Last December [12/3/92] Seconds caught up with Mudhoney in San Francisco. After making an in-store appearance at Rough Trade Records, located on the city's famed Haight Street, the godfathers of Grunge played the Warfield Theatre where they headlined a bill that also included Eugenius and Supersuckers. Along the way, Seconds was able to first corner and then question each of the four Mudmen: drummer Dan Peters, bassist Matt Lukin, lead guitarist Steve Turner and vocalist/rhythm guitarist Mark Arm.

In case you're wondering, Mudhoney were neither too eager to grease the hype machine in the wake of their 'ive major label debut, Piece of Cake, nor were they too hip to admit that they were definitely stoked to be getting a piece of the Seattle pie. Instead, they seemed perfectly at home with their peculiar status as the first band to be recognized out of Seattle (and the last band rewarded with it). While Nirvana, Soundgarden, Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains, Temple of the Dog and even the late Mother Love Bone have all cashed in, Mudhoney steadfastly refuses to sell out.

Drummer Dan Peters tried to take lessons back in the fourth grade but he got kicked out of his school's music class when the other kids tattled on him for hitting the skins too hard. In between now and then he has bought just one of those technical drummers' magazines, and that was only because he wanted to see his picture in an advertisement for drumsticks. In fact, rather than talk about drumming, Peters was more intent on relating how this particular tour would be taking Mudhoney through Arkansas. For although Peters is a Seattle native, he did spend one year of his childhood in Arkansas and his voice still has a personable twang to show for it. He also regaled Seconds with tales of his recent marriage and, after telling about his decision to tie the knot in Vegas following a nightlong imbibing binge, we got down to more music-related topics.

Seconds: In addition to drumming for Mudhoney, you've also played with both Screaming Trees and Nirvana. Given Nirvana's overnight and overwhelming success, do you sometimes feel like (pre-Ringo Beatles drummer) Pete Best?

Peters: No, not at all. It was such a short period of time. I played with them for a couple of months maybe, and I did like, one show. I also played on the Sub Pop single, "Sliver." Mudhoney was kind of taking a break at that point. We didn't know what the future would be.

Seconds: Didn't you guys say you were breaking up?

Peters: It got a little blown out of proportion. We said we were going to take a break and Steve was going to go back to school. Then people starting asking, "So does that mean that you're breaking up?" And we just got sick of it and said yeah, we're breaking up. In the interim, we actually did Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge. Anyway, we had a lot of down time, and Nirvana was looking for a drummer. I really like the band a lot, but obviously things didn't work out. I'm not bummed about it.

Seconds: Okay.

Peters: Of course, it would be nice to be a millionaire now...Those fuckin' assholes! I'm fuckin' pissed, man!

Seconds: Was there a time when you thought you were actually in the band?

Peters: Well yeah, there was.

Seconds: Were you replaced by the current guy, Dave Grohl?

Peters: Yeah, yeah.

Seconds: Oh.

Peters: Yeah, and I was under the impression...So when they told me I wasn't in the band, I kinda thought, well, that's cool. Because I never really got settled. But I mean, I don't want to dwell on the subject.

Seconds: Now, wasn't there a time when Mudhoney was insistent that they would never sign to a major label.

Peters: When we first started out we were pretty adamant about not doing anything with a major because we didn't have a reason to. Sub Pop worked out way beyond any of our expectations. Just the fact that we were touring, going to Europe and selling a handful of records made us completely pleased. It's only when it came to the point where Sub Pop was in really bad financial straights, and couldn't even afford to put out Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge, that we considered a major label. I mean, that record was done for a long time before it finally came out. And when it did, it was only by the skin of Sub Pop's teeth. We weren't getting paid for any of our records, and they weren't paying any of their bills. It's a bummer that it comes down to money but, realistically, if you do something, you expect to get paid for it.

Seconds: There are for instrumental segues on the album that nobody could possibly hum to, and I guess each one of you had to do one completely by yourself. Which one is yours?

Peters: Yeah, everybody got thirty seconds to do whatever they wanted, but we had to play all the instruments and mix it ourselves. The first one, the techno one, is Mark's. The next one, which sounds like bad speed metal, that would be me. The country one is Steve's and the farting one is Matt's.

