful to Mudhoney

for staying with
us like they did.

♪ Whatever happens

♪ Never thought for a second

♪ That I'd let go

♪ Uh-huh

- "Every Good Boy
Deserves Fudge," to me,

may be the defining work
that Mudhoney has released,

and I know I'm not
alone in that thought.

That record married their
wit, their songwriting skills,

but there is a level
of sophistication,

but equal parts sophistication

and dinge.

That's another word for grunge.

And just fucking great jams.

- At that time,
selling 100,000 albums

on an indie label, that
didn't happen too often.

That was like going platinum,

and we were very
proud of the record

because it was such
an awesome disc.

♪ They can make it sound so nice

♪ Everybody's got a price

♪ Ho, ho, ho, ho

- I think it's a
really good record,

and it was a good
change of direction.

You know, at that time I
was doing a lot more dope,

and I think Steve definitely
picked up the slack

and kind of drove that record.

[rock music]

- I guess it kind of gets tagged

more of a garage
punk kind of record.

We'd stripped things down

and simplified
things a little bit.

Also, 'cause it
was a pretty crude

8-track studio at the time.

If Mark had the
Farfisa on the song,

there couldn't be a
second guitar. [laughing]

♪ Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey

♪ Who you driving

♪ Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey

♪ Who you driving now

♪ Now

- [Voiceover] But
it wasn't enough

for the company to
be in the black.

- They had an enormous
amount of patience with us,

because even though we
knew what we were doing

or what we were trying to do,

those guys didn't sign on

to uphold that.

You know, they were our friends

and they believed in
us and they believed in

the vision of the label
to a certain degree,

but, you know, they
had their own interests

to manage and maintain.

- You know, leaving
Sub Pop was rough.

It wasn't something
that I'm proud of

or happy about doing.

It just seemed really
unloyal to me to leave.

- It was getting uncomfortable,

and we started worrying
that they were going to

go out of business owing us
75,000 bucks or something,

and it was really gonna destroy
any kind of friendships.

I think us leaving kind of
ruined the friendships anyway,

kind of, but I don't think
there was any way around it.

[rock music]

- What ended up happening was,

it got the company to a point

where it could survive
just a little bit longer,

and then "Nevermind" happened,

and it ended up
being "Nevermind"

that kind of pushed
the company, really,

into a better financial place,

where they could kind of regroup

and figure out
what the plan was.

- If we had known that
Sub Pop was gonna be

kept afloat by Nirvana
signing to a major label,

I don't think we would
have left the label.

You know, we probably
would have just

kind of like weathered the storm

and waited 'til that happened,

but, of course, we didn't
know that was gonna happen.

Sub Pop was distributed at
the time by a record label

in New York called
Caroline Records,

so we thought, "Well,

"maybe we'll just cut
out the middleman."

President of the label came out,

his name was Keith
something or other.

I wish I could totally
remember the name,

just because people like this
need to have their names,

they need to be
called out, right?

He took us to a nice lunch,

started telling us what
we could and could not do

if we signed to Caroline.

He said we would have to tour

for nine months out of the year.

That's what Smashing
Pumpkins were doing

and it was really helping them,

and it's like, "Why are you

"even comparing us
to Smashing Pumpkins?

"Come on."

- Talked about how,
"You need to polish up

"those guitar stands and stuff."

- And how, like, we needed
to do a few more records

before we could become
a major label band.

We needed to work on
sweetening up our sound

[laughing] and shit like that.

- That's all we've got.

It's our guitar sound, you know?

You want us to totally
lose, like, our identity?

♪ You stupid asshole

So we thought, if this is
what an independent label

is gonna throw at
us, we might as well

meet with major labels and
see what they have to say.

♪ One, two, I'm looking at you

- Major labels
basically had to admit

they had no idea what
was gonna be popular

with the youngsters anymore.

They had lost complete control.

When Nirvana hit big, you know,

that just changed everything.

Like, they went, "Oh, we don't
know why this is popular.

"We have no idea
what's going on now."

- All the majors
said the same thing.

"Oh, we're gonna come
out with guns blazing.

"We're gonna have all
these advertisements.

"You're gonna get the most
support," blah blah blah.

The Mudhoney guys are
all very savvy dudes,

and they're a very quick
read to personalities.

- You just kind of
knew immediately, like,

this is not gonna work.

