Exploring the Birth of Grunge: A Fascinating Look with Steve Turner of MudHoney

if you want to play music play music with your friends like there used to be you know the people that wanted to make it big in the music Biz would put ads in the back of a music magazine or local magazine like the rocket like you know seek you know vocalists seeking you know guitar player and drummer you know and some of them would be like must-have Pro looking attitude you know no losers you know like blah blah blah like you know must have a car and uh most of them didn't make it anywhere because they're just trying to build this perfect band but music is so much about connecting with the people that you're playing with and if you're already buddies then you've got you're halfway there in my mind as far as uh finding some way to communicate with each other and that's kind of what playing music together is right and even that transcends music right that could be true with any creative act this is yeah yeah and uh to me I maybe I got lucky you know my friends were you know as inept as I was when we started playing in bands and you know you just kind of grow together Mr Steve Turner welcome to the show thanks for being here thanks a lot happy to be here uh for the handful of people who uh maybe are not quite as aged as I am and grew up with grunge in the background uh as a soundtrack to my youth I'm wondering if you can begin by sharing with us a little bit about who you are uh and a little bit of background so we can help Orient our listeners and Watchers in time and space tell us who you are sure uh well I'm Steve Turner I've been playing guitar in the band mud honey for over 35 years now that's a seattle-based band but I happen to live in Portland I don't know if you can say that out loud um I started you know going to punk rock shows in 1980 as a 15 year old started playing guitar um and started playing in bands by 83. most of which have been with uh Mark arm the singer of the main bands I've been in I guess uh Green River mud honey and monkey wrench so for the people who are not grunge aficionados these are like probably three of the most seminal sort of iconic bands that led the grunge charge there it's it's fair to say that others like pro jam and Nirvana um have probably sold more records and maybe more more widely known but if you talk to any of the members of that band and stone a mutual friend of our Stone Gosford from Pearl Jam wrote the forward to your new book uh and you know obviously um Kurt is well known but those folks cite you and Mark and other folks in mudhani as their influences they looked up to you and so as someone who then if you just do the math arguably were seminal and you know kicking off this universe of music that not dissimilar to The Beatles changed the sound of all of the music on the radio you know does that change how you put your pants on every day do you walk around with the puffed up chest or like I mean it's it's very it's it's not an overstatement to say that you know the work that you put out there in the world Changed music and yet you probably didn't you know grow up with that as your ambition or maybe you did I'm hoping you can tell us um it's you know to me the Seattle scene and where it came from was a small group of people that were playing in bands by 84 a lot of us you know that went on to being in much bigger bands so I don't I don't take any credit for anything um uh I think it was it was a group effort if you will it was an isolated smaller City that did a lot of touring bands didn't go to and we created our own scene in the in the mid 80s essentially and it got noticed and some of the Bands became huge like obviously the ones you've mentioned but you know can't not mention sound Gardens since they were around in 1985 as well all right shout out they were early on and you know malfunction 10 minute warning there were so many bands human that were doing amazing stuff in 1985 that you know we kind of stepped on their shoulders as well but tell me did you set out was that part of your ambition to like have the impact that you did or were you just focused on the craft and the world grabbed on to what it is that you guys were working on I mean you know how I'm trying to get into the mindset of the 18 year old world yeah my me as an 18 year old uh I didn't think anything was going to come of the music thing it was just something that me and my friends did for for fun and something to do on the evenings and weekends um you know I famously thought that stone and Jeff amen were deluded for thinking they were gonna make a living let alone Be stars and music I thought I was like I couldn't even comprehend that idea um they obviously proved me quite wrong through the decades but yeah I wasn't wasn't part of my deal you know I I like I I guess I was playing in punk bands and uh I'd go back to college did you feel like this so I'm fascinated by punk I grew up on Black Flag and you know other early Punk um Sex Pistols stuff like that and and part of my understanding and what I lived also skateboard culture you know we would like build skate ramps and then you know skate them and skating was an expression the building of the ramp was actually a very creative act yeah the music that went along with that culture it was all very you know it was all very sort of handmade and gritty and um you know the term is pretty was probably best encapsulated by DIY you know how much of that do you feel like was important to what it what it was you created and then importantly what do you feel like if you were going to give some advice you know