SPEAKER_00 0:08

Welcome to A Fresh Face in Hell. I'm your host, Jonathan Evanston. Every week we talk to someone new and interesting, somebody intellectually curious, somebody who will hopefully renew our faith in this cold, cool world we live in. A Fresh Face in Hell. My first encounter with Mark Arm uh was in, I believe, late 1982, uh, when he wrote my fanzine, Simplex One, um, to inform me that I'd spelled Seattle wrong on the cover. Uh it was a little embarrassing. Look, I didn't go to class much. Um, I later met, and a few months later, I met Matt and Mark either at either at the show box or early days of the metropolis. And and though he was like five, six years older than me, he always treated me as a peer. Um, and that little bit of grace meant the world to young monkey seeker, as I was known then. I was 14 years old, and here's this guy that's like 20, 21. He's already in college, he's super smart, super cool. Um, and it meant it meant the world to me. They just kind of treated me on equal terms because uh I wasn't used to adults uh being that way. Um, if we were to anoint a godfather of Seattle punk, Mark would absolutely be in the running. Uh from Mr. App to the Limp Richards to the thrown-ups to monkey wrench to mud honey. Mark has been a constant uh in Seattle scene and beyond. And today, my fellow Lloyd Luddite is going to join us. And I uh the first thing I want to know, Mark, is Pomeranian Chihuahuas. What are these adorable little dogs? Tell me about them. Are they your little buddies?

SPEAKER_01 1:42

Uh they are my little buddies, they are Pomeranians, and uh that is a really weird uh um path that we've gone down because you know we've had dogs since the mid-90s, early 90s. Um, and these are definitely the smallest dogs we've ever had. Uh we got um Russell, who's in the um little dogs video, we got him. Uh he was basically a foster. He was taken from uh an apartment in the district that had like 44 animals, and there was a desperate need for fosters. And uh we got his brother first and then got him a month later, and uh it was a court case that went on for 14 months before they could be released, and um by that point these little puppies were ours.

SPEAKER_00 2:36

Oh my god, what but so were they in like shelters for 14 months? Were they like traumatized? No, no, they were staying with us.

SPEAKER_01 2:42

Oh, okay, but it was like a foster parent's. They went into uh the Seattle Animal Shelter, and you know, like they didn't have room for 44 animals.

SPEAKER_00 2:54

So basically it was just volunteers took them into their homes and I get a big kick out of seeing pictures of you with those little furry guys. What happens if you start looking like one though? You know, people start looking like your pets. I'm fine with that. They're better looking than I am. So everybody um from the Seattle scene, literally everybody we've talked to here on the pod, from Jeff Ament to Stone to Steve to Buzz Osborne to Kim Thyle, every one of them has cited you as being influential in their musical tastes at a kind of a formative stage in the early 80s. So take me back to the very beginning of your musical curiosity, like pre-pre-punk rock.

SPEAKER_01 3:34

Oh, this is really pre-punk rock. Um, so my family moved to Seattle when I was about four. Uh my dad was a way way in the weeds. He he was from Kansas, he met my mom in Germany. Uh, they had me. We moved to Seattle when I was four. My mom uh wanted to be an opera singer and studied for it, but like that was interrupted by the war. Um and uh her idea of music, the only the only music that was any good at all was classical music. That kind and they were also older parents, like at the time it was kind of weird to have parents that were like 40 when you were born. Uh and I just felt kind of weird and alone with these two older people. Um so you were an only? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And yeah, that would be weird. My parents were older too, but I had a gaggle of older brothers and sisters. Right, right. I didn't I didn't have any of that. And I was just um really FM radio?

SPEAKER_00 4:43

What led you to something beyond really attractive?

SPEAKER_01 4:45

I mean, originally just what was on AM radio. I mean, like I think my earliest memory of music was kids on the playground going, she loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, and and me singing along, not even knowing what it was.

SPEAKER_00 5:00

That's interesting because Kim brought up the Beatles. A lot of people, the the Beatles, the Beatles is the first thing they remember. For me, it was Elton John and the Beatles as well, because I had older brothers and sisters. Um, we I interviewed Helena Rogers from student nurse for the Metropolis stock, and um, she and her partner owned Roboto Records at that time, and she talked about how you were one of their early customers who had come in and and she said they turned you into a lot, turned you on a lot of stuff like jazz and stuff like that. Because I remember when I met you, you were listening to like Ornette Coleman and shit.

SPEAKER_01 5:29

And I was like, Yeah, we got that from Roboto Records from uh John and Helena and and Tom Dyer and uh other people at work there.

SPEAKER_00 5:40

So, like what?

SPEAKER_01 5:41

I remember Ornette Coleman, but you listen to like John Coltrane or No, I was not not familiar with, but somehow Albert Eiler. Uh yeah. And I I was I mean, I was just trying to figure things out, and like probably in the like around 76 or something, was really into rush. Like a friend of mine turned me on to that, so I was kind of like dipping my toes into things like the Dixie Drags and um uh Jean-Luc Ponty. Are you still you still listening to jazz? Oh, yeah, yeah. More now than I actually did then. Like at that point, we were listening to Albert Eiler and Ornette Coleman mainly for the noise factor.

