The Melvins are some of rock's most defiant mavericks, waging a passionate war of attrition with twenty-eight studio albums and counting. For The Needle Drop, Tyler Roland sat down with Melvins founder, guitarist, and singer King Buzzo in anticipation of their upcoming Stop Your Whining tour. They talked the band's latest LP (entitled Thunderball), Alice Cooper, and the joy of classic books.

This interview has been edited for length and clairty.

Tyler @ TND: The basis of this interview is the upcoming Stop Your Whining tour, and I just have to know how you fellas arrived at that name.

King Buzzo: I think my wife [artist Mackie Osborne] thought of it. We were putting together an ad for the tour, and I go “we gotta think of a name.” And she goes, “stop your whining tour.” She'd already put it on there and I was like, “oh, perfect.” 

Was “quit your bitching” already taken? 

Probably. It never ceases to amaze me how much people can bitch, no matter what you do. 

One of the defining hallmarks of the Melvins is how constant your touring cycle is and how you put out projects left and right, up and down. 

Thank you for noticing.

Your latest record, Thunderball – I draw a line between that and [Melvins' Throbbing Gristle tribute Throbbing Jazz Gristle Funk Hits] with both of them having electronica artist Void Manes involved. I want to ask what you think he has added to the band, because those two projects remind me of probably my favorite Melvins release, Hostile Ambient Takeover from ’02. 

I thought [Hostile Ambient Takeover] was a high mark for us. I thought that we had improved on everything we had done on the Atlantic records [Houdini, Stoner Witch, and Stag]. We worked really hard on that record. 

With the Throbbing Gristle record – granted, it was a limited release – I thought people would be more interested. Honestly, not that many people are even aware of Throbbing Gristle. If you say Throbbing Gristle to someone, they might have a vague idea of what it is, but they certainly have never listened to it. 

You're definitely one of the only guys I've seen name-drop Throbbing Gristle in interviews. 

Yeah, my wife says one of my weaknesses is my failure to see the weakness in others. So I assume everybody knows that stuff.

I'll do these nterviews with people, and they'll ask me about my favorite guitar players. I have some that I like, like Billy Gibbons from ZZ Top. Then, when I say [The Birthday Party guitarist] Rowland S. Howard or [Flipper guitarist] Ted Falconi, they have no idea who I'm talking about. I can't fathom not knowing who those people are. I put guys like that on par with any guitar player that I've ever liked. 

Personally, I had not heard of Void Manes until you put him into the fold. How'd you discover him? 

Well, he's not widely known. I wouldn't expect people to know him. We've known him since probably ‘93 or ‘94. He worked at a radio station on the campus of the college in Athens, Georgia. He interviewed us on air, and we got kicked off – they didn't like what we were saying after about ten minutes. The station manager was like, "get them off the air." We weren't cursing or anything, but they just didn't like the subject matter. 

So we’ve known Void Manes for a long time. He probably knows more about modular synth stuff than anybody on the planet. And he has the biggest, craziest modular synth setup I've ever seen. He's opened a lot of shows for us in the Atlanta area. I knew that I wanted to use [Void Manes and fellow experimental artist Bristolian Ni Maîtres] for their noise thing, for their sensibilities. I thought “what I'll do is have them record stuff, send it to me, and then I will put it onto the record.” I'll insert it wherever I want. I don't know who does what. I think it's a really good addition to the album. I like what those guys do. For “Vomit of Clarity”, I took their music and put it together and made it into a song. 

My personal favorite on the new record is probably “Short Hair With a Wig”. 

That's a good one, my favorite is “Venus Blood”. 

Another hallmark of the Melvins to me is doing this super obscure, low level, under-the-radar output. Back in 2001, you guys did a satirical “Shit Sandwich” single in which both sides were blank, which I can't help but think is probably the apex. But even the Throbbing Gristle thing – some of the vinyl records had a mis-drilled hole off center. This is all to ask: are there any gimmicks or oddities you still want to do for a limited Melvins release down the road? 