to people are you still seeing that as seminal or critical for the creative you know community at large so you know how important was it then and if you're going to give some advice is that still a thing that you feel like is good better or not as good as as uh the time that you when when you were uh in that part of the process well for me as a kid skateboarding was huge um I was a total you know half pipe vert skater and that's how I got into music in the first place was Through Skateboarding um because some of the pros got into punk rock and then we all kind of had to follow suit um yeah I think it's still very uh you know skateboarding is such a wide umbrella at this point it's a sport is an Olympic sport but there's still that DIY culture you know ingrained in it especially here in the Northwest yeah all the Escape or a lot of the skate park Builders are based here and in Seattle and they're still DIY spots going up all the time in Seattle you have Marginal Way um using a big example and in Portland obviously yeah Burnside under the bridge um and music has always gone hand in hand with that and it's all expression um specifically what do you think that you know is there something to learn from that and you know I I guess I'm trying to find out if you're going to give some advice is you know do do we need to be more DIY or by contrast has DIY just exploded because now you know not only can the kid make their own Puck punk rock and by kids I mean all of us right can we make our own music can we make the videos can we shoot the still pictures can we record our albums put it out on you know our you know music insert music platform of our choice you know create video is do you feel like that that it is different better worse off now than it was you know when when you guys came up well there wasn't any of that high-tech stuff when we were kids obviously uh so it was just you know finding a hall to put on a show and and that sort of thing you know it was it was a community thing where you got together with people um that's diminished a little bit I think for the younger generations and I can speak you know to that I've got an 18 year old and a 23 year old Sons um and honestly the last few years the pandemic didn't help yeah young people getting together Max right yeah but yeah I think the The Avenues to create your own music and art and get it online and get it seen on all the different platforms I think that's great um I still like the real world a little bit more yeah I like going to see shows and uh things like that still um I think you know a lot of people still do uh having just been on tour I'm surprised that the crowds are still as big as they are after those two years of hell So speaking of it's reasonable to share that uh you all and mud honey are have just celebrated your 35th Anniversary um where a lot of these other bands have already hit their Peak and maybe even you know um I don't know dissolved over time but you guys have new new record out plastic eternity yeah uh what is it like to keep you know or were you continuing to make music why keep going or why never stop I mean what's what's the you know not a lot of folks that are you know that have had the success that that you all have had um are still making music a lot of people are sitting back and collecting checks yeah well there's not a lot of check collecting in our world for one um we still like making music ultimately uh we don't do it all the time it's not our job we've all had jobs and other careers through the years um which I think helps keeping it a little bit in check um you know we I I think this last record was made under slightly different circumstances because we hadn't seen each other for a year and a half and we kind of had a we were uh under a deadline that we had to like get a record done if we wanted to do the other things that we were kind of hoping to plan to do and uh so you know we got fairly creative in the studio made things up which normally we don't do normally we have things fairly worked out before we go in the studio we didn't have that luxury this time which I think helped you know have the creative juices flowing and overdrive a little bit while we're in the studio um but you know you kind of need to have a hook to go on tour band's our size we make money on the road that's really the only place I mean occasionally you get something you know if you license a song somewhere or something like that but for the most part it's it's live that we make money and uh it really helps to have a record to when before you go on tour so you can get more press sure promote the tour sure sure how much of that I mean so if you're making you're making music now not necessarily for the money but specifically because you love it and how much of going on tour feels like Joy that's what music was designed you know I heard an interesting quote that has stuck with me and I'm gonna botch it up but it's sort of like it's sort of like looking or listening to music even through headphones just listening to it rather than being at the place it's performed is akin to looking at a photograph of a flower rather than experiencing the flower in real life right you're so much more when you're actually with the flower and by extension so much more when you're actually in the room so how much of you know being on tour is trying to fund the passion and how much of it is just something that you cannot replicate anywhere else in the world well two points of that I guess are three or four um I think recorded music is very a very different art form than playing live I I think it's a it's