SPEAKER_00 6:22

Like yeah, that was the plastic horn. I think you guys were listening to like the plastic horn uh incarnation. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:29

If we, you know, anything to clear the room, that was kind of uh that mental. We're good at it.

SPEAKER_00 6:35

You guys were good at it. Everybody else I interviewed for the film is just like uh man, Mr. App was like everybody loved it, but everybody said this, like, oh man. I re I saw one of my reviews and uh it said uh this band could curdle vinegar. Sorry, guys, like you guys were at home sweating that. You were probably going, yes.

SPEAKER_01 6:55

Yeah, I mean that I mean we kind of took that as a point of pride because I knew we didn't really have any other skills except for uh Dorothy, who was a really great drummer. Like the rest of us just knew how to make noise.

SPEAKER_00 7:06

Was Dorothy, she was a part of the no, the original the the origin story for for Mr. Epp and the calculations was high school, yes, right? Like years before your first show. Take take take the listeners through the very beginning of Mr. Epp. Tell tell them tell them about your math teacher and so forth.

SPEAKER_01 7:21

Well, I there was this guy, Mr. Epp, he taught math. Um, and it was kind of an imaginary group, and I wasn't initially a part of it, but I was adjacent to it. Um, and like a couple of the kids, they went on a like the French class went on a trip to France, so there there's a Mr. Up European tour. Um and then at some point, like actually after my senior year, like that summer, we decided to get instruments, you know, and we were obviously influenced by like what was happening, the local punk scene, going to see weird shows at halls and and um and and also like hearing, you know, records by like PIL and Black Flag and Flipper and Void and stuff like that, you know.

SPEAKER_00 8:11

So was it Robotta Records that led you to PIL and that stuff, or or or did you find that on your own?

SPEAKER_01 8:16

I think I I think I first like read about PIL maybe in Rolling Stone or or you know, it was just it was the band that like Johnny Rotten started after the Sex Pistol. So it was it was kind of I mean I maybe read a review of PIL in Rolling Stone that r referred to Can. So I g that that's how I started listening to Can.

SPEAKER_00 8:42

Because I've had this conversation with you, and and you you said no, I'm I was never thought of myself as any sort of like uh you know maven for punk rock or spreader of it, and yet everybody says that. What how do you account for influencing so many people? Were you just discovering stuff before your peers? Or what? I mean, because everybody said it.

SPEAKER_01 9:02

I no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Because like, you know, like I had roommates like when I went to the University of Washington uh in the spring quarter, I moved into a house and my roommate Dana like had he basically turned me on to like you know, like wire and parubu. You know, I was a kind of a little late on that stuff. Um it was just a conversation, you know, like with Kim Thyle, we would go to each other's places and like play records for each other. Do you remember something Kim Thyle turned you on to? Um, yeah, actually he was the first person I who uh talked about the MC5 and Budgie.

SPEAKER_00 9:45

Yeah, see it's funny how you remember, and I think a lot of people remember you for specific things like that. Like I remember Buzz Melvin was the first person to really I mean I'd heard of Black Sabbath, but he was the first one to like play me paranoid. He played me like Electric Warrior, and I remember Stone was the first person to play Alice Cooper for me. Um, so you did have that effect where where did you start fanzines? Is that where you were finding this stuff?

SPEAKER_01 10:08

I mean, in 1982, yeah, fanzines and other like like there's this magazine Trouser Press, and I remember like you know, reading a review of like a Sonics reissue, and I think it might have been written by Mick Farron, who was uh a British guy who was in a band called The Deviants, like one of those bands from Ladbroke Grove that would like play with Hawkwind and and maybe a version of the pretty things and just like they were kind of he wrote a book called Give the Anarchist a Cigarette, if he gives you any idea of like where he was coming from. And it was weird to me that I learned about this band from my backyard from a British guy in an Anglophilic uh magazine.

SPEAKER_00 10:54

That's that's crazy because I was not aware of the Sonics then. I didn't become aware of the Sonics till much later, like the 90s or something like that. Did I did they come across my radar? I mean, I'd heard of Paul Revere and the Raiders and the Whalers, because I went to high school with Jerry Denon's kid, and I think he was the first one to sign like the Kingsman and maybe uh maybe the Wailers. And so they were better the Sonics were never on my radar, so I was 30th. I'm like, what a I was like, what a revelation that was.

SPEAKER_01 11:21

They were on your radar, you might not have known it, because like the you men would cover like Boss Haas and various songs.

SPEAKER_00 11:29

Well, that's true. I just didn't know who they were. Um, so it's a Saturday, Emily is out of town. It's just you and your Pomeranians. Uh what do you what are you gonna sit around the house and listen to? If you're gonna listen to records all day, what what can I expect you to be listening to?

SPEAKER_01 11:46

Probably some anxiety-provoking uh uh political podcast. Um uh actually I I don't know. It depends on you know what I'm I don't know. There's like so much stuff I don't know what the default thing is, just kind of what strikes my mind.

SPEAKER_00 12:11

You're gonna listen and kind of stay in one vein. See, I hop around. Like if I if you're gonna hop around, I'd probably listen to 10. I'd probably I might listen to Coleman Hawkins, and then I might listen to to Hoosker Doo, and then I might listen to just stuff all over the place. Oh, you're doing it all wrong. Thank you. Thank you. Well, I have a friend who just you're like, he'll make you a mixtape and it's just like all garage rock. You know what I mean? And like I make a mixtape and it goes from like ema sumac to like uh what whatever, like just all over the place.

