Melvins Talk ‘Basses Loaded’ LP, Featuring Nirvana’s Krist Novoselic

Indefatigable sludge-metal pioneers Melvins are storming through 2016 by releasing their 23rd and 24th studio albums and blaring through a 39-date tour with Napalm Death and Melt Banana. April 1st will see the release of Three Men and a Baby, their long-lost low-end collaboration with Mike Kunka of Godheadsilo. Originally intended for release in 1999, it is now seeing daylight as the Melvins’ first recordings for Sub Pop in their 33-year history.

In June the band will drop Basses Loaded, an album featuring a whopping six different bass players: four tracks with Redd Kross bassist Steve McDonald