a much different you know you're creating something that can be heard for ever essentially uh and you know obviously when you're in the studio you're adding extra things to the songs and you have time to work things out and um you know I love listening to records you know I have a room full of them uh and to me that's a different thing than live maybe a live record is the same is kind of diminished from actually seeing that performance live you know uh but I I think the recording aspect of music is a a great fully functional uh thing you know I love listening to weird records um but uh going on tour is a big part of being a musician I think playing live and it's you know sometimes it's by the skin of your teeth you're getting through a song and that's kind of fun um touring is also somewhat exhausting you know you don't get a lot of sleep um you got many days in a row without a break long drives you know um it's kind of like people say it's like 23 hours of sitting around and one hour of having a good time but that's a really good time so it's worth it it makes it evens out in the end yeah exactly so uh you have obviously seen so much transformation in the music industry I'll say the creative industry um some of that is you know for the worse in many ways uh and some of it's for better I'm wondering if you can comment on what do you think is working for the future of creativity and creatives everywhere whether you're musician designer entrepreneur photographer filmmaker whatever like what's what Steve Turner's take on the future of creativity what makes it unique and special and different and better harder worse like it's changing yeah give me your hot take my hot take is it's all about the technologies that allow you different freedoms to get things done in different and new ways which is you know Evolution I guess of different Arts I mean I'm sure you know photography has changed so much radical yeah yeah it's it's you know I'm I'm no photographer but just watching that evolve through the decades with you know I've got good friends that are photographers of course and uh watching how they deal with it and you know some of the high-tech cameras and and what those cameras can do it's kind of breathtaking um so I think it's just a technology that is evolving that helps a lot of these creative arts move forward and I I don't think it's binding anything you know um doesn't doesn't seem like it to me it seems like it's just more freedom and more it might be more crap out there because of it because it's easy to get it out there yeah because the bar is so low to create it and distribute it yeah yeah like it was kind of like in the 1990s that that you know indie rock explosion every band put out a seven inch record you know so there's a there's I don't I don't even know how to judge and guess how many there were but every Indie band that could muster up a couple hundred dollars made a seven inch so which is kind of also exciting because that's sort of what happened in the 60s with the garage fans as well people just haven't really sorted out you know the good from the bad of the 90s stuff yet you know they're still working on it but yeah so I that was a big change in a way you know and than the you know the CDR Revolution for there's certain bands that you know discogs.com which is uh where you can buy music uh records and CDs and whatnot and uh it's like just a big Marketplace like eBay yeah but um some bands you know I'll have to look up because I deal records that's one of my other side hustles and some bands they'll have you know 400 cdrs available you know that they've everything they've ever recorded you can actually buy one if you want you know and that that's pretty wild yeah like how can you play a CDR though I I I don't know you know at this point we might not work anymore I mean I still have my computer so old I still have a CD player in my computer here my laptop wow wow that's impressive yeah it will even do whatever we're doing right now recording this I know I wasn't I wasn't sure it was going to what is It Adele 2100 that was a MacBook Pro from I don't know 2010 or something oh nice it still has a disc player so I guess there's a little bit of this which is sort of nostalgic like we love you know old technology it's greedy everything old is new again it's like there's been a huge Resurgence in 90s music if you look at you know a 16 year old they are dressing in the same way that you and I dressed in 1991 and you know like this is not new for anyone listening right these Styles they are cyclical does that does that has that made you feel uh more connected to the music when you listen to it it's on the radio again and people are you know as resurgents in 90s bands and you know whether that translates to record sales is not my point here it's mostly sort of cultural and and a feeling is that uh you know are you aware of that does that occupy your brain space at all that that you know that 17 year olds are way into your music and way into 90s music and 90s fashion again or is that just is that not on your radar at all that's not much on my radar you know I see it with kids and and stuff like I said I have a 18 year old son so I see his his world um you know for me I listen to just weird records I find I still go to thrift stores and dig through records I mean it's getting harder now because vinyl got too popular it's kind of priced me out of it in some ways but um yeah I mean I just like digging weird musics from the past so I am starting to re-acquaint myself with the 90s because I kind of ignored that whole thing when it was happening