SPEAKER_01 12:42

I think I think it's uh it's much more fun to make a miss mixtape that like takes you on a journey and like see if you can like connect things that normally wouldn't be connected, you know. Like how many songs would it take for me to get from like void to Janice Joplin?

SPEAKER_00 13:00

You know, see on my tapes is zero.

SPEAKER_01 13:02

But I mean, you know, like I tried to make like sort of the tradition uh uh transitional songs on the you know, not just like every once in a while there'll be like a hard cut, but yours are I are you still doing that?

SPEAKER_00 13:14

I still make them like weekly. I I haven't made mixtape in years, but I used to make them all the time. Um, how do you discover new music at this point? I mean, I I found that it ain't easy after 40. Of course, I'm not in a touring band.

SPEAKER_01 13:26

I'm not deep in the weeds the way I was in like my 20s and 30s and whatnot, you know. Um mostly like through friends at work, or like if Steve or Dan thinks, you know, or Guy like talks about something cool, you know. Um you know, there's a friend of mine, Gabe, at work, who's like really deep into kind of reissue stuff, and so you know, learn about shit like ironclaw or something. And another guy at the uh warehouse, uh Cam, he's really in tune with like the new stuff that's coming up when he digs deep into kind of like the newer underground stuff, be it like jazz or rock or whatever, you know.

SPEAKER_00 14:08

See, I need more people like that in my life.

SPEAKER_01 14:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:11

I still I still search for new music and I find it, but it it's usually just sort of random happenstance that I find it. I need somebody younger to to like show me the way.

SPEAKER_01 14:21

And and luckily, like Larry Hardy is an old friend of mine, and he runs in the red records, and every once in a while will send me something that he thinks I might like that uh and his tastes are impeccable.

SPEAKER_00 14:31

And you know, subpop, just when you say work, um, for those that don't know it, Mark's still at subpop uh big part of running the operations at subpop.

SPEAKER_01 14:39

And so Well the operations being the warehouse. I'm not running I'm not making any decisions like uh please don't send me your demo.

SPEAKER_00 14:48

But you I mean you do just the culture of the the culture of your place of employment, isn't there music around a lot? I mean, aren't you hearing things? Like I mean, I mean, doesn't it come down to the street?

SPEAKER_01 15:00

Well the warehouse is separate from the office. Like we uh moved into a bigger space, god, like almost 15 years ago, I think. So we're down in Georgetown, whereas the office is in downtown Seattle.

SPEAKER_00 15:15

So I know I everybody I've heard this from a bunch of people. They get a big kick when they order subpop records and it says your name on it. How did that end up happening?

SPEAKER_01 15:24

Is that just so the warehouse manager? So, like my name is on the uh that the template that's has the address on it by default. When I first started working at Sub Pop, I was the only person in the warehouse, so it was really funny to me that my title was warehouse manager.

SPEAKER_00 15:45

How many people are down there with you now? Down there in the drugs. And you're the manager, you're the boss. Well uh Gabe is the operations manager, so I'd say he's a little bit uh um something I've always admired and uh respected about you is that you were always devoted to making music, but you were never devoted to being a rock star. Um when the AN guy A and R guy started sniffing around Seattle in the late 80s, and I remember everybody was taking vocal lessons, and you didn't seem to want anything to do with that, which of course is uh, you know, that's punk rock to the bone. But is that something that you and Steve and Matt and Dan talked about? Like, hey, look, these people are kind of trying to sound more commercial, maybe to to attract AR attention to do these showcases, and I just want to make music for my friends and I want to sound the way we've always sounded. Is that did you guys discuss that?

SPEAKER_01 16:39

We didn't discuss anything. Nobody in terms of like I mean, you know, what we would talk about is here are the bands we like. And so I mean, I think I think I think that would set, you know, what uh how how we were gonna go about things.

SPEAKER_00 16:56

So but nobody in Mud Honey was ever kind of like, hey Mark, uh, you know, what about uh you ever think of taking some vocal lessons, you know? Not in Mud Honey No, no, but in but in Green River you probably got a little of that though, right?

SPEAKER_01 17:09

Yeah, I got a little bit of that, but you know, no one pushed too hard, and obviously Green River broke up.

SPEAKER_00 17:14

Well, and but it's that's amazing because you're such a stylist. Be and and here I'm I'm I'm just going through in my head and thinking of all the people you've stood in for.

SPEAKER_01 17:24

Uh I mean I I kind of figured like the reason I didn't want to take vocal lessons, and I I got basically learned one thing from my mom. Can you hear those dogs?

SPEAKER_00 17:35

Yeah, that but they're cute, it's fine. Okay, okay. In fact, we want to just bring them in to meet them. I want to see them all up in your lap, and I want to see you happy and smiling and patting them.

SPEAKER_01 17:43

Well, this time of the day we refer to it as a yappy hour. Like if it's morning after they've eaten, they're just like sacked out for like four to six hours. And then three, how many is there? Three, four? There's three more dogs sitting and uh another dog, so there's four in the house right now.

SPEAKER_00 18:03

I'm having a hard time. Every time I've ever like my experience with Pomeranians, which is very limited, is that they're just always kind of kinetic. No. And they're all older at this point.