[laughing]

- We're trying to capture
audience's interest

and soften them up
so that the salesmen

can sock 'em with a
good old hard sell.

- We were not looking
to start a bidding war

because we didn't want to
get into kind of a trap

where we, like, owed
somebody a shitload of money,

and we went with David
Katznelson at Reprise

because both the label
and he seemed like

the most reasonable people
out there that we'd met with.

- [Voiceover] Yeah, Dave
just seemed to be cooler

and outgoing and a fun guy.

- I was really, really nervous.

I was still at a period
of time in my career

where whenever I
would talk to a band

I was always the younger person.

I was always the fan,

and I was always the
person who was like,

"I really, should
I even be here?

"Who am I to be
talking to these guys?"

First person I met
was Bob Whittaker,

and Bob was a
larger-than-life figure.

He would take me to his place

and, you know, sit me in this
huge dentist chair that he had

and start throwing
all these records

of what was going
on in the scene

while plying me with alcohol

and then, while we
were doing that,

trying to talk business
with me at the same time,

and I was doing
everything I could,

everything I could
possibly do to keep focused

and keep attempting
to keep on target

of what I was out
there trying to do.

- When we met with
Warner Brothers,

I was really concerned
'cause, you know,

the Replacements and
Husker Du had both signed

[mumbling] Warner Brothers,

and all of a sudden, once
they got onto the major label,

their records
sounded way slicker.

- I think the band
itself was really worried

about having to go
to a major label.

The typical stuff,
going to a major label,

being changed, and
these are all things

that were on their minds
when they were talking to me.

- I asked Lenny Waronker, who
was the president at the time,

"Why did you do this
to these bands?"

and he was like, "We didn't
do anything to these bands.

"They just did what
they wanted to do."

And I'm sure the bands
probably thought,

"Well, if we record
a slicker record,

"then it's more likely
to get radio airplay

"and stuff like this,"

so we intentionally went to
the exact same basement studio

that we did our previous record,

to kind of prove a
point that, you know,

just because we're
on a major label

we're not gonna, like,
compromise our sound.

- There was so much excitement

about the movement that
they were a part of

and them themselves that
it was really unstoppable.

["Blinding Sun" by Mudhoney]

♪ We fell asleep on the
riverbank one sunny afternoon

♪ We fell asleep
on the riverbank ♪

- Once we were on a major label

and the contracts were
signed, we realized

we had these budgets
for every record.

We found out that
what we didn't use

of the recording
budget in the studio,

we actually got to keep.

- Rather than going
to the Bahamas

and recording at Compass Point

or whatever you're supposed
to do with your $200,000,

their thing was
to keep the money

and just use some of
it to record with.

- And then we would spend
20 of it or whatever

recording the record, you know,

and then you could pocket
the rest. [laughing]

[cash register dings]

- We're punks! We're
rebels! [laughing]

♪ Everybody loves us

♪ Everybody loves our town

♪ That's why I'm thinking lately

♪ Time for leaving is now

♪ Hey, hey, hey, hey

- Mark's ode to the
Seattle scene at the time.

♪ It's so overblown

- It was recorded for $62,

or $162, I can't remember which.

Our attorney at the time told me

not to let the label
find out how much we paid

for the recording of that song

that was on the platinum
soundtrack for singles.

"Don't let them find
out that you're paying

"$162 for that recording,"
because, you know,

we got a check for a lot more.

- Well, it's always good
to get money. [laughing]

♪ I'll just sit and grin

♪ The money will roll right in

- I'll get money out of my
famous name, one way or another.

- [Voiceover] You know,
that allowed all of us

to eventually make down
payments on houses.

- So that's kind of how we
tried to operate each time.

- All musicians know what
it's like to struggle.

They bought roofs
over their heads,

which actually shows what a good

survivalist instinct they have.

- Some of them had stock
and stuff like that.

♪ It's fun to be a star

♪ It's nice to have a car

♪ Yeah, you'll have to admit

♪ That I'll be rich as shit

♪ And I'll just sit and grin

♪ The money will roll right in

- The title "Piece of Cake"
kind of says it all to me.

I mean, it's like, things have
come so easy to this band.

We do one single,
we're going to Europe.

Oh, we're going out
there with Sonic Youth.

We're getting
attention straightaway.

Our whole approach
was kind of like,

"We can do that.
That's a piece of cake.

"Yeah, sure."

Do another record?
"Piece of cake."

And that kind of
became our attitude,

and that was the title that
we chose for that record.