I I got really into the 90s had a great garage Rock scene that was happening with labels like Astro 7 Bellingham and and uh stuff like that and you know I still go back and dig through that stuff and find more interesting things that happened in the 90s that I had ignored somehow and now they're finally getting through I'm sure that uh speaking of the 90s let's go back in time for a second and you know I I was time for me to give a shout out to your book called Mud ride um which is I don't know it's sort of autobiography autobiographical but it's also like historical documentarian there's a bunch of really interesting photos uh but it's chock full of stories um that are humorous heartfelt relatable and I'm wondering if you have a a favorite that might be um I don't know something that people didn't know talk to us like do you have a do you have a fave story from the book that uh is about maybe again the goal here is not to talk trash but about someone who may or may not be a living legend that that uh you'd like to air out here on the air um I mean I you know my goal was not to talk trash on anybody in the book you know um that was the goal but I mean there's the I don't know if you're thinking of the the deaf McKagan getting on stage with us maybe maybe and that was that was a good one that was uh I mean death is a total hero of mine first off he's a rad guy I've read his books uh smart you know down to earth hard working and he was in some amazing bands in the early 80s that I saw Guns and Roses well there's that that's later that you know he was he did plenty before that he was in half the bands in Seattle as far as punk bands went but uh you know he also got out of Dodge and moved to LA and uh you know getting there I will say that we saw I think the second Guns and Roses show ever they came up to Seattle and uh opened for the fastbacks and they were not good I remember like going like jeez man Duff left Seattle and all his cool bands for this but they got their act together pretty quick to be fair and I I like that first Guns N Roses record a lot um but during the Heyday in the early 90s when he was still drinking heavily he came to one uh my tennis show in Hollywood and was you know liquored up we all were I'm sure but uh we were doing as an encore song we were doing a song with Black Flag singer uh Keith Morris and Dez kadina both of them were there and uh um he wanted to get on stage and play with us as well so we're like sure just put Mark's Guitar on and have at it and uh you know he stumbled out there and we're doing fix me which is about a minute long he stumbled out there asked Luke and what key the song was in Luke and guess says what's the key and then the song starts and he's still just fumbling with the guitar and by the time like the song was done he'd finally I think got the guitar working and then we stumbled back off the stage was the crowd any wiser I don't know I I you know it was it was kind of a blur for me too you know but it's a fast song I think I was just staring at Dez and Keith because I was like my two of my all-time Heroes they're singing together on stage a little black flag song with us and I was kind of enamored by that foreign part of the um the what I'll call the grunge scene but I think maybe just music in general and certainly punk rock was there was this there was a huge Community Vibe yeah and you know I mean I'm wondering if you can speak to that like because that can still be very very true today I feel like creative communities are better than you know individuals individuals can make art within those communities but it's this community of supporting one another you know in your world that might be you know going to their shows where there's only 42 people have showed up but that's showing up actually matters for your peers and friends and co-conspirators and collaborators I wonder if you can talk a little bit about the role that Community played in you know in mud Honey's success in just the success of those music genres and how how art creators today ought to think about community in their worlds yeah well you know for for us Punk kids and the early 80s I mean I can't speak to the 70s because I started literally like at the dawn of 1980 was I started listening to punk rock I think but uh um it was about writing letters to me like you you'd get a you know a couple years later you'd have uh maximum rock and roll fanzine and flip side fanzine in the back they were little ads for you know demo tapes and things like that and you just right people in different cities and ask how things were going there you know like I did that a lot just send off a you know stamped envelope to jfa in Arizona because they were skaters and playing hardcore so I was like hey what's it like down there man you know um so that was a big part of it and fanzines and just staying in touch with all the the different scenes the best way we could because again the technology was limited um and that also you know went into like creating the early Touring that you know bands like black flag and DOA and Dead Kennedys and some of the Midwest bands have started venturing out kind of created this underground network of venues sometimes the venues were people's houses or a Grange hall somewhere that you could rent for shows uh so it was a very I mean like back to DIY again it was very DIY that scene but that kept everybody in contact with each other and kind of created this like National if not International Network um in Seattle on a microcosm of that the shows were so small that it really was the same 50 to 100 people and half of those