SPEAKER_01 18:16

Well one we just recently got, like last um uh last November, I think, last or September. Um, and he was in such bad shape that he had to like get all his teeth pulled. Um, and once we had him, we realized he didn't understand the difference between like outside and inside. So we referred to him for a long time as a toothless pea machine.

SPEAKER_00 18:40

We are really demystifying the life of a rock star here. I just love you're you're not talking about it. The wizard chasing his diapered Pomeranian around the house. That's not not what I think probably a lot of Mud Honey fans conjured.

SPEAKER_01 18:55

Well, uh to be fair, I'm really high on blow the whole time.

SPEAKER_00 19:00

Yeah, it's true.

SPEAKER_01 19:01

Yeah, just wired just trying to chase down this little dog.

SPEAKER_00 19:05

So I was saying a minute ago, I was kind of going through my head, a lot of the people you've stood in for, like you've pretty much acted. I what you did the thing on top of Pike Place Market where you were basically doing stooges covers, right? So you were tasked with kind of being Iggy. Yeah, but I mean that I that's that's something I've kind of studied since day one. Yeah. And then I've remembered MC5, you did the thing with Evan Dandown, he just was kind of behind you going like that, and you just totally owned it. Um uh and then the one that surprised me though, because I didn't hear like when I think I think Mark Garmin, I I think MC Five, I hear that. Uh Stooges, I hear that. But then when you went and sang with the Saints, I didn't I didn't think I that was a weird fit for me. Like just vocally, I don't think of you singing like Chris Bailey. How how did that go? Was that kind of different for you?

SPEAKER_01 19:54

I mean, uh different are you there's it's not like screaming or anything. There's like you know, on nights in Venice I get to scream, but it's you know, I'm trying to be somewhat authentic and also be myself.

SPEAKER_00 20:09

Right. So be kind of trying to emulate him, but put your own voice on it. But so it's not I'll be honest, I haven't heard the recording, so I don't it doesn't it vocally it's sort of different than Mudhoney.

SPEAKER_01 20:20

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:22

Yeah, more melodic or as melodic as I get. I mean J flat that's the note I've heard associated with you in the past is J flat. You're one of the few guys that can hit that that uh elusive J flat. Um of all the bands I've known that have experienced long-term success and actually endured, it seems to me from the outside. I mean, but knowing knowing you guys, but Mud Honey seems to me to be the most sort of sympathy as a unit. Like, I don't, I don't know, like you, Steve, Dan, and Guy, you really seem close from an outsider's perspective, like on the same page about the business of being in a rock and roll band. Um, there just doesn't seem to be the weirdness of personality conflicts or like uh difficulties with band dynamic or egos. Am I right in making this assumption or is it just a shit show and I don't see it? You guys I think you're you're right, you know.

SPEAKER_01 21:17

Yeah. I mean, we I mean, I think the best thing about our band is that we're all our friends and we get along and we're happy to see each other, you know, even after all these years. But you know, I don't think we're like the only Northwest band to be like that. There's girl trouble. That's true.

SPEAKER_00 21:37

I don't know those guys really, but so I don't have any personal insight into it. But I mean, I mean just to hear the same four people since 1984. That's pretty rad. So take me through the very your very first live performance, which I happen to be at. I think it was your first live performance, at least at a in a uh Mr. Epp's first show at the Metropolis. Or no? No. No, you played like the Serbian Hall and some places before, right?

SPEAKER_01 22:03

Yeah, we played halls before that.

SPEAKER_00 22:05

Um your last show was at the metropolis. That's what I'm thinking. That's what it was. Yeah. And I've seen some amazing footage of that where you know somebody's like emptying a vacuum bag full of hair, and there's like 18 people on the stage, including this one little kid playing a violin who looks like he's about nine. Yeah, I'm not even sure where like most of those people came from. No, it was beautiful. It's of the six hours of footage, extant footage we have in the metropolis, that like three minutes of Mr. Epp is by far my favorite of all the footage because it just, it just, it, it exemplified everything about the place and the energy. How the stage was there was on the stage, off the stage, there was a lot of like, you know what I mean? There was like 18 people on the stage. And you know, uh, Joe Smitty was I think it was playing a beer bong, and they like I said, the kid with the fiddle. I think there's a kid with like a maybe a troop. There's some brass or some woodwinds up on stage, maybe even. Um how did that happen? That was just about noise, yeah. Yeah. But see, that's not the Mohawk man, Mr. Ep. That would be mainstream, Mr. Ep.

SPEAKER_01 23:15

Well, the Mohawk man Mr. Up was sort of almost like a studio version of us. Like um Myra Masco and Dennis White, who had a label called Pravda, and we'd been flyering. And I think it might have been Myri who was like, Oh, we're wondering who's who had been putting up these posters. Because we we'd been flyering since I think before we even had a show. And Todd used to uh go downtown and get get in the ride-free zone and write Mr. Up on the back seat of all the buses. So he would just like if he was bored, which was often because there's not much there wasn't much to do, he would like take a bus downtown and just cruise around and hop from bus to bus in the ride-free zone and write Mr. Up on the back of the seats. So like these buses went to like every suburb um in all directions. And that was guerrilla marketing. That was our propaganda campaign.