It was like, "Yeah,
it's no big deal.

"We're doing this. It's easy."

And it shouldn't be.

- I felt with those guys,
when they hit the major label,

they just wanted
to self-sabotage.

And if you listen
to "Piece of Cake,"

I mean it starts off with
that little techno blip

that were just annoying,

and I think they
deliberately did that

because it was sort
of like a "Fuck you"

to being on a major label.

Even Nirvana, who obviously
were a very good band,

but they wrote big hooks
and big monsters anthems,

and Mudhoney never
tried to do that,

to their own probably
financial detriment.

- With Mudhoney, they
came out of the box

and they were the #1
sale-sheeted band of the week,

and they ended up
selling 150,000 records.

The label, I think,
was peachy about that.

- [Voiceover] Do
you like it, Dave?

- I do. I love it.

- The deal that we
did with Mudhoney

was not the biggest of the
offers they got, either.

It was a deal that was
designed to recoup faster.

I think the point structure
was a little bit better,

and their freedoms were
a little bit better,

so selling 150,000
records right off the bat

was pretty damn good.

- My favorite comment
on "Piece of Cake"

was from Bruce Pavitt.

His thing was, "You know,
the record's only as good

"as its best song, basically.

"If it's got that
one good song on it,

"then it's a good record."

♪ Can't breathe 'til I

♪ Suck you dry

- I think "Suck You Dry"
was a rousing success,

and I think some other stuff
on there was really half-baked.

I think Mark likes
to take the bulk of

the credit for that.

- Yeah, I was really
fucked up a lot of times.

I was really fucked up
a lot in that period.

I was drinking a lot,
doing a lot of drugs.

That recording session
more than any other one,

I was probably showing up, like,

an hour, two hours
late every day

because I was
waiting to get drugs

before I could go over there.

- I had seven junkies on
my roster at one point,

which makes life move
very slow for you,

because when you're talking
to somebody on the phone

who is doing heroin,
if you have like

three things that you
wanna talk to them about,

you might get one of
those things through

and it'll take seven
hours or five hours

or whatever it might be.

I would be on the
phone with Mark a lot

where he would pretty
much go to sleep on me

or something like that,

and it was happening since
before I got involved with him.

- [Voiceover] Hey, Marty. Here.

Lookee here.

- What's that?

- H.
- H?

What's H?

- Shh, not so loud.

It's heroin.

- I hate the way in
music documentaries,

like Behind the
Music or something,

the way people talk about

their drug use or whatever.

Like the music gets
all kind of sappy

and things sort
of slow down, and,

you know, it's like
this big pivotal point

in this musician's
career or whatever.

To me, when bands like
Aerosmith or whatever,

they'll, like, just talk
about their deep addiction

and they'll kind of glorify it,

you know, like their
"Toxic Twins" T-shirts

with Joe Perry and Steve Tyler,

and they're all like, "We did
mountains of Peruvian blow

"and did a lot of heroin
and partied like crazy,"

and then they go, "But
don't do that, kids.

"It's really bad."

To me, it's kind
of embarrassing.

I was a total cliche.

I was a rock guy
strung out on heroin,

and actually, for
awhile in there,

was going out with a stripper.

[laughing]

How did this happen
to me? [laughing]

Of course, I walked through
all those doors myself.

- When he started
doing hard drugs,

a couple of his friends
told me I had to

do something about
it or talk to him,

and I was like, "Well, I
don't think that's my place."

I'm all for personal freedom

to fuck yourself up if you want.

He's a smart guy.

So we never really
talked about it much.

- I think the first time

anyone in Mudhoney
caught wind of it

that I might be doing
it, there was a rumor

that I went into the
emergency for a drug overdose,

and I don't know
how that got out,

but I OD'd several times.

Went to the
Harborview Emergency.

Those guys had heard
that and I was just like,

"What? No way. That's not me."

[laughing]

- People do drugs
'cause they're fun.

It's not always, like,
can be explained away

like, oh, they're
self-medicating

or they have some kind
of painful something,

it's like, well,
it's kind of fun,

and then the fun
factor gets pushed away

because it's an addiction too,

and chemically, you're getting
more and more fucked up.

- It really got
boring after awhile.

I was able to go through
this period with heroin

and come out
relatively unscathed.

I didn't die, I didn't get AIDS.

I did get Hepatitis C,

which I didn't find out
about until many years later.

