Mudhoney Frontman Mark Arm Recalls the Band’s Early Days

2012-12-12

Story by Anne Erickson

Mudhoney frontman counts the Stooges, the Wipers as band’s early influences

Mudhoney made grunge cool well before Kurt Cobain sang of “Teen Spirit” or Eddie Vedder crooned about “Jeremy.” The Seattle, Wash.-based band was one of the first breakout acts on the Sub Pop label and fashioned a career with their combination of garage rock energy, punk attitude and metal grip. Now, Mudhoney have released a new DVD, “Mudhoney: Live In Berlin, 1988,” chronicling the band’s first big show overseas during their first years today.

Singer Mark Arm remembers those early days when Mudhoney were just getting their feet wet in the budding grunge scene. He says the band was influenced by underground punk acts such as the Stooges, the Wipers, Blue Cheer and Captain Beefheart– groups that were “sort of lost by time at that point.”

“We were trying to take those influences and put them into our own context,” Arm told the Quietus. “Although we probably weren’t thinking that clearly at the time; we were just … doing what felt instinctive.”

As for Mudhoney in 2012, Arm says the band’s current writing process is pretty spontaneous. He explains that there’s “a certain amount of thought that goes into stuff, but that was all thought a long time ago and when we write songs nowadays we just sort of bounce off each other. I can’t really even explain it, I think the more you explain it, the more you kill it…”




Anne Erickson
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