SPEAKER_00 24:20

Todd was correct me if I'm wrong, he was really smart, right? Was he like kind of intellectual? I don't remember. I didn't really know him that well, but didn't he wasn't he a writer for a while or wasn't he writing stuff? I I think everyone in Mr.

SPEAKER_01 24:33

Up was really smart.

SPEAKER_00 24:34

Oh, sorry. I didn't mean it that way. I mean maybe I thought of you. Maybe not. Well, I mean you were in college, that's how I thought of you. I just didn't know him. I knew you and I knew Smitty, but I didn't really know Todd. So I was just curious.

SPEAKER_01 24:46

I've lost touch with Todd. I haven't uh spoken to him in a very, very long time.

SPEAKER_00 24:51

So I want to go back to the metropolis with you again. I want to talk, talk to me about a band who I I I think about this idea of late greats, bands that um bands that were like iconic in a region for young people who never got the who never who never hit like Mud Honey or Pearl Jam or Dermot or but the U Men. Talk to me about the U Men.

SPEAKER_01 25:16

Uh the U Men were a a great band, like definitely pushed things forward musically, and they weren't just doing like kind of straight up punk rock, you know. Their name comes from like a boo uh Perubu bootleg. Somehow they blended like Perubu and the sonics and the birthday party and all kinds of cool stuff into their own little uh what do you call it? Uh the thing that the witches of Macbeth were like uh stirring the pot in.

SPEAKER_00 25:47

Oh, the cauldron. Thank you. Their own little cauldron. Yeah. I mean, they can I I always kind of heard some cramps in there, a little cramps for sure, yeah. And a little uh gun club, who they played with and I thought blew away. Yeah, yeah. I think they were they were amazing.

SPEAKER_01 26:04

They destroyed the gun club.

SPEAKER_00 26:05

But here's one thing I want to ask. I mean, you may have no insight into this, but like I've always wondered, John Bigley. Like, I'm trying to get my brain around this guy because he's like a Seattle icon, like he was a rock god to us, you know, him and like Paul Soldier. But like it's interesting because he seems to want nothing to do with that legacy or anything, like he stayed away from music. Everybody I talk to says, like, yeah, I see John, we talk fine, but then the minute I bring up the you men of the music, he just kind of shuts down. He's not that interested in it. I'm just trying to understand what why that is, or like what uh if anybody has any insight, because it's I find it fascinating.

SPEAKER_01 26:42

I have no insight into that.

SPEAKER_00 26:45

Yeah, I want to make a documentary just about him and figure out why. I mean, like, I I mean, I compared to most people who I mean, like, look, I haven't been in a band in 38 years, but I still cling to that little tiny bit of legacy of like two two years of being in that band that got to play some good shows. And and uh like I just can't imagine being the singer for the human and then just like ah, I mean, like I just I just want to know what he's thinking. Oh, that was kid stuff, or is he embarrassed of it, or what? It's just so fascinating to me because I know other people that are just always sort of pushing this narrative of how important their bands were.

SPEAKER_01 27:23

One I can't talk about I know who you're talking about.

SPEAKER_00 27:26

Yeah, it's uh I've been having an issue with the person, almost kind of thready emails like it's really because any narrative that does not include them as some sort of progenitor of the whole sound.

SPEAKER_01 27:38

Like, yeah, and then I'm like absolutely fucking ridiculous.

SPEAKER_00 27:42

Yeah, well, I reached out. And who cares? Who the fuck cares?

SPEAKER_01 27:47

Yeah, I mean, it's not a huge I mean it's something pride in, but not to push a narrative like it's like you know, I admire John because he doesn't seem to give a shit about it. Um, and I'm not a nostalgic person, and I don't fucking try to make a claim on anything. And it's weird to me that for you to say something like I'm a punk icon or whatever the fuck. I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 28:14

Yeah, I know.

SPEAKER_01 28:15

It's weird, but I like the I'm a guy who's hanging around with like little Pomeranians in in West Seattle.

SPEAKER_00 28:20

I get it, but like well, like it or not, you know, there's you and then there's your body of work, and then there's all the people that love your work. So this whole other persona that's not whatever, it's not you or whatever. But I mean, it's true. Everybody I talk to says, yeah, Mark was really influential on me. But I think you're you're just very humble about saying, oh no, I don't, I don't, I never thought of myself that way, or uh I almost wonder uh you know, if you're just contrarian, you gotta see it.

SPEAKER_01 28:47

I uh you're you're a fucking icon, but I mean there was a bunch of people who were there, and I don't think any one person was more important than anybody else.

SPEAKER_00 28:56

That's yeah, kind of the way certain people in cultures just happen to connect with a lot of people, though. You know what I mean? There's certain if you have a community of cultures that's made up of um, you know, a lot of little tribes or stuff like that, there's always gonna be people in that dynamic of people who maybe cross more bridges, like uh know people in this group, but no people in this group.

SPEAKER_01 29:16

You're just very well known to but you know, as time goes on, that's gonna slip away. And at some point there's gonna be like, you know, like in like a hundred years' time, punk is gonna be like it's gonna be one band that's remembered. It's gonna be probably like the Sex Pistols or something. You know, like like it'll it'll be like um who's the marching band guy? Um Philip Sousa. Yeah, like there used to be a ton of American marching band uh um composers, and he's the one guy that we remember now and you if you had to pick that who who would you want that one band to be if one band had to survive?