Well, none that I would tell you, because somebody else will steal the idea.

Fair enough. 

Yeah, no, nothing that I can relate. [laughs]

I want to ask, because I'm sure you collect a lot of stuff yourself: What do you think is the coolest collectible or piece of esoterica you have in your own home? 

Signed, first-edition copy of Wise Blood by Flannery O'Connor. 

Wow. You're quite an avid reader, yes?

Yeah. I did an interview once with [Mike Patton-helmed supergroup] Fantômas, in England, at this club called the Forum, and they asked me in a video interview, “What's your favorite book?” And I'm just sitting there thinking about it for a long time because it's like, how do I pick just one? Then they edited it like I couldn't think of a book.

Oh, God. 

I was like, “you fucking asshole.” They thought it was funny, you know, “you can't think of a book,” it’s bothered me ever since. Maybe they can pick out their favorite book in one second. I can't, you know? I don't know where to start. That's the problem: how do you pick one book? The thing I treasure most out of all the stuff I have, besides my wife and my dogs, of course, I think that's it. The first-edition copy of Wise Blood signed by Flannery O'Connor.

I would buy more first-edition books, but they're just so cost-prohibitive. It's such an expensive hobby. 

Well, you have to look. On this tour, I'm always looking at bookstores. I just got this signed Henry Miller, Black Spring, for 30 bucks. I was like, “you gotta be shitting me.”

Two of the albums you did before this recent Thunderball project – Tarantula Heart and Bad Mood Rising – open with really long tracks. You've got the 14-minute “Mr. Dog Is Totally Right”, and you've got the 19-minute “Pain Equals Funny”. I want to know which one you think would win in a cage match.

Oh, God, I don't know. I have no idea. I listen to our music with different ears than you would, or any fan would, because I hear it as it was constructed. I don't do that when I'm listening to, you know, “Atom Heart Mother” by Pink Floyd. I'm too close to it to make a solid judgment on that kind of thing. 

I make some of my own music, and I’m my own biggest critic.

Yeah, you have to be, but at some point you have to be, “okay, it’s good now.”

Every time I listen to my own music, which I don't do very often, I always think “Oh, God, I fucked that up, I messed that up.”

I don't listen to my stuff very often either, but I'll remember things I didn't like from a record like Stag, let's say. I haven't listened to it in a long, long, long time, and then I listen back to it now and go, “I don't know what I didn't like about it. That sounds fine. That part was fine.” I don't know why I worried so much about that. Your perception can change.

Switching lanes a bit. Recently, I was at Amoeba Hollywood. One of the things I bought was your album from 2014 [acoustic solo LP This Machine Kills Artists]. I know you did a semi-follow up to that with Mr. Bungle bassist Trevor Dunn, Gift of Sacrifice, but I want to know if you've ever considered doing a “you and the acoustic guitar” kind of thing again, only because I really dig that record. 

During the pandemic, we recorded a [double LP] acoustic album, Five Legged Dog, and then I did a gigantic tour with Trevor. That ended last year, not even a year ago. The acoustic thing… I’ve done it a lot. Unless I think of a good angle on it, I don't know if I would or not. I might consider doing a record that is one side acoustic with me and one side acoustic with Trevor, you know? 

That could be cool. 

I think it might be fun to do a tour where he plays for 45 minutes, and then I play for 45 minutes, and then we play for 10 minutes together. 

I have the Slithering Slaughter EP with the acoustic “Halo of Flies”. I love that track. 

Well, we're big fans of Alice Cooper.

In an interview, you described Alice Cooper as “hate hippies,” which I think is such a great way of putting it. 

He had a quote that I loved, he goes "we were driving a stake through the heart of the peace and love generation." I mean, right on. He's one of these people where [...] they did so much good work in such a short amount of time, that I really don't care what he does from then on. It's sort of like David Lynch. Once they have that kind of legacy, I really don't care what they do.

The Melvins' ongoing Stop Your Whining tour swings from the EU to the U.S. in September. Get tickets here.