That was the only
thing that was like,

"Wow, this shit actually
bit me on the ass."

After I stopped doing heroin,

I was playing in
this band, Bloodloss,

and one of the
members of the band

was doing heroin at the time.

I remember people would ask me,

"Man, isn't it really hard to
be in a band with this guy,

"just after what
you've gone through?"

And it was like,
"No, it's a reminder

"of what I don't wanna be."

It wasn't like I saw
him and was like,

"Man, I'd really like
to be like that."

It's like, "I am so glad I
am not that way anymore."

And actually, that was a real

important part of
the process for me.

- Hi, I'm Kurt Loder
with an MTV News

special report on
a very sad day.

Kurt Cobain, the
leader of one of rock's

most gifted and promising
bands, Nirvana, is dead.

- It was a real
kick in the pants

to the entire grunge
scene, Seattle scene.

- No one wanted to know anything
more about Seattle and us,

because it was such a sad tale.

The only bands from Seattle

that were doing well that year
was, like, The Presidents.

♪ Moving to the country

♪ I'm gonna eat a
lot of peaches ♪

They wanted happy music now.

[laughing] They didn't
want more of us.

["Judgment, Rage, Retribution
and Time" by Mudhoney]

♪ When I look in the mirror

- We were back working
with Jack for the record.

Almost seemed like a restatement
of what our sound was.

It was grunge, damn it.

♪ Well, it's 1995, my friend

♪ Now we're closing
in on the end

♪ Another year for you and me

- [Voiceover] There
were health issues

that had been resolved.

There was a whole
bunch of new songs

that were well rehearsed

and seemed well arranged
and ready to go.

- And there was
one song on there

that Courtney Love
thought was about her,

so she called the
CEO of our company,

who had worked with Kurt
before and knew Courtney.

- We did a record at Reprise.

We would go down there.

There was always kind
of a courtesy meeting

with the president.

- The band was in the building,

was at Warner Brothers
in Burbank on that day,

and it was Mark Arm's
birthday on that day.

The cake was being brought to
Mark with the candles on it

when I get a call from the CEO.

I pick up the phone, he has no
idea that Mudhoney's in town.

He's like, "You know
those Mudhoney guys?"

And I'm like, "Um, yeah."

And he's like, "I never
wanna see those guys again.

"I mean, we're putting
the record out,

"I hope it does great,

"but I never wanna talk
to those guys again."

And I'm like, "What
are you talking about?"

- David was trying to
arrange the meeting with him.

He heard back that
there was no way in hell

that he was gonna meet with us,

because of the song
"Into Yer Shtik."

- "I never wanna
meet those guys,

"I never wanna shake their hand,

"I never wanna have my
picture taken with them."

And Dave told us
that, and I'm like,

"Really?" I go, "That
bums me out, man,

"because that's all
I've ever wanted to do,

"was have my picture taken

"with whatever the
fuck his name is."

Who gives a fuck if you
wanna meet us or not?

Fucking asshole!

[laughing]

Thanks for the bottle of wine

you might've bought me
at a dinner sometime,

but still, fuck you.

- And he's basically saying,

"I got a call from Courtney

"and she's going
back into therapy

"because they made a song
about her on this record."

♪ Why don't you

♪ Blow your brains out too

- Many people
think it's directed

strictly at Courtney Love.

It's a much broader
shot than that,

but she definitely fits.

Of course, this was a year after
Kurt Cobain killed himself.

I was pretty angry with how
that whole thing went down.

♪ All of you make

♪ Me sick

♪ You're so

♪ Into yer shtik

- The line is so much more

about the industry.

It's so much more
about all those people

who take art and try
to push it so hard

through the financial filter.

- The thing that kind of
frustrated me the most

about that whole time period

was, like, we did this
two-week tour with Nirvana

and just seeing the way that
they had organized themselves.

A lot of the people
that they had hired to

work for the band
were really gross.

Didn't seem like they had

anyone in the band's
best interests at heart,

they just wanted the
band to keep going

so more money could be made,

and we had a couple of
shows with Pearl Jam

booked about a month later,

and at the time,
the perception was

Nirvana was the underground
band that came up from Sub Pop

and Pearl Jam was the major
label band or whatever,

and we were just like,

"God, can you imagine
how bad it's gonna be

"in the Pearl Jam camp if
it's this bad in Nirvana?"