Seconds: Ah yes, the farting one is Matt's. And that's because Matt Lukin is the band's resident good humor guy. Known in the past for his love of drink and a tendency to drop his drawers at the drop of a hat, Lukin has slightly settled down of late. Perhaps this has something to do with the fact that he too has recently let the wedding bells ring out. Even so, marriage has hardly diminished his infectious sense of humor. As I quickly found out, Matt doesn't need to be prompted by a question in order to talk. So, as they say on T.V., let's join the telecast already in progress...

Lukin: It's good when you can come into town and have people offer you marijuana. Actually, I did this big schpiel about weed at our show in Chicago. I had been out of pot for a while because we'd just played Canada and had to smoke all our pot before going up there. Now this guy Fred, who's a soundman, showed up and I knew he was a big pothead. So Fred walks in the dressing room right after I'd smoked a bunch of pot with this guy John, who used to be a promoter in Portland. Then Fred rolls a joint that's about this long and that fat, and I'm just pie-eyed. I couldn't even go watch the opening bands. I was in there with the dry heaves and everything, so all these people are looking at me like, "Loser! Loser!" Then I finally go out and play, and I played a fuckin' fine show.

Seconds: So the dry heaves were linked to the pot, not the show?

Lukin: The pot, and drinking a bunch of beer and smoking a bunch of cigarettes.

Seconds: Do you still get nervous before a show?

Lukin: More anxious than nervous. Someone asked me that in Seattle before a show as I was huffing on a big reefer. "Nah, man, not at all." Anyway, I had a good story, let me get back into it. So Steve always stops the show and says, "Hey, Matt, tell a story." So in Chicago I start saying that it's always good to come through a town on like, the third or fourth time because by then you've built up enough friends who know you smoke pot. Because no matter how much pot you leave home with, it's always gone in two days - no matter how much. If you leave home with a pound, you're like, "Hey everybody." So after those two days you gotta...

Seconds: Scrounge?

Lukin: Yeah. I don't know if that's a good message for the kids, but pot can be a good thing. Everybody always resorts back to pot, no matter what drugs they end up on and how bad they get.

Seconds: Have success and marriage ruined Lukin and Mudhoney?

Lukin: Check it out: I didn't brush my teeth for six days after the wedding. The first time we consummated the marriage was about four days after the wedding. On the second night, I didn't even make it home!

Seconds: On your instrumental, do you create the farting noises with your armpit, or by blowing into your palms?

Lukin: The palm thing, yeah. I noticed the other day when I tried to do one of those when I hadn't shaved for a while, that I couldn't do it with whiskers. I needs that, that, that...sealer. So air can't leak out around it.

Seconds: Blag, of the Dwarves, has advised me to focus mainly on Mudhoney's bespectacled lead guitarist, Steve Turner because, Blag insisted, Turner was the one who oversaw the band's musical direction. To be sure, Turner's mock country ditty is easily the most accomplished of the four individual instrumentals on Piece of Cake. Moreover, Turner just looks the part. He's a cross between Elvis Costello and The Computer Who Wore Tennis Shoes. The kind of guy who has devoted his life to buying, reading about, and, on his own label, Super Electro, even manufacturing, rock'n'roll records. Not surprisingly, this sense of purpose and energy was evident in Turner's taut, wiry frame and his brisk, articulate manner of speaking.

Seconds: One of the bands opening for you guys, The Supersuckers, has a song called "Coattail Riders" and I was wondering if you feel that some of the Seattle bands have achieved success by riding on Mudhoney's coattails.

Turner: Nothing makes me happier than to see friends of mine not have to have jobs. And if it takes being in a rock band to do it, more power to 'em. We've all been working toward the same goal: not working. There's a second generation of coattail riders, and the three main ones are Gas Huffer, Flop, and Supersuckers. It's great, they've been boosted up to where they don't have to work either.

Seconds: Blag says you have a lot to do with Mudhoney's musical direction.

Turner: I don't think so. Obviously, me and Mark have been in bands together for nine years solid, and we're pretty tight. But with Mudhoney, we credit everybody to the song. You know, we all write the songs...that make the whole world sing!

Seconds: The one song you didn't write together was each guy's individual instrumental, and your countrified one is the closest any of them come to being a real song. Plus, wasn't it your idea to do the instrumentals in the first place.