SPEAKER_00 30:01

I wouldn't want it to be the Sex Epistles. I I don't care. Damn, you really aren't nostalgic at all. It's interesting because I would just think somebody who is still in a band, the same band for 35 years, who's been playing punk rock for over 40 years.

SPEAKER_01 30:18

You know why that is? It's uh a lack of inertia. Please explain. I I just can't think of anything else to do, man.

SPEAKER_00 30:30

Well, you wanted to be a writer for a while.

SPEAKER_01 30:32

Yeah, I did, I did. And then I I actually gotta like when I heard that you were writing novels and were on like had New York Times bestsellers, I was just like, holy shit, that little motherfucker did it. That is really impressive to me.

SPEAKER_00 30:47

Well, it didn't happen quickly, I'll tell you that. I didn't write it.

SPEAKER_01 30:50

I can't imagine it did, but like I never had the perseverance to even like go beyond a short story, you know. Like when I got my writing degree, it was like I couldn't even conceive of like having the patience to sit down and finish a novel. So that might be that's interesting. I can't imagine having the courage. My writing degree is in uh as an emphasis on short stories.

SPEAKER_00 31:14

Well, uh, at the time that you were doing that, everybody's was. I mean, like the whole Masters of Fine Art program, everything was about reading Raymond Carver and reading Dennis Johnson and like it was about the short story. They didn't start teaching the novels in like graduate programs and stuff until like the 2010s or something like that.

SPEAKER_01 31:31

When I was uh at the University of Washington, there were people who had like uh who wanted to write novels, for sure.

SPEAKER_00 31:40

Was there anybody teaching it though? Was Charles Johnson, I don't know if he was there at that point.

SPEAKER_01 31:48

I can't remember um my professor's name, but she was she'd been working on something for like, I don't know, 12 years or something by that point that was about to come out. She was great, but but I'm you know so you never finished. My brain was like, I mean, I was at school and I was doing the you know, checking the boxes, but my brain was uh in the punk rock scene, in the underground music scene.

SPEAKER_00 32:21

I think that I learned more from that about like I don't think if it weren't for the DIY punk rock ethos that I learned from punk rock, I don't I don't think my career would have ever happened because I I came at it at it from an outside purview. I didn't go to a graduate program or writing program where I got to meet agents at the end of it and I was taught by great writers. I mean, most of my friends, if I told them I was writing poetry or something, would like, you know, call me a fag and hit me in the shoulder or something. I had a lot of friends that were more jockey, and so writing was kind of a dirty little secret, but I I I I had no idea how to be how to approach it. Like I would write a 500-page book and then I would just like literally send it to an office building in New York with like a really pretentious cover letter about how important I thought the novel was. And I just can't, I mean, I get kind of read thinking about it like these people, hey Jim, come over here, look at this. And then like they're all sitting around reading this like super pompous, like pretentious uh cover letter from a 21-year-old about shitty novel, and then just like over the transom, thump into the garbage can. I did that for like a decade. Wow. And it wasn't until I realized that I kind of remembered the metropolis and seeing people on stage and going, like, oh, that's how you do it. You just fucking do it, right? And so I just started to put the wheel before the cart. I didn't, instead of kind of getting an agent like they told you to, I just started going to the publishers that I thought were good. And like that's when I taught myself, like the onus was on me to like know what they did. And then they, you're not supposed to do that. You're supposed to have an agent. But if you say to an editor, I love that you publish this book, this book, this uh this book, and this book, and then they're immediately like, ah, this guy knows what I do. I'm willing to listen. Send me stuff. So I all that hustle and stuff that finally took me to get through in like my the end of my second decade of writing novels was all stuff I learned from from being in punk bands. And and I think in a way that's why I am that's part of the reason I account for my I I am nostalgic. I don't know how you can't be nostalgic because you're part of such a cool thing. How do you account for your lack of nostalgia? Um I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 34:28

Uh I I I don't I feel like maybe the best part of my life is now instead of then. You know? I'm definitely happier now than I was in my twenties.

SPEAKER_00 34:47

Just I mean do you think just identity, sense of identity? You found something that you were meant to do and you stuck with it, and now you know how to navigate that like the back of your hand, so maybe more comfortable in your own skin. This is the part where I'm psychoanalyzing you. I want to get inside inside the head of the wizard.

SPEAKER_01 35:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 35:07

Not so much, no.

SPEAKER_01 35:10

Okay. So you'll find a bunch of uh empty rooms.

SPEAKER_00 35:14

How about give me some musicians who uh you think might surprise people that you like? Again, I think this is gonna be a question you're like, how should I know it? But right, right, right. I would be surprised if you said you were like listening to Vampire Weekend on, you know, yeah, I would be surprised too. Yeah, so like surprise. For me, it's surprise. The music's gotta surprise me on some level. I can't, I can't just do pure bubblegum pop because it doesn't surprise me. I'll be like, up, here comes the verse, chorus, verse, chorus, verse, chorus. Most everything I like has a little bit more of an expansive quality, which you know, all of jazz does essentially. But like even with my punk rock, I tend towards bands that um like I just remember being in March of Crimes and being really impressed at like Ben and Andy and those guys. I had no talent, but those guys they would throw like little jazzy interludes. Like they would just the song would slow down, and then Nelson would just start slowing down on the drums, and then they'd just start some little kind of kind of weird jammy thing. And I thought, that is so cool. I could have never thought of that. Well, that's awesome. Except for the for them. I just wish yeah, I I sent, you know, it's kind of a what if situation with me. I could have like I don't think I had the talent or the balls or anything like that to ever be to do what you do. Yeah, well, you just said the same thing to me. You you said you didn't have the stick to itiveness or whatever, the discipline, but I I don't I don't think I would have the confidence.

