At this point, Buzz Osborne and Dale Crover are the Melvins. Theyâve recorded over 29 studio albums in all types of spaces and show no signs of slowing down. I caught up with Buzz and Dale for a couple of days on their âdouble bass player tourâ (with Jeff Pinkus and Steven McDonald [interviewed this issue]) and talked to them about their ideas regarding making records, overdubs, and knowing when a recording is done. Jon Spencer even dropped in for part of our chat. How do I know these guys? I make records as Conan Neutron & the Secret Friends with Dale Crover on drums, and Iâm also a continuing client at their studio, Sound of Sirens, with producer/engineer Toshi Kasai (interviewed this issue as well).
You have a dedicated space where you make records with Toshi. You have it dialed in, are able to quickly get sounds, and are able to work in a nimble way. How long has that been active?
Buzz Osborne: Five years; maybe six.
Hostile Ambient Takeover was the first record?
B: With Toshi, but that was in a studio. Then the last one we did in a studio was The Bride Screamed Murder.
Dale Crover: When we first met Toshi he was working at this place, Hook [Sound Studios]. I think Buzz met him first with the Tool guys. We were looking for a place to record, his name came up, and thatâs how we hooked up with him.
Youâre not analog purists there, by any stretch of the imagination?
B: No, not at all. I donât care about any of that. Weâre very much of the belief that you can make a crappy record with any recording technique. We challenge anyone to say you canât make a crappy recording with analog.
D: Or how about all those digital drums they recorded in the â80s onto analog tape? Thereâs plenty of analog gear that it goes through anyway; it just doesnât hit the tape machine. Toshi has that â70s Yamaha board [PM-1000]. He said they made them for live use, but the modules in them are really similar to Neve [consoles]. Heâs built his own gear, too. I think recording on digital has opened up a billion more possibilities. Sure, people make crappy music, but I think itâs made everything easier and more cost-effective too. Easier for us to make records, because we donât have to blow hundreds of dollars on reels of tape. Since it is our own space and weâre not on the clock, that takes so much weight off everything. But having the freedom to do that hasnât made it to where weâve slacked off or anything. Having our own place has caused us to record in a much different way than we ever would have.
How has that specifically changed your creative process?
B: We can record whenever we have a song.
D: We can get it to where we think it sounds good and go from there.
B: Everythingâs set up for recording.
The studio itself is not that large.
D: There was just the room. Toshi threw up some blankets to isolate where he had his little mixing area. Then, eventually, we built a control room, and thereâs also a nice little booth in the back.
Itâs not the most pristine environment outside, but thereâs not any bleed or anything.
B: Oh, lord no!
D: It has a practice room type of vibe. Itâs very comfortable.
B: Iâm tired of the pro thing. I want something much more relaxed.
Jon: Do you guys find that because you have the luxury of your own place itâs easier to compose and record, or do you find you donât get anything done? I like it when I have to go somewhere else.
B: We still schedule ourselves in when weâre going to work there. It all started in our practice place that we had, when Toshi would bring his gear there and weâd set up to record for a month. We would record during the day, and then me and him would sit there and screw around after everybody left. That got him thinking that we should get a space.
D: Heâd wanted to for a long time, but for some reason he had a hard time and didnât think it was possible. Then he started looking into spaces and found something out in the [San Fernando] valley that was relatively inexpensive.
B: The owner loves us because we pay our bills. He said, âYou can do whatever you want.â Thereâs nobody around our space who are musicians. Itâs an industrial area. We work during the day, usually. I donât like to work late at night; I like to get done early. If I have a song and start showing it to Crover, once he has it itâs probably not going to get better than that. We might improve on it a little bit, but letâs track it and see how it goes. Thereâs an immediacy there that you donât get after flogging the shit out of it for weeks and weeks.
J: Thatâs the [Rolling] Stonesâ model. As soon as they could play it through onceâŚ
B: I wouldnât have believed it until we started doing it, but then we listened back. âItâs good. Itâs fine!â
D: Since I donât have anything set in stone, itâs less likely Iâll screw it up!
J: Have you worked with producers? Who was it, Garth [Richardson, Tape Op #28]?
B: âŚand Joe Barresi [#23].
D: We went to record at A&M Studios one time, which was cool.
B: Our biggest budget recording; I think we spent $20 or $30 grand for Stoner Witch at A&M for 21 days.
J: You only spent 30 grand on 21 days?