people were in bands and those bands broke up and reformed in different units with you know the slightly different lineups and things like that and we'd sit around and argue about music and you know uh critique each other's bands if you will you know and I guess talk about that stuff at parties after the shows and you know it was a small close-knit community and uh you know I think that's what made it you know kind of stand out because we really didn't get a lot of shows we were lucky to have a really good all-ages venue for a while called the Metropolis in 83-84 and that really helped coalesce things um it made touring bands show up Suddenly all the California punk bands had a place they could play um quite some really obscure ones would just drive up from San Francisco and stuff and that was amazing to see things like Tales of Terror and rebel truth you know playing in front of the same hundred people um so you know for this day and age I think it's easy to stay in touch but you can kind of I mean Instagram and those kinds of things um I feel like keep in touch with a lot of my group through Facebook and Instagram for sure and I don't know if that's of less value than doing things in person but it's kind of the same thing I can keep in touch with all these International friends I've had for 30 years and um see what they're up to how about the relationship how about the relationship with fans do you think that's transformed with technology you know that you're like messaging fans and you know fans can find out you know all they get to see what it's like you know when you're in the music in the in the studio recording you know relative to in the 90s when that you know there was no such thing really as behind the scenes ideas you had the shiny packaged label released album and that was pretty much you know that was it that's all you saw was the that and that's why live shows were so you know basically the centerpiece of everything well I think you know I I'm on both Facebook and Instagram I let anyone that wants to follow me can follow me um and so there's a lot of fans that do that of course and I think you know we're not great at social media posting sure you know we do some uh we have other people that run the mud honey Facebook and Instagrams yeah uh because none of us were that inclined to get it done uh but you know I think that's kind of a neat thing that fans can follow artists fairly closely and see fairly I mean they see me post a picture of me and my girlfriend and then suddenly they're following my girlfriend too my girlfriend sometimes like ah thanks thanks but no thanks yeah I think she's a little bit more careful than I am yeah I can find anybody you know follow but I think that's fun I mean I follow artists I I admire and you know it's kind of fun little peek into what they're up to if they're actually organized enough to post regularly what do you think what do you think made I'll say grunge with sort of air quotes around it because you can really talk about that whole universe of music there's all kinds of offshoots and you know if you're a music head then you could slice and dice this but what what made it successful because the timing was it the sound was it the community the ethos they're like why that uh I think there were some really uh strong bands first off uh if we use the two bands that went astronomical first he had Nirvana followed by cruel Jam um they both have incredible charismatic front men uh there was a feeling of kind of not danger necessarily but uh it was a little bit unhinged and not controlled by the man very much like uh the music industry was really taken aback when it happened uh they didn't know why it like hit that hard but I think Nirvana that opening Salvo the Smells Like Teen Spirit was an amazing song and the video was great and a bit you know I think the younger generation was already getting tired of the more sanitized pop music that had been happening and it was just like kind of the last time that the kids spoke without being told what to listen to the music industry got control of of the whole thing pretty dang quick you know like two years later it seemed like they were back under control I mean a band like mud honey we benefited from that whole uh confusion if you will Within the Music Industry where the execs had no idea why it was popular they were so they were suddenly hiring you know kids to be a r people go find us something the kids like because we don't understand this stuff and so we ended up on Warner Brothers reprise because of that uh I think our Anar guy David Katz Nelson was the youngest Anarchy younger than you guys probably yeah well much younger yeah yeah but he was awesome he's still a great friend of ours uh so we benefited from that we had the freedom to do what we wanted while on a major label until we didn't and then we got dropped because we weren't going to sell a million records but that was obvious in the get-go to us but well I think that's a interesting spread to pull on if you don't mind going there for a second like what is there any internally you know as you're sitting around with Mark and your other band mates across the Myriad of bands is there some I mean you had Stone right your your the forward to your book again we're talking about mud ride a messy trip through grunge explosion um so is there what was there any tension between the bands that sort of you know sold tens of millions of records and the ones that sold tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of records and it's clearly there's a community that we just talked about right there's