SPEAKER_01 36:46

Well, I mean, in a way, I just kind of feel like I fell into this backwards.

SPEAKER_00 36:50

But you look like you fell straight forward and like so confident. Like that's the thing. I was watching that the the the MC5 thing, I think it's like on the Craig Kilborne show or something, and you were just like fucking owning it, like you know, the singing part. And then Evan Dandau is a great musician in his own right, but he was kind of like a little more like he just didn't seem as comfortable, but like that's a fucking those are some big pants to fill, and you just fucking owned it. And so, like how what how do you account for that sort of just confidence?

SPEAKER_01 37:18

Well uh more often than not, the confidence is just sort of like bullshit. It's it's um it's pretending and then you it becomes real.

SPEAKER_00 37:29

Do we mean on the continuing of your life like you were pretending when you were 16 and then it became real?

SPEAKER_01 37:35

Or do you mean every time you do it every time when you get up there just like you gotta just you know, I'm I still get nervous before we play.

SPEAKER_00 37:42

That's what I was gonna ask. So you still get nervous? Like, and what does that look like? Because I don't I I I guess sometimes I get I I only get nervous when I'm getting paid, I notice. Like I do like hundreds of speaking gigs, and I mean I could just roll out of bed and wash down some, you know, a couple aspirin with warm club soda and just like hit the lectern and I'm fine until they're paying me like a keynote thing, and then I gotta feel like, oh shit. Then I feel like I'm then I feel like I'm a imposter. And so like then I start kind of getting the sweats, and I've got all these you know pages of stuff written out, and then I'm like, oh god, I can't read because I want to engage, and then I get up there and I'm just like fuck it, and I just throw them and they just flutter to the stage, and then I just I just is it like that?

SPEAKER_01 38:24

Um no, it's kind of like before we go on stage. I don't know if I really want to get into my bodily functions, but oh okay.

SPEAKER_00 38:35

Just like so it starts with a little bit of a hollowness in the stomach. That's enough. That's okay. Just cleaning out the old pipes, you know. I mean, it goes all the way through, it turns out. Um, how do you how do you you're a 64-year-old rock star? How does that look different from a 26-year-old rock star? And why do you continue rather than fading off into the sunset? Uh I continue because we still can. Meaning commercially or meaning just physically because you can also seem to still be interested in what we're doing.

SPEAKER_01 39:15

So would you do you think okay, so if that weren't the case? I don't know. I don't know. You know, I mean you don't like hypotheticals.

SPEAKER_00 39:26

Would you be in a dad band? Do you think you'd be in a dad band if if if if you you weren't doing dates in Australia still and there wasn't still a big market and Mud Honey wasn't kind of a household name? Do you think you would still is the music I mean, as somebody who wrote novels for 20 years that nobody was gonna read, my mom wasn't reading them. I know that there's a uh compulsion in me to do this. And if I'd never been published, I still would have written 30 novels, and none of them had been published. I'm asking i if if that would be the case for you. Is it i i do you think you would be in a dad band?

SPEAKER_01 39:59

I don't know. It's not much of an answer, right? But I don't I don't you know, um I guess I'd have to be a dad first.

SPEAKER_00 40:14

Who is there somebody is there somebody in Mud Honey do you think that like when I talk to Jeff about Pearl Jam, he's like, you know, sometimes it's like I'm in the mafia and I I just like sometimes I don't even really want to do it anymore, but I kind of have to because of the other guys. Is there somebody in Mud Honey that's more like that? Somebody who you feel like is just more I mean maybe it could be Guy because he came to it later and it's fresher, or is there is there somebody who do you think would is like the driving force that like wouldn't let Mud Honey die? Would that be Steve?

SPEAKER_01 40:49

Would that be I I don't I think it's it's kind of a a collective, you know, at least with Steve, Dan, and myself. Like, you know, like Guy's a little bit more difficult because he's in Australia now. Uh he's definitely a part of the band, but you know, he can't be here for everything. Uh like we'll play local shows with Jim Sankster on bass.

SPEAKER_00 41:13

Was there ever a time since 1988? Was there ever a time whether it's when when M Matt left, or was there other a time where you guys actually kind of sat down and go, what do you think? Do we keep doing this? Or it's just never been a question.

SPEAKER_01 41:30

No, it was it was definitely like when Matt left, we didn't really know how to move forward. Um, and you know, like being a bunch of dudes who, you know, like communicate like dudes, which means not very well. Um, we don't really have like heart-to-heart discussions except occasionally when everyone's really hammered. We just kind of sat on it for a while, and and Steve and I were like, let's do a monkey wrench thing. And you know, Dan's initial reaction was I can't even imagine being on the stage and not seeing Matt right over there. Um and then, you know, we got an opportunity to go to Brazil and Dan was back in there, you know.

