'It's A Pain In The Arse' Melvins' Buzz Osbourne On Kicking Out Band Members

"Has it really only been 30 years?”

Melvins founder, frontman and songwriter Buzz Osbourne asks this rhetorical question wryly, knowing full well how much he's been through since he started messing around with bassist Matt Lukin and drummer Mike Dillard in Montesano, Washington back in 1983. Within a year Dillard was gone – replaced by Dale Crover – and soon Lukin left to join Mudhoney, but the Melvins were up and running.

Since those innocuous beginnings Osbourne and Crover – with a revolving line-up of bassists and musicians – have transformed Melvins into possibly the most influential sludge metal band in history, forging a reputation as one of the most innovative and uncompromising bands in the business, buoyed by their steadfast belief in doing things their own way. Take most recent album, Tres Cabrones, for instance, which found Dillard invited back into the fold after nearly 30 years, and the multi-tasking Crover moving to bass.

Dillard is back being a family man now, so the four-piece version of the Melvins replete with two drummers that's been their live mainstay of late is who we'll be seeing on their impending Australian visit.

“What happened was our last bass player Kevin [Rutmanis], we had to kick him out of the band for excessive drug and alcohol use, and basic insanity. Me and Dale were very discouraged fellows. Kevin has since got his act together, and we actually did a song with him on our last record [early 2013's covers collection Everybody Loves Sausages], so it's all good.

“We were very discouraged fellows though when we had to quit playing for him for personal reasons [in 2005], and we wanted to do something that was completely new so we basically reinvented the entire band with these two new guys [bassist Jared Warren and drummer Coady Willis], and it really reinvigorated us. You can't imagine how hard it is to have that happen – I cared about him a whole lot, and he was basically going to croak – so if people think that I just flippantly made those decisions then they're fucking nuts.

“It's not a fun thing to do, believe me – it's a pain in the arse, not fun – but we moved on and it really worked, and I don't regret anything. The only thing I really wanted was for Kevin to be okay, and now he says that had we not done that he could very well be dead now, so it's not even a question of whether we made the right decision – of course we did! For everybody involved.”

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