B: What I realized when we were at Atlantic Records was that if we let Atlantic pay the bill, then the studios would screw the shit out of them. But if I went in there and asked, âWhat time do you have that nobody wants?â Then weâd have the biggest studio in there for $800 a day because they couldnât get anybody in.
J: Are you a studio for hire, or is it mainly for your band?
B: Toshi does other sessions.
J: But the studioâs not a business for you guys.
B: No. All of our gear is there. We have guitar amps micâd up, ready to go, and a drum set micâd up and ready. Weâve already dicked around to make it sound good.
J: Do you experiment with drum sounds?
B: Oh, yeah. Mostly itâs micâing; different mics. A million different ways of doing this.
D: There are a couple of good places for the drums. Weâve done it a few different ways. Iâve got this old kit.
The Gretsch Broadkaster.
D: Itâs mismatched, like 1948 for a couple drums and 1953 for the bass drum. Iâd borrowed a set that was similar when we did the Houdini record. The guy knew there was one for sale, and I went and got it.
When I listen to the records, it sounds like a gigantic drum kit, but theyâre small drums.
J: When youâre in the studio, do you always use small drums?
B: Everything. I never use my live rig.
J: Have you ever used the little Smokey amps? You get an amazing sound out of them.
D: Thereâs no real reason to use a big stack.
B: Behind the control room we have a bass cabinet, plus a 4x12 [guitar cabinet], and theyâre micâd. We can switch between all these different [guitar amp] heads.
Thereâs a big stack of amp heads.
B: You just have to move the speaker cable. Theyâre ready to go. We have a wide variety of microphones.
J: Are you guys buying microphones, or is Toshi?
B: He buys the microphones. We bought all kinds of other gear. I bought a bunch [of mics] from Shure; we had a Shure deal for a while.
I always think itâs interesting how much you guys have adopted new gear as it comes out.
B: In the studio I use all kinds of stuff. I have no idea what I use.
D: Sometimes itâs, âOh, I think this would sound good on this song.â
B: People will say, âOnce you started using those Electrical Guitars, you lost the [Gibson] Les Paul sound.â Well, what song? Maybe it was a Jackson and a [Fender] Mustang and the solo was played on a [Fender] Stratocaster. âYou donât even know what youâre fucking listening to. Thereâs no Les Paul on it!â
D: Yeah. Thereâs one guitar that gets used a lot that nobodyâs probably realized is a Paul Reed Smith that somebody gave us.
B: We started using it because it had a whammy bar on it. Itâs pretty good. But I donât like the guitar; itâs way too generic.
D: Itâs not something youâd sit around and play, but for an overdub itâs fucking great.
B: Yeah. If I do an overdub, I donât want to double or triple [the same guitar]. Letâs try a different guitar. That guitar always gets cycled through, one way or another. Thereâs something you can do with it. Iâm of the belief that if a studio had some amount of guitars, I wouldnât need to bring anything in. I could use whatever was there and Iâd be fine.
How do you guys approach doing overdubs?
B: Anything goes in the studio. To me, making records is a whole different world than playing live. I hate making an album and thinking, âHow are we going to do this live?â If Iâm going to do that, then why donât I make a live record? Learn the songs, play it live, and record it. It might be an interesting thing to do; record your record, then learn all the songs live, and then re-record it. There could be two different versions: The recorded version, and the live version. That would be cool.
D: We did a bunch of shows where we played multiple records.
B: Some of those songs we never intended to play live. What did we do? We figured out a way to do it. Itâs not that precious!
When you move so quickly and have such a deep catalogue, you donât have to play every song live either.
B: For Stag and Bullhead. Bullhead weâd played all that live before we recorded it. When a band starts out, all they have are songs that arenât recorded. They play them and play them.
D: There were a lot of songs we wrote that were abandoned by the time we got there.
Where did you record Bullhead?
D: Razorâs Edge [Recording] in San Francisco.
B: We recorded it in maybe five days.
D: We probably had more time to do it, but we still did it quick and mixed it really quick. I think we decided to go back and do some remixes, because we thought we could do a better job.
B: Even that might have been ten days. It wasnât much. The Eggnog record was three days, maybe two. Lysol was about the same; three or four days. We didnât have much time to do any of those records.
D: Houdini we spent more than four days on, but thatâs mixing too.
Youâre not overtly laboring on it when youâre on the clock that way.
B: âIt sounds good. Go!â Then later, after Atlantic Records, we did the Honky record, where we said, âWhen we walk out of here in six days, the record is done.â
What about Stag?
B: Stag we might have spent three weeks. Not even a whole month.