a creative connection a collaboration and everyone was showing up for one another but I wonder if there's was there any sort of Riff between uh the bands that made it on a global scale and those that didn't I speak for myself and mud honey collectively I guess I I can speak we had no feelings of uh contempt or or jealousy or anything like that we are when it when Nirvana hit big we the joke was always like Nirvana should be number one in a perfect world they'd be number one man because about a girl was such a great song on the first record but uh when they hit number one we were first off it wasn't yet a perfect world but uh we're just happy for them and excited and then you know Pearl Jam exploded and that was awesome uh sound garden was already kind of building their thing uh they were kind of they were kind of growing separately in a way because they were being before like in the pre-grunge like when they were first on the major label they were being marketed as a metal band because that was really the only option for a hard sounding band like that and loud loud love that album yeah yeah and uh so they were touring with on the more mental side of the fence if you will and uh but they quickly got incorporated into it too as did Allison Chains and you know that was just an exciting it was great I I was happy for everybody we're really close to a lot of people in these bands you know and um we were doing just fine you know we we started touring in 1988 and we got to a certain level of success way quicker than I would have ever imagined and we were touring Europe and you know having a great time and paying our bills with it so um I didn't want to be that mega rock star that was never a dream of mine as a kid and once it got just ridiculous by 92 93 I was just so happy I wasn't just seeing how uh Ed Vetter was almost a prisoner in his house at times you know because of like stalkers and just the people that he I could still go to the grocery store I guess I always use that as an example I was yeah I'm glad I could still go to the grocery store yeah I'm I'm there's a page in the book here that I'm paying attention to which is uh let's see it put us in the unique position of experiencing both the underground world of our own making as well as the major label machinations of some of our good friends were going through mud hunting we're selling tens of thousands of albums not bad for the underground while we were touring Arenas with Nirvana and Pearl Jam who had already sold millions of albums we LED an oddly Charmed Life in many ways we got to see how the other half lived without having to deal with the downside exactly Eddie Vedder couldn't go to the grocery store but I could yeah I you know I liked having my freedom I you know I a certain you know I don't mind getting recognized out and about and you know that happens on occasion um I don't know how Stone does it Stone barely ever gets recognized we've always got hat in classes yeah but it's weird it's kind of unique I like I don't know what ever notices this guy he's like always got you know big glasses and a hat and a yeah wrong low profile so uh you shared the story of uh Duff getting on stage with you guys and this or I'm gonna share a story so we um a good friend and I used to produce these evenings where we would uh get together amazing food amazing Chef friends of ours and amazing musician friends of ours and we would you know maybe invite it's usually about 25 musicians usually from a couple different bands um and one of these nights it was the hottest night in the history of Seattle prior to the last couple of years where we had a couple of days in 107 or eight or whatever I think it was 101 degrees 102 degrees and we had occupied the penthouse of the Sorrento hotel and had one of these dinners where we recorded this music and and subsequently shared it with the world and these were acoustic evenings um and again folks like from and Pearl Jam and the Dandy Warhols and some very very amazing bands and some up-and-comers and we we'd curated different groups of musicians sometimes we had a hip-hop one or we had a grunge one or whatever and one evening in particular that I remember this night at Sorrento um it was an acoustic set and I remember the day of you know this was it takes a lot of production through these things we had you know yeah cameras and sound technicians and chips and we try and make it look like nothing's happening behind the scenes but you know everyone's pulling their hair out and the co-host Michael my co-host and I were getting you know get to be at the table with y'all and and introduce these acts and and I remember we had to at some point I think the day before you guys had said you know what we're we're not gonna play acoustic we're we're gonna be fully plugged in and we're like well [ __ ] it's gonna be like you know 10 30 at night and in a hotel like I don't know how we pulled this off and I think at some point we just said [ __ ] it and I said okay whatever we green lit the thing and I remember you know we just basically you know act one act would go and then you know we're eating dessert and then another awkward stand up and we would just introduce these folks and it was just a beautiful beautiful evening I'd love to get your recap of it if you can uh when I'm done here but and then at some point it you know these like these nights always go long right so it's like 12 30. at night you guys are the the final act after maybe 10 other acts and we push everybody out onto this balcony we're in the middle of downtown Seattle at the Sorrento Hotel on this balcony on