SPEAKER_00 42:14

And that was kind of so right when you were at that moment where like maybe the again, it was the fact that people wanted it. Why why why are you guys so big in Australia and South America? I mean, are the are are the crowds younger? Because I mean, when I go to see you guys here, I mean it's a lot of our contemporaries, you know what I mean? It's a fucking rocking crowd and it's full and it's sweaty, and you guys put on an amazing fucking show still. Like, it never feels like you're phoning it in. The energy is always great. But like when you go to Brazil or Australia, do you find are you playing to a younger demo and all?

SPEAKER_01 42:48

It's mixed. I mean, the last time we played Europe, I was really surprised to see like a fair amount of like younger people who look like they might be around 20 or you know, like 16 to 20.

SPEAKER_00 42:59

That's crazy. I noticed that the South Americans, like I follow, you know, Blaine Cook's, you know, his accused AD, and they're always going places like Mexico or Brazil or some Eastern Bloc former Soviet state, and it's like it's interesting to me when bands can get tons of traction somewhere else. And I I just I wonder how it happens. My friend Willie Vlotten gets a lot of traction with his bands in in in Ireland and and England for whatever reason. Same with his book. So it's like his career does really good overseas with his books, and I don't really know how to account for it, but it seems like, particularly in South America, they just love hard music, man.

SPEAKER_01 43:38

Yeah, yeah. I mean, they love all kinds of stuff. That's a there's a lot of people, and the population is broad and they have broad tastes. Um, and there's definitely people who like shit that we do, and people like that stuff the accused does. Um, you know, like one of the first Seattle band that guy ever heard when he Was over in Perth was like the first accused record with Blaine.

SPEAKER_00 44:05

With like buried alive when it was still that was a farts 10-minute warning game.

SPEAKER_01 44:12

No, it was like uh Martha Splatterhead or I I think that was the first record, right?

SPEAKER_00 44:20

Sounds about right. I'd have to go I never know what to do. I'd have to go to this one because I love everybody involved. I don't I I don't have a relationship with Tom anymore, but I I was close to him, you know, back when there was, you know, Tom and John and Chewie and Dana. And of course, Blaine was somebody I looked up to. I had met through uh, you know, probably about the same 1982 or so when I met you, and he was like an older guy. I looked up to and I thought the farts were gods. But like it's really uncomfortable that they're they have that rift where there's like legal stuff involved and like who gets to own the accused, and it's just uh it just kills me to watch it.

SPEAKER_01 44:57

That's terrible. I don't mean I don't know what's going on between them personally, but it's it's a bummer.

SPEAKER_00 45:02

Uh just and I'm sure it's a bummer for everyone involved. So I want to ask your advice on something. One of the things I'm dealing with um as the director of the Metropolis, and I'm also kind of producing in a lot of capacities as well, is that I don't have a buffer of somebody to be the good, you know, good cop, bad cop, or a buffer between me. So like everybody that was at the metropolis or is interested in being in the movie, or uh, you know, like this other person we had alluded to is just like pissed that they're not in the movie. And like I'm like trying to explain to people, look, it's a 95-minute movie, and I've already got 31 interviews. You, you know, it just I can't sustain a story with a dramatic arc without it just like delineating into like how what how what would your be your tact on how how would you do my job? I'm just curious because you seem like a no-nonsense, like, well, fuck it. Like maybe I I I I struggle with it because I want to include people, but I don't want to like, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 46:03

I mean, I'm you know, it I think it's good that you're including people whose voices aren't I mean, I feel like the weekend that we were up at your cabin, like me, Steven, and Jeff Haman, uh uh like the three of us have probably more than anybody else that you're interviewing, I'm guessing have been interviewed. So I kind of feel like my story's been told to death, and uh I happily set uh step aside and let other people speak.

SPEAKER_00 46:39

Yeah, but that's not gonna happen because you're so good. Um I loved your interview. No, your interview is great, and I have like a million reaction shots of you just laughing joyously. I don't know how I'm gonna use him, but I just want him because it's just very infectious. Um what I said something to you right off the bat. I tried to uh uh disarm everybody right at the beginning of the interview. Like I told Jeff he looked like a um like a handsome Richard Dreyfus and he fucking lost it. No one oh I said something like I said you look like Johnny Winter or something like that. And you were like, oh that's a compliment. I know, I know.

unknown 47:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 47:12

Well, he is Mark Arm. Mark comes from Edgar. What's that? Who would you prefer to be? I would probably prefer to be Edgar. I just prefer Frankenstein.

SPEAKER_01 47:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 47:21

Just Frankenstein's pretty fucking Frankenstein. Maybe like the greatest riff ever. Well, he is Mark Arm of Mud Honey. Um, I'm proud to call him a friend. Um, thank you, Mark, for being a fresh face in hell. Sorry, I ask you uncomfortable questions. I ask you to be nostalgic when it is not your, but thanks, thanks for playing with me. Uh sure thing, Jonathan. Appreciate it, buddy. A Fresh Face in Hell with Jonathan Evison is brought to you by Fresh Face Pods and produced by Jason Botkin and yours truly. Check us out on Instagram, YouTube, or at our website at FreshfacePods.tv. Don't forget to subscribe to our newsletter for updates and special content. And if you love the podcast, by all means run up and buy all of Jonathan Evison's award winning novels wherever books are sold.