We went out with Pearl Jam

and it was just the
fucking exact opposite.

Every person was super
cool, friendly, helpful.

There were people
in the Nirvana camp

who were just, like,
thumping their chests

at how proud they were to
be working with Nirvana

and there was nothing like that

happening over in
Pearl Jam world.

It was like, oh, you
can be at this level

and run things in a smart way

and you don't have to
hire a bunch of dicks.

- As soon as they were out
playing that first show with us

and we were interacting, really,

for the first time in a
few years, in a real way,

I remember thinking, "Wow,
this is a really good thing."

And then when Kurt died, I
think it was really important

that we were all
together at that time.

I think it was a
wake-up call for us,

to have Mark and
Steve and those guys

there at that time,
because it told us

that we could stop at any
time and take a break.

[speaking in foreign language]

- Mr. Steve Turner!

[crowd cheering]

And Mr. Mark Arm!

[crowd cheering]

- Right now!

Right now, Sao Paulo!

[crowd cheering]

It's time to

kick out the jams,
motherfuckers!

["Kick Out the
Jams" by Mudhoney]

♪ Ah, ah, ah, ah

♪ I gotta kick 'em out

♪ Well, I feel pretty good

♪ And I guess that I could
get crazy now, baby ♪

♪ 'Cause we all got in tune

♪ When the dressing
room got hazy now, baby

♪ I know how you like it, child

♪ Hot, quick and tight

♪ The girls can't stand it
when you're doing it right

♪ Let me up on the stand

♪ And let me kick out the jams

♪ Yeah, kick out the jams

♪ I gotta kick 'em out

- It was very obvious
it was gonna be

the last one for
Warner Brothers.

Everybody at Reprise
was gone, basically.

One of the new guys at Warner's

wanted to hear demos
and didn't hear a hit,

and all that kind of shit,

which we'd never had
to deal with before.

We'd always just delivered
the finished product to them

and they did what
they could with it.

- He wanted to drop Mudhoney
right when he got there,

but he was gonna wait
to hear the demos,

and he was actually impressed
with what they had done.

I'm like, "Hey, whoop-de-doo
for you, right?"

- He knew that we weren't
gonna make him any more money.

And I don't think Reprise
had had a radio hit

since Alanis Morissette,

which was three or fours before,

which in major label
time is forever.

He was brought in
because he had produced

the breakthrough
Sugar Ray album.

They brought him in
because they figured

since he produced a
crappy breakthrough record

that he could get
more made. [laughing]

- I remember there was
one song, "Oblivion,"

which, you know,
that was the song

that the boss thought
was the single.

♪ Oblivion

He had all these little
detailed mix ideas

that he had to throw in there.

- He'd had some other hits,

so these record people get cocky

and they think, "I
can hear a hit now.

"I've got the golden ear."

- We probably went
into the studio

to mix "Oblivion" five,
six, seven, eight,

I don't know how many times.

- It shows exactly why the
record industry is dying.

[laughing] 'Cause
they just throw money

at bullshit for no reason.

♪ Woke up this morning

♪ I had a laugh

Each record you do
for a record label,

the advance grows,

and we were selling
less and less records.

- I think they got
keen to us as well.

They knew that we
would take our money

and record cheaply
and pocket the rest.

- So if we didn't
spend it recording,

we weren't gonna get it anyway,

why don't we actually
hire a producer

and spend some money and
see what that's like?

Obviously no one's gonna
give us that money again.

- It was a great record on
so many different levels,

produced by the
legendary Jim Dickinson.

["Poisoned Water" by Mudhoney]

♪ Like stacks and
stacks of rats on rafts

♪ Clutchin' anything we can

♪ Stacks and stacks
of rats on rafts

♪ Weight of the world
crushin' our backs

♪ Tooth for a tooth

♪ Eye for an eye

- You know, released
into major obscurity.

- It was one of
the first records

that they put out
at a higher price.

- Once the record came
out, they just sort of

did nothing with it.

They wanted it to disappear.

- You know, there was that time

that we had to drop them,

and the conversation was
almost like, "Who cares?

"They'll go on and
do their thing."

Nobody was surprised, and
the relationship ended

in a really good way,
where it was like,

I think we all
agreed that even if

Reprise wanted to keep them on,

it probably wasn't the
right place for them to be.

The music industry had
completely changed.

- It was fairly brutal.

The shows were
getting really small.

It was definitely
the lowest point

as far as playing live shows.

