E4 Music After 26 years, the Melvins make their mark
los angeles — The music in- dustry’s collapse is good news for the Melvins, the defiantly un- commercial “thud-rock” band that just cracked the U.S. pop al- bum chart for the first time in its 26-year career. The group, whose heavy gui-
tar riffs and mumbled vocals paved the way for fellow Seattle- area bands such as Nirvana and Soundgarden, grabbed the last spot on Billboard’s Top 200 chart published Wednesday. It achieved this feat by selling just 2,809 copies of “The Bride Screamed Murder,” its 19th al- bum. With another 2,000 units, they would have breached the top half of the chart. Exactly five years ago, the threshold for inclusion in the Top 200 was about 5,000 copies. Since then, U.S. album sales have halved, and the industry last month suffered its slowest week since the early 1970s, ac-
partly produced by Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain, one of their biggest fans. It has sold about 110,000 copies. The 1996 release “Stag” posted the band’s best opening week after selling almost 4,000 albums. The band has sold 538,000 albums since Nielsen SoundScan began track- ing data in 1991.
IPECAC RECORDINGS
THEY’RE NO. 200! The band made it onto the charts.
cording to a Billboard estimate. While the Melvins’ debut
chart ranking therefore comes with an asterisk of sorts, the milestone managed to stun its members. “Top 200 what?” sing- er/guitarist Roger “Buzz” Os- borne said via e-mail. The band’s biggest release is 1993’s “Houdini,” which was
Osborne and drummer Dale Crover have gone through a mul- titude of bass players, including one of Shirley Temple’s daugh- ters, since the band was formed in 1984. The lineup has stabi- lized in recent years after the Melvins expanded to a quartet, adding second drummer Coady Willis and bassist Jared Warren. The band recently began a month-long North American tour, including a stop at the an- nual Bonnaroo rock festival.
— Reuters
The Melvins play Washing- ton’s 9:30 clubon Wednesday.
SAM JONES 12TH TIME IS A CHARM:Of making his new album, Tom Petty says, “the music was coming easily.” Good times with the blues B THEATRE B THEATRE The Studio Theatre
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Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers distill their essence in ‘Mojo’
by Chris Richards
On the phone from his Malibu home, Tom Petty has a way of de- flecting questions that’s half sphinx, half stoner. Maybe he doesn’t want to answer you. May- be there are no answers, man. In- quire about his highs, his lows, his in-betweens, and Petty sounds aloof, wistful, pensive — but, like his music, remarkably consistent.
What was it like playing the Super Bowl? “I don’t know.” Who was your greatest men-
tor? “I don’t know.”
Can you cite a high or low point in your career? “Oh, I don’t know.” But there are still plenty of things the 59-year-old does, in fact, know. He knows that he’s quite pleased with “Mojo,” the 12th studio album he has made with his band, the Heartbreak- ers. He also knows he doesn’t like giving interviews about it. He knows he’d rather be watching Turner Classic Movies or walking in the soft sands of the Pacific coastline.
And he knows he’s getting old-
er. But Petty still thinks his work is approaching its truest, purest form. “I think that’s my musical quest,” the singer says. “To get more and more purity into the music.”
With the big 6-0 a few months down the road, Petty isn’t fine wine so much as American rock- and-roll distilled. Since 1976, he and his Heartbreakers have been building sturdy rock songs at the intersection of heartland pluck and California cool. Along the way, he has released two suc- cessful solo discs — and one sorta successful one. He also recorded twice with the Traveling Wil- burys, the supergroup that in- cluded George Harrison, Jeff Lynne, Roy Orbison and Bob Dy- lan. In recent years, Petty has im- mersed himself in the recordings of America’s great bluesmen (Lit- tle Walter, Muddy Waters, Albert King) and Britons who panto- mimed them (John Mayall, Jeff
Beck, Peter Green). The result? “It’s really a blues-based record,” the songwriter says of “Mojo.” And although rediscovering the blues might sound hack- neyed on paper, it sounds pretty great in practice. The band un- veiled two of the better songs from “Mojo” — “Jefferson Jericho Blues” and “I Should Have Known It” — on the season finale of “Saturday Night Live” last month. Beneath a straw-tinted coif, bushy beard and dark avia- tor shades, Petty mewled through the latter tune with a swagger be- fitting his new album’s title. Ask him whether he was ner- vous about his eighth appearance on the show, and you can almost hear him shrug over phone. But ask him about the record- ing sessions for “Mojo,” and he perks up. “We went into it very, very up and very positive,” Petty says. “I really enjoyed making the record — to the point that I didn’t want to stop.” “Mojo” was recorded at the
band’s practice space in North Hollywood. Guitarists Mike Campbell and Scott Thurston, bassist Ron Blair, keyboardist Benmont Tench and drummer Steve Ferrone all gathered in a semicircle and aimed to hammer everything out live, on the spot. No one wore headphones. Very little was overdubbed. The spon- taneity translates clearly. “The music was coming easily,”
Petty says of the sessions. “I felt really hot — like we were really in a pocket.” Yet titling an album “Mojo” at this point in his career suggests that Petty is reclaiming some- thing he lost over the years, right? Like many other sugges- tions, Petty brushes this one off — and perhaps rightfully so. The man’s decades-long discography has been so reliable, he struggles to pinpoint any dramatic plunge in his songbook. “There’s nothing
“I really enjoyed making the record — to the point that I didn’t want to
stop.” — Tom Petty
that really makes me hang my head and cry,” he says. The Heartbreakers first formed in Gainesville, Fla., in 1976, roadhouse ready. “When we first met up, we had very similar record collections,” Petty says of the troupe’s initial chemistry. “Our kind of barometer of ‘this is good’ and ‘this is bull-[expletive]’ was very similar.” By 1980, the band’s third al- bum, “Damn the Torpedoes,” had gone platinum, and Petty would soon adopt the dual role of rock star and fan advocate, engaging in a public spat with his label over escalating record prices. When MCA announced that the Heartbreakers’ 1981 album “Hard Promises” would be sold for $9.98 — one dollar more than the once-standard LP price of $8.98 —Petty raised a stink until the la- bel changed its mind.
“I think I did kind of single- handedly hold down record prices for a long time,” he says of the victory. Nearly 30 years later, as the record industry continues its 21st-century collapse, the tale has turned into a piece of up- with-the-artist folklore. “I didn’t understand corpora- tions back then,” Petty says. “They can’t make enough money. That’s the problem with America, in a lot of ways. Being rich is nev- er enough.” Petty says he can’t imagine go- ing through a similar struggle in today’s marketplace. “You’ll find that 10 or 12 really good songs will deal with a myriad of prob- lems,” he says. “[But] if I was starting out now, I don’t know if I’d be as encouraged as I was when I did. . . . Sometimes I look at the younger bands and wonder if they’re having as much fun as we did.” He also wonders whether to-
day’s bands will last as long. He certainly didn’t expect to. “I didn’t really anticipate us really doing it at this time in our lives,” Petty says. “[But] I still got music in my head, and I’m in this incredibly amazing rock-and-roll band. . . . If we started to suck, we would all hang it up. But I think we’re a long way from that.”
richardsc@washpost.com
“Mojo” will be in stores Tuesday.
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers are to perform at Jiffy Lube Live on Aug. 15.
KLMNO
SUNDAY, JUNE 13, 2010
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