Twenty-two years on from their epochal debut single, Touch Me I'm Sick, Seattle Sub Pop rock icons Mudhoney got their first ever Irish tour underway this week. In anticipation of their Belfast debut at The Limelight on Sunday, David Roy put polite inquiries to the band's esteemed frontman, Mark Arm.

Hi Mark, this is Mudhoney's first ever Irish tour. Are you ready to handle the joys of the Irish road network?

Why, are the drives insanely long or something? Well, we'll just play tourist and look at the countryside. It'll be fine. We've played in Dublin a couple of times before but this is the first time we've ever played in Cork, Galway and Belfast, so we're pretty stoked.

Mudhoney haven't really played that much this year at all, are you looking forward to getting back on tour?

Very much so. It's not even that many shows, but I guess it's a pretty good by 'modern Mudhoney' standards. So we've got five in Spain, three in Ireland, one in Northern Ireland, three in England and a couple of in Scotland. I would like to tour more often, but at this point we have family responsibilities and jobs and whatnot.

You're even bringing a support band over to us this time?

Yeah, they're called The Unnatural Helpers. Have you heard them? They're really good, they have a record out on Hardly Art, which is kind of like a baby brother label to Sub Pop. Dean and Andrew from the band actually work here at Sub Pop. We've played with them in Seattle a couple of times already.

And how are things at Sub Pop lately?

Um, OK I guess. It's been pretty quiet because we're between releases right now, but the new Vaselines and No Age records are about to come out.

What do you think of the new Vaselines album?

I think it's really good, yeah, pretty amazing after a break of like 20 years or whatever it was they had. There's plenty of talented people who just lose the plot after a period of time.

It's been two years since The Lucky Ones, the last Mudhoney album. Any word on doing something new yet?

We have a bunch of ideas and about five songs completed, although we don't know them well enough to actually play them to anyone yet. We were hoping to spend a little more time working on new stuff but we got a little side-tracked by getting ready for doing Superfuzz Bigmuff as part of the Don't Look Back All Tomorrow's Parties festival. So we had to concentrate on dusting off 'gems' like Halloween which normally we wouldn't ever play.

Are you bored with the whole Don't Look Back thing yet?

I think we've only done four or five of them, so I'm not totally over it. But a couple of years ago they asked us if we'd go down to Australia with The Stooges and tour Superfuzz, which wasn't really enough of an enticement. If we're going to travel all that way, we'd rather focus on our current record, especially since The Lucky Ones had just come out at that point. It would have been hard just to stick with all things 1988.

You played with The Stooges at this year's ATP in New York, right?

Yeah, we played with The Stooges and The Scientists, two of my all-time favourite bands. It was another one of those 'how did my life end up here?' type moments.

Your proto-grunge outfit Green River (featuring Stone and Jeff from Pearl Jam) reformed for a few gigs a couple of years ago, are you still threatening to record a new album?

Sure, it would be a lot of fun - it's just a matter of trying to get everybody on the same page at the same time. We've talked about re-issues also, I think we would all be very happy to go back to the original 24-track master tapes of Rehab Doll and get in there and take out that shitty 80's drum sound. Unfortunately, no one can seem to find them.

Finally, Mark, are there any Irish rock bands who've had a lasting impact on your life or Mudhoney?

Oh yeah. Definitely the first two Undertones records and The Stiff Little Fingers, Inflammable Material and Nobody's Heroes are two great records. And there's Them, of course. There's even a Taste record that I like. I think it's the orange one? It's not quite as cool as The Groundhogs but it's still pretty dang cool for its time. There's the Virgin Prunes too, but it's been a long time since I listened to those guys.

What about the biggest Irish rock band ever, U2?

I saw those guys. I was really into the Dream Syndicate, who were opening for them on the War tour at The Paramount Theatre here in Seattle. At one point during U2's set, some sort of kerfuffle broke out in the crowd and Bono stopped the show. He was like, 'This is a U2 concert, we won't be having any fighting here!' So of course the crowd erupts in cheers, he waves his hand and the band starts playing again at exactly the same place they had stopped. Then the next night, I heard from people up in Portland that they did exactly the same thing. It was a staged fight to prove how peaceful and non-violent they were as a band or whatever. I can remember thinking, 'God, that is so fucking disgusting.' So they definitely helped me decide what I didn't want to do in my own bands.

Cheers, Bono.