In the States, it
was like, fuck, man,

150 people in some
shitty Florida town.

- It must have been
a pretty discouraging

situation for them to be in.

And, of course, subsequently,
Matt Lukin left,

which was a factor in what was
going on as well, I believe.

[crowd cheering]

[imitates machine gun]

- It seemed like a
pretty good time to quit.

The touring wasn't going to
make us any money anymore.

- I think he might have even
stuck around as long as he did

because he thought he was gonna

let the rest of us
down if he quit,

and that was a tough blow.

- The last three or
four years of the band,

I was hoping that
somebody else would quit

or somebody else would make
a move so I didn't have to,

'cause I hate to be
the one quitting.

I hate to let people down.

I was just kind of sick of music

and pop culture in
general, altogether.

I just hated everything
to do with it

and anybody who felt
it was important.

I was working as a carpenter
during my off time.

It was kind of like going
back to the beginning,

back when I was
like 18, 19 again.

I'd work during the
week and go play

Melvins gigs on the weekend.

It was kind of like
having to go back to that.

I didn't wanna do that.

- [Voiceover] There's some
drinking and smoking to do!

[crowd cheering]

- We have always
kind of had this idea

of Mudhoney being Mark,
Steve, Matt, and Dan,

and if one of us was
not in the picture

that we would not be a band.

I don't know if
that's some kind of

idealistic Three
Musketeers or whatever.

I guess there's four. [laughing]

So when Matt quit,
my whole thing was,

"Well, the idea of getting
another bass player

"is not something
that I'm into at all."

- Dan didn't wanna
do it without Matt.

They were kind of like the
two partners to me and Mark.

They roomed together and
all that kind of stuff.

♪ I've been thinking

♪ I could find some meaning

♪ I could start believing

♪ Instead of killing time

♪ I've been thinking

♪ Your love could
give me meaning

♪ I could start believing

♪ Instead of killing time

♪ I think I could love,
if you could show me

♪ What your lovin' is

- These guys wanted to start
an Internet record label

and they hired to me
to produce an album.

Mudhoney came up
in the conversation

as being a band that just
gets better as time goes on,

and so we got a hold of them

and they said they'd be
interested in talking about it.

- It's probably been about
a year, so we got together.

- [Voiceover] Started
working on some things,

and it felt good.

There's a chemistry
that we have.

- So I went up there
and met the guys

and I made them an offer
they couldn't refuse.

[rock music]

Money talks. [laughing]

♪ Let me in

♪ Let me in

♪ It takes an inside job to
make it easy when it's hard ♪

- And that song ended up

kind of starting
off our next record.

That's kind of how we got
that ball rolling again.

- I am a registered nurse,

and I work at the
main trauma center

at Harborview Hospital
here in Seattle.

The elements of my
job are working on

specific things in
the emergency room,

what are called trauma codes,

where someone has a trauma
injury of some sort,

gunshot, knife, motor vehicle,

fell off a cliff, whatever.

People have some preconceived
and prejudiced ideas

about what being in a band is.

You're a philanderer
or a drug addict

or a person with
low responsibility.

But it's come out, obviously.

It's hard to conceal in this
town that you're in Mudhoney,

'cause you've got pictures in
the press and stuff like that.

When Mudhoney first started,

they came to
Australia very early,

and my band went to America
around the same time, '88, '89,

and we became friends.

As a teenager, I'd been
obsessed with punk rock.

I'd sort of mucked around with
some friends at high school,

just in the garage or in
the back room or whatever,

and I actually started
off wanting to be

the singer of the band,

but as it turned out we
could not find a bass player,

and I couldn't play bass
and sing at the same time,

so I became a bass player,

but I had a bass guitar
and I was interested in.

- I had already been playing
with Guy in Bloodloss,

and I was like, if Matt doesn't
want to do this anymore,

Guy would be perfect
for the band.

He's a good friend already
and he's a great bass player.

He's got lots of really,
really cool ideas.

- [Guy] It was a
little strange, though,

because I've been
a fan of the band,

and so I always
considered the band to be

the four-piece that
it originally was
with Matt on bass.

Learning the songs and fitting
in wasn't that difficult.

I started off just by going
over to Steve's place in Seattle

and sitting out on his porch

and just doing my songs
with an acoustic guitar.

- The first practice
we had with Guy,

at this point I
was still kind of,

"OK, getting a new bass player."

