The Melvins Double Up for Nude With Boots

The Melvins, America’s favorite sludge metal band, are still plugging away at it after 26 years. Now traipsing across the US in support of its latest release, Nude With Boots (on Mike Patton’s Ipecac label), the band is a nuclear power four, with duel drummers—the original Dale Crover and Big Business cans-man Coady Willis—the inimitable Buzz Osborne (lungs) and bassist Jared Warren. 

I caught up with long-time drummer Crover in Athens, Georgia just as the band was hucking gear into the 40 Watt Club, the next dot on the never exhausted road map for the Melvins. And, having shared the stage with legends, the band obviously has a lot of stories to tell. And if you spoke some of those legends, they’d have tales of the Melvins shenanigans, too. Such as a few narrow misses that result in big what if’s.

“We were the support band on Nirvana’s last tour just before Kurt cancelled the rest of the tour and headed for Rome,” says Crover. “Dave Grohl would come out and jam on a couple of songs with us each night and he dug it so much he wanted to join the band. But he ended up moving out front with his own band, The Foo Fighters, instead.” 

It’s a fact that it’s harder to be an artist’s artist than a fan’s—and The Melvin’s are one of the few bands that can rightfully claim to be both. Growing up in the depressing town of Aberdeen, Washington, Crover and Kurt Cobain were friends and played together in a group called Fecal Matter for a couple of years. Crover went on to record with Nirvana and some of those tracks appear on Bleach, Incesticide and With The Lights Out. Cobain went on to international empathy, citing the Melvins all the way.

As grunge was a sound that emitted from Northwest to the rest of the globe, the Melvins were immediately filed under that rubric along with Soundgarden, Mother Love Bone, Mudhoney and others because of the area. Yet they’ve evolved over time from grunge to hardcore to sludge metal, just as they’ve moved from Seattle to San Francisco to Los Angeles. 

When asked about The Melvins’ song structures and time signatures Crover says, “Well, Buzz is the main songwriter and he has his own time signature. He will jam for a strange amount of time and where he puts his downbeat isn’t always where you think it is.” Um, well, yes. That’s true. Listening to Nude With Boots makes you (and especially a drummer like me) sit up on the edge of your seat trying to anticipate where the band is going next. “We are really into working with Ribbon Crashers from Rhythm Tech and Paiste special effects cymbals along with other percussive sound instrument. What’s really cool is Coady plays left-handed, so we can set up our drums with our floor toms together and share a lot of the percussion that hangs in between us.”

Listening to Nude With Boots, you’ll notice (and especially a drummer like me) that the drums are panned hard left and right, giving it a flam or slight echo feel, resulting in a super-thick sound. “Suicide in Progress” is confusing and disruptive to all that’s safe, no measurement of time, with elongated riffs leading to some final thread of hope that stays just out of reach. The heavy riffs and feedback of “The Smiling Cobra” tells you all you need to know—the Melvins aren’t fucking around.

(I personally love the drum roll intro in the title track gathering speed and dropping into that gorgeous balance of guitar bass and drums. This is rock & roll, baby. And when Buzz’s voice finally shows up you believe him, man, and all is well in the universe.)

“Tastes Better Than the Truth” is another march but this one starts in the basement . . . and there are already bodies tied up and drifting in and out of consciousness and you are scared . . . don’t fucking kid me kid . . . there’s someone on the phone trying to reach help while the neighbors ignore the smell of death and continue their screaming and vulgar behavior . . . I keep thinking the stewardess is talking and trying to get my attention but when I look up there’s no one there and I realize it’s just my head repeating all those fucked up moments of guilt and shame I had so carefully pushed back into those tiny places . . . my vision is getting jumpy and I’m not sure I feel all that well . . . I’m really thirsty . . . fuck I need a drink.

Ahem. Right, as I was saying.

The Melvins are coming to the Glass House, and it should be a good show.

The F Yeah Fest, featuring The Melvins, Negative Approach and Big Business at the Glass House, 200 W. 2nd Street, Pomona, (909) 865-3802. Friday, August 29, 7PM, $16 at door