the rooftop balcony rather and you guys do a full plugged in set and you know we're around all these buildings and not only are you know is everything just absolutely cranked but everyone's windows are open because it's the hottest day of the year in the history of Seattle and the cops bum rushed the building we managed to Stave them off you know we misdirect them because they can't figure out where the hell the music is coming from but we got a full recording of uh you know maybe I'll tack that recording on to the end of this podcast or something but um I'm one it was an amazing night for us we we had so much fun and you can still see these uh recordings out there on the internet it's songs for eating and drinking.com I'm wondering if uh if you have a memory fund or otherwise of of that evening so that was a great evening uh I should also point out I played a couple acoustic songs as well that night you did which were absolutely stunning and they are on that same site as well songs for you yeah and that was fun uh you know I don't do a lot of solo shows but uh I'm glad that one was recorded so well because it's pretty pretty great footage of a kind of captures a Time a very beardy time for me I'm just gonna say you looked a little different yeah um but yeah though I I can't believe that we managed to play for as long as we did that night outside I don't remember it being like the hottest day of the year it was a hundred and something degrees that day and of course that we were in an air-conditioned space but the air conditioner was trying to support a whole hotel of everyone turning it on full blast was it didn't work all that well and it was everyone's a little shiny yeah at night at night um uh but yeah we we you pulled it off and nobody got arrested surprisingly I don't know how that happened but yeah I I don't I like I said I know we didn't play a long set but it's true even what we did play I'm surprised we got through it this was a very beardy beardy moment for you I'm wondering uh I probably shouldn't play it right now if I try and play audio through my computer it's just gonna Jack it up so um but we'll link that link there in the show notes your acoustic performance as well which was which was beautiful yeah um so I want to shift gears towards advice you are obviously a seasoned musician now collector you're you're still touring you've been doing you know mud hunting for 35 years you've written a book about it again mud ride a messy trip through the grunge explosion which I think is is absolute must read for anyone any music fan uh but certainly people who um came up through the 90s it's especially uh interesting touching and there's a bunch of lovely Beautiful Stories there but let's go to advice because you've seen a lot yeah um give give some advice to the people who are out there again our audience identify as creators you know if you're going to give them some advice about longevity about you know there's already been some nuggets in there about not actually caring and not betting your future on success or failure or relative comparing yourself to your peers but what are some other lessons that you some takeaways well the first major lesson as far as musicians go um if you want to play music play music with your friends you know don't like there used to be you know the people that wanted to make it big in the music Biz the people that I thought were deluded uh would put ads in the back of a music magazine or local magazine like the rocket like you know seek you know vocalists seeking you know guitar player and drummer you know and so many of them would be like must-have Pro looking attitude you know no losers you know like blah blah blah like you know must have a car and uh you know most of them didn't make it anywhere because they're just trying to build this perfect band but music is so much about connecting with the people that you're playing with and if you're already buddies then you've got you're halfway there in my mind as far as uh finding some way to communicate with each other and that's kind of what playing music together is right and even that transcends music right that could be true with any creative act this is yeah um so I you know to me I maybe I got lucky you know my friends were you know as inept as I was when we started playing in bands and like we were in app me and Mark but uh you know you just kind of grow together and uh by the by the time mud honey started uh Mark and I had already been in three bands together by that point unless I'm counting wrong four bands together at that point uh and uh you know we we communicated pretty well musically and we had a very shared aesthetic I think just from influencing each other for five years at that point and uh that helped a lot and getting Matt Lucan from The Melvins in on base he was a buddy and we admired you know The Melvins that still do he's gonna see them in a few days here actually um but uh you know he was a great he was an obvious person to ask because he'd just been let go from The Melvins and we're like well dude lucan's not playing with anybody let's get him and like we are told buddies with him already so yeah that made sense uh finding Dan Peters was I didn't know him that well but we'd already kind of jammed at a party and it was awesome uh I guess in a basement and a party at fatheringham's house and you know that he made sense like we had a couple ideas for drummers you know but they were just people that we knew and uh you know I think we got lucky with how we put it together but we all knew each other and uh chemistry it sounds like that