He comes in and starts playing,

and then and there I knew
this was gonna be cool.

He was a great bass player.

- [Steve] That was
really great to get

a fourth person in the room

that was fully engaged again,

like Matt had been
at the beginning.

- Definitely Guy brought
some new energy to the band.

Spent a couple months
teaching him our catalog

and finally started to move
forward and write new songs.

- He's got a different style,

but he's a very,
very good player.

Excellent choice to
play bass in Mudhoney.

I was actually
thrilled to pieces

when I found out that he
was gonna join the band.

- And they're still great
friends with Matt too,

so it works out.

I mean, Matt comes to the
occasional Mudhoney show

and sits out back and
drinks all their beer,

so it still works out, you know?

He does the same thing
he was doing before,

he just doesn't get on
stage, basically, you know?

[laughing]

[electronic music]

- Mudhoney would never
have left Sub Pop

if it wasn't for the
fact that Sub Pop

was going through huge,
huge growing pains

during the time that
Mudhoney was having

the most success
in the early days.

I think they would
never have left,

so it makes sense.

And as a music fan,
you always love

seeing that kind of stuff.

You know, if a record collector,

you're looking at the
back of the record,

"Oh, man! In that
era, they went back!

"Wow, I wanna hear that record!

"I don't wanna hear
that major label crap!

"I wanna hear that one!"

- Seemed like I ran into
Jonathan at some show.

I walked by him, I'm like,
"Hey, Jonathan, how you doing?"

And he's like, "So
when we gonna get

"the next Mudhoney record?"

I was kind of taken aback.

I'm like, "You wanna put out
another Mudhoney record?"

He's like, "Of course!"

And to me, that was just
kind of, "Well, that's cool."

- There are few joys greater

than the joy of knowing
that Mudhoney was going to

come back to Sub Pop
when the time came,

and it was something that we
all felt really excited about,

and it was something that
made us feel super proud,

was kind of for them
just to come home,

because that's still
the way we saw it.

It didn't feel even
like the good old days.

It felt better than that.

It really felt
like a homecoming.

- [Voiceover] Sub
Pop was no longer

the flying by the
seat of its pants,

making it up as they
were going along.

We were both learning
at the same time.

They were learning how
to be a record label,

and we were learning
how to be a band.

They learned from
their mistakes,

and I can't imagine
being on a better label.

- People who come to
work here, you know,

the early days are mythical.

So now, Mark is in the
office all the time,

and there's a certain
earthbound quality

which I think, frankly,
suits Mark better.

I don't think he necessarily
wants to be a rock god,

but there was this real feeling,

the prodigal son,
this whole idea of

the band that built
Sub Pop is coming back.

[rock music]

[rock scream, echoing]

- The whole end of the
90s kind of energized us.

After we weren't getting
paid for any of it,

we were playing
a lot more music.

Collectively and
individually, we were doing

a crapload more music
than we'd done in years.

[rock music]

- [Voiceover] Mudhoney's
style is not mainstream.

They never wanted
it to be mainstream,

and I'm very glad they
never made the compromises

some of the other
bands tried to make.

- It's a big "Fuck you guys!"

[rock music]

- [Voiceover] In a world where

The White Stripes
and The Dirtbombs

are getting national attention,

Mudhoney made a lot more sense.

[crowd chattering]

- And for the reason that
Mudhoney became popular again

was because they were
almost a direct link

to that time and to that place,

and to Nirvana, for kids
who'd never seen Nirvana.

For them, this was like
a living, tangible link

to that whole scene.

[rock music]

- [Voiceover] As great as
those early records are,

they're better now.

[rock music]

- We recorded that and
"Under a Billion Suns"

kind of in similar manners,

where we would just
go for a long weekend

with one engineer and a studio

and put down three or four songs

and then mix those and
then do the same thing

with someone else when we had

three or four more
songs written.

To me, both those two records
seem kind of of a pair.

♪ It's our patriotic duty

♪ To make sweet love tonight

♪ Come on, little girl

♪ I've become a dirty old man

♪ With a hard on for war

- Oh, yeah, sure.

We as Mudhoney would like
to show our appreciation

for the good people of Japan.

- Who appreciate us.

- [Steve] Who appreciate us.

- And the rest of you
who don't appreciate us?

[laughing]

- I really like
the record a lot.

The songs are more
stripped down and simple

and easy to understand,
right off the bat.