Turner: It was my idea to do it, but it wasn't like I had written mine up and was trying to get it on the record by fooling them and saying, hey we should all do one. Anyway, some of my earliest songs sound real country. And no, that's not where I came from, or I'm even going. They just sound like that. I do have a banjo now. Then again, I don't have a mandolin. [Krist] Novaselic (of Nirvana) has a mandolin. In fact, here is a great grunge story: Stone Gossard, that's Stone Gossard of Pearl Jam, his first instrument was a mandolin. We went to the same arty, private school together, and he bought it when he was in tenth grade in order to play with this band of hippies called The Probes. They were horrible! Then, like a year later, me and him had our first band together called The Duck [note: this is most likely a typo and the band is The Ducky Boys]. He played bass and we learned two songs: "Louie Louie" and "Dr. Love" by Kiss.

Seconds: Some people thought that your last album was goofy in an almost "New Wave" kind of way.

Turner: On Fudge we did all this experimental shit and this new record is much more back to hard edge. But then some people think Fudge is really stripped down. We can't tell, really.

Seconds: Your own label, Super Electro, puts out records with a definite '60s garage-style sound. Does that reflect some purist streak of yours?

Turner: It's not a purist streak. I just work with bands that are really cool that no one cares about in Seattle. I like a lot of '60s garage shit, but I could never be in a band that played only that type of stuff. I'm only one-fourth of Mudhoney and I like lots of things. I think we all do, and I think all of our sensibilities grate against each other just fine.

Seconds: If Dan Peters is the muscle, Matt Lukin the heart and Steve Turner the brains behind Mudhoney, then lead vocalist Mark Arm is the soul. During the performance at the Warfield, he somehow avoids the pitfalls of both rock star posturing and anti-rock star wimpiness. As a result, he exudes a straightforward charisma without resorting to the gimmicks of either macho dickheads or nerdy twerps. Unfortunately, I only catch a word with him after the show, and our conversation is cut off just when it's starting to warm up.

Seconds: Is your new song, "When in Rome," about all that's happened with the Seattle scene? For some reason, I can't help reading into the line, "We were dreaming while the [city] burned." Was Mudhoney dreaming while all these cheesy bands came in and burned down Seattle?

Arm: No, it's just like from the perspective of say, like some upper middle class white person, totally unaware of what's happening around him. It's probably the only semi-political song we've ever written, and the other guys in the band don't even know it.

Seconds: When you were recording this album you were aware of all the Seattle hype. Did that affect your approach at all?

Arm: Well, yeah. We also figured that by the time the record came out, it'd be too late. So the whole thing would be blown over and we just keep on doing what we've always done. But none of the songs, except "Overblown," are about Seattle. And that's only because they came to us and were like, "Hey, we're doing a movie about Seattle. Do you want to be on the soundtrack?" Most of the other songs are a lot more personal or whatever. Also, a lot of times you'll write about something and it will happen later like, say, the end of a relationship. But I don't want to get into that because it's nobody's business.

Seconds: Does the song "Coattail Rider" by The Supersuckers strike you as ironic? It seems that a lot of Seattle bands have gotten a ride on Mudhoney's coattails.

Arm: When the initial Sub Pop hype happened, we were the band that got the brunt of it. Like in '89 or '90, we were the band that everybody in England, or wherever, thought about as Seattle. We were amazed at all the attention we were getting at that point. No one ever expected it to go to some weird, major label, mainstream press, fuckin' Entertainment Tonight kinda thing. So when it did, it was one of the funniest things we'd ever seen.

Seconds: Like you said, people in England think of you as the original Seattle band. Are you guys bigger in England than you are here?

Arm: Not really in terms of a normal show. When we play around England, granted it's a smaller country, but the crowds are only around 1,200 people. Then again, when we play Providence or Des Moines, it's like 300 people. It depends on what city and it kind of evens out. I think the press in England is so much more intense that it makes things appear much bigger than they actually are. For instance, a band like Suede who don't even have a record out, were making the cover of NME all the time. And they were drawing maybe 200 people. The hype is just amazing. And probably some weird band - some Status Quo or Hawkwind reunion - is not getting any press and probably drawing a hell of a lot more people. Man, I love Hawkwind. Don't really like Status Quo very much, though, except for a few of their earlier, more '60s albums.