chemistry overrides skill or ambition or anything yeah and you can't all you can't always predict how that's going to go um but you know I think we got really lucky and it gelled almost immediately honestly you know we didn't pay any dues uh we said we were banned and we had two record labels two hot trendy record labels willing to put records out by us sub pop and amphetamine reptile out of Minneapolis so you know we we got lucky no doubt about that um and we were lucky but there is a certain chemistry that you know you're striving for I think in communication and you know I guess that is number one lesson number one thing gets along a little bit for a little bit longer the lesson we learned was to share songwriting credit so then there's less ego battles uh some bands can like like chop that up Pearl Jam does that like and uh but using a very famous Example The Ramones were never the same once they stopped just sharing the songwriters credit they did that for the first four or five records and then then everything went to hell after that so those are the two lessons for for music writing be friendly be friends I think that I really believe deeply that goes that transcends music that's like share the credit you know whether you're building a company or you know designing a book covers I'm looking at this here it's like sharing the credit um sharing the spotlight there's an underscore of sort of community and this it does it keeps going back I can I continue to like hear your words and my headphones and then go back to sort of the DIY ethos that is you know punk music and the you know get together with your friends and make art here don't be precious when everyone else is judging your art I think Andy Warhol said just keep keep making more art and you don't have to judge it but let others do the judging and you do the making um grateful to have you on the show again for those out there mud ride a messy trip through the grunge explosion by Mr Steve Turner Steve it's been a treat it's been a long time I think we revealed that it was it a decade I think it was about a decade ago oh god oh that fateful night in Seattle ladies and Gentlemen please welcome Steve Turner and his bad ideas this is one of the non-food songs it's called the I5 corridor foreign [Music] broke down again I'm in a beat up our old white Chevy minivan it's not us anymore it's them time watching Wheels spin it's not for me I swear to God I'm Gonna Leave This Town and get myself free [Music] straight down the I5 Corridor straight down the I-5 corridor straight down the I-5 core door I burn them off like a fog but it didn't get clearer yes I regret a few things my dear I guess I miss her I know I miss the way things used to be but that's long gone in a distant world and the white Chevy minivan is taking it [Music] straight down the I-5 Corridor straight down the I-5 corridor straight down the Earth five corridor [Applause] thanks [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] it's called I know you Scorpio what [Music] thank you [Music] I know you Scorpio [Music] yeah I know you I do I've been dressing up the Mona Lisa in poetry and Pearls like a fool a statue of a reputation several shades of nude bookshelves of good intentions won't tell me what to do dream is [Music] Mr memory is clear the colors appear everything else is here [Music] [Applause] [Music] I know you Scorpio yeah I know you I do [Music] you're a sweet talking little mama now and I love the things you lay me down at night pick me back up again in the mornings I'm Gonna Leave You one day pretty mama without any warning [Applause] a bad dream it's just about a bad dream sometimes the good ones aren't as good as they've seen their memory is clear as the colors disappear and when you wake up nobody else is here [Music] I know you Scorpio I know you Scorpio I know you Scorpio [Music] thanks for you know spearheading so much as you did in the Seattle music scene it was transformational for me um I remember you know early early mud honey just feeling made me want to do cool [ __ ] that's get really really really did and like I'll never forget the first few bars of Smells Like Teen Spirit or the first time you know seeing you guys live you guys and others from that era uh very very transformational and inspirational so thank you for being a guest on the show is there anywhere else you would steer us besides you know picking up copies of the book you guys just finished touring did you not yeah we're gonna do a US tour in October like middle of October to the middle of November okay we'll be playing up there I think at the the crocodile the oh wow doing that awesome awesome all right well we'll keep an eye out for for the tour and in the meantime pick up the book thanks so much for being on the show being a guest here Steve and uh from myself and Steve Turner from mud honey uh to everybody else out there in the world we hope you have an amazing day stay creative and until next time we both bid you adieu

Channel: Chase Jarvis

Views: 5,468

Keywords: Steve Turner, Mud Ride, A Messy trip through grunge explosion, Chase Jarvis, podcast, Seattle music scene, music advice, songwriting, community, touring, creativity, how to play music with friends, sharing credit, long-lasting success, music chemistry, Andy Warhol, DIY, punk music, independent tracks, US tour, crocodile music club, grunge, punk, Seattle, DIY culture, music industry, musical influences, Plastic Eternity, underground music, music history, Seattle history

Id: 002ayBPLNlo

Length: 53min 42sec (3222 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 21 2023