I never like all of our songs,

and I never like all
of our recordings.

This one came closer.

- We did it all in one weekend.

We'd done most of the
tracking by Friday evening,

and then I started
doing the vocals

and finished most of the vocals,

I think, by Saturday evening.

Basically, I'm now at,

it was the first completed take.

I remember coming to
the end of the song

and I had to kind
of throw up my hands

so Dan knew that this
was like the end,

and that was the take.

It was like, wow, it's not
gonna get any better than that.

♪ If this is what it
means to be saved ♪

- [Voiceover] They've been
able to withstand a lot

because they not
just stuck together,

but they never lost sight of

who they were as friends.

They always say, "Don't go into
business with your friends."

Well, sometimes your
friends are all you got.

- They're all total music nerds.

You could go out,
sit down to dinner,

and inevitably it turns into,

"No, that band was not punk
rock, they were post punk rock!"

- They've always played
by their own rules,

and they have a very
high level of integrity,

and they really understand
what it takes to rock.

- Nowadays, the tours are short,

around work schedules,
around kids,

around whatever, around
various different things,

so typically a block
of time is picked

and then it's just filled.

That's what it comes down to.

- It adds a bit of a
sort of vacation vibe

to things for us, because we
don't go out all the time,

and when we do go out
once or twice a year,

it's kind of special for us.

We go places we wanna go.

We get to hang out.

- I'm grateful that
we get to tour at all.

I'm grateful that there
are people out there

who give a shit,
who wanna see us,

and who will bring
us over to Japan

or bring us down to Brazil

or do a show with us
someplace in Europe.

Unfortunately, we
can't tour the way

we used to be able to tour,

'cause everyone works or has
commitments with their family,

so when we do tour, we
tend to pack a lot of stuff

into a short period of time,

which may not be
the smartest way

to go about doing things,

but it's the only way we can.

- It's fun for us. It's low-key.

We're not trying to sell
records, necessarily.

There's no pressure
for us to get out there

and work the record.

It's a cool space right now.

- I am glad that we
are not in a position

where music is our only thing

and that we have to worry about
catering to a certain crowd.

I think we're really
lucky that we get to do

whatever the fuck we
want, despite the crowds.

There's a lot of
people think of music

as a way to get something else.

To me, and I think
the rest of the band,

music is an end
in and of itself.

It's not like a way to
get fame and fortune

and pussy and drugs or whatever.

Thinking about music like that
just kind of creeps me out.

And I think that
might be the result of

kind of the music that
we came up through,

which if you were a
kid playing hardcore

in like 1981 and '82,

the idea that you
were gonna make money

or have fame or get laid or,

well, maybe you might get drugs,

you might get laid,

but it wasn't like
anybody was clamoring

to hear this kind
of music except for

a handful of other
kids your own age.

There wasn't any idea
that there was like

a pot of gold at the
end of the rainbow.

We were doing this just
to amuse ourselves,

and I still am.

[crowd cheering]

[rock music]

- May this be the
official document.

As long as those guys
wanna make records,

I'm gonna put 'em out.

Hopefully they're
not gonna wanna make

too many of them too quickly,

or else we'll all end up

back in the straits that
we were in 20 years ago.

[rock music]

[crowd cheering]

[rock music]

- I mean, I just think
a lot of it's luck

and, you know,
just sheer talent.

Blistering licks and, you
know, hot, hot, hot drum fills.

[laughing]

Well, really, that's what it is.

We're just a fucking
great band, really.

It's a proven fact, isn't it?

- It got universal praise
and universal play.

The only person,
quite ironically,

who gave it a bad
review, is Grant Alden.

I'm calling you out
right here, motherfucker.

- [laughing] White shoes!

Wearing the big old white shoes.

There's a lot of
pictures and videos of me

wearing big old white
shoes, and I'm like,

"Damn, why didn't I
have a little more

"fashion sense back then?"

- It was in the hotel lobby
where we were staying,

and Lukin was walking
by, and I said,

"Hey, Matt, say hi
to my girlfriend."

I handed him the phone.

He'd never met my girlfriend,
didn't know who she was,

and I had just kind
of met the band.

This was the first time
we toured with them.

"Hey, Matt, say hi
to my girlfriend."

And so he grabbed
the phone and says,

"How big's your
pussy?" [laughing]

First words out of his mouth!

[rock music]

♪ I'm now

♪ Yeah, I'm now