D: I think we tracked all the bass and drums in three days at Sound City [Studios], and then we went to another place [Entourage Studios] in the valley to do overdubs. Itâs gone now. We did a couple of records there.
B: That was great. What we did on the sixth day was, âOkay, we have to do planning. Weâre going to fly everything to tape. Every single effect. When you go to mix it, itâs done.â You have to make those decisions.Record it like that. Done. You canât re-decide. When you mix it, you bring up the levels.
Do you feel that eliminates the equivocating?
B: The end result is all that matters. If you get too tied up in the specifics, you throw the baby out with the bathwater.
D: With Joe Barresi doing it too. He brought down all of his toys. It was great.
B: He was ready to do it.
D: They had three different rooms to do drums. We could get a pretty heavy drum sound; there was another room that had a tight drum corner that was super â70s-style dry, a metal room, and then a big parking garage with a shotgun mic on it. Thereâs one song where it switches from that sound to the tight room.
B: We did so much of that; it was fun. But we didnât have much time. Joe had heard multitracks from early Aerosmith records, and he said, âYou bring up the mix, bring up the levels, and itâs done.â Everything is how it was recorded. Thatâs how youâre hearing it. We did the same thing.
I think itâs very clear that you guys seem to know when songs and records are done.
B: We follow that advice all the time. âIt sounds done to me!â Could we make it better? Well, we might be able to play it better, but weâre not going to make it better. Thatâs important. You get a hot guitar solo. Is that how you planned it? No. Is it good? Yeah. Iâm not going to be able to improve on it. This vibe is better than trying to get it perfect. What is perfect, anyway? Boring!
D: There are mistakes on all of our records!
Some of the best records of all time have mistakes. Obvious punch-ins.
D: On almost every song Iâd say thereâs something I didnât mean to do. âOops!â Doesnât matter.
B: People have bitched about us going digital. You canât tell what youâre fucking listening to. You have no idea what youâre talking about. Analogâs fine. Do I have any problem with any of it? No! To me theyâre just tools to get to the end of what weâre doing. The Honky record was recorded in six days with no automation in a studio [Grandmaster Recorders] no one ever mixed in. Itâs a fucking studio! It has great monitors and an amazing board. What do you mean you canât mix here?
D: Certainly, at that time, there were âmixingâ studios and there were âtrackingâ studios, but it didnât really matter at all.
B: No problem! A couple of passes and itâs finished. People will shit their pants. âNo automation? What am I going to do?â You can go into an automated studio and make your shitty-sounding record anyways. Thatâs how it works.
Like your thoughts on digitalâŚ
D: Itâs only made us being creative easier.
B: We donât go digitally editing everything in perfect time. We donât fix it. We redo it. Itâs not hard. Fuck it.
D: Itâs much easier to punch in the drums. Iâm not going to play it again. Punch it in and Iâll play that shit.
That blew my mind when you punched in the whole drum set on our record.
D: Itâs easier to do that now. Thatâs something you were always able to do with guitar, vocals, and bass on analog, but itâs much trickier to do it with a whole drum kit and make it work.
B: Thereâs also trust in the engineer. If he or she knows what theyâre doing, you can do it.
Toshi has a way of telling you when somethingâs terrible that doesnât feel heâs attacking you.
D: I want him to tell me that.
B: We had to learn to read him though. Heâs Japanese, so he wonât just say, âThat sucks.â When he says, âThat sucks,â the way he phrases that is, âYeah, that was good. Thatâs pretty good.â That actually means, âDo it again.â
My favorite was on a vocal take. âUh, do it again. Maybe do it cooler.â
D: Heâs good at working with people and getting the best performance. Thatâs a skill.
B: Plus, heâs hilarious. I think heâs the most underrated engineer and producer out there. I love working with him. We get work done at an incredibly fast rate with him.
D: And heâs got a great ear. I donât know too many other people who work like he does.
B: You donât waste a lot of time with him.
You can trust him to not let you get away with weak performances and to keep on track.
D: If heâs mixing something for us, we donât sit over his shoulder and say, âDo this. Do that.â
B: Iâm not an engineer, and I never want to be one. I sit in there and listen to drums, and I canât tell whatâs good. Iâm done. I lose all perspective on it. I canât tell if itâs getting better or getting worse. I have to wait until itâs semi-done and then listen to it. I think thatâs better. Hearing it doesnât fatigue me. The genius is knowing itâs good enough! Donât waste time on shit that doesnât matter.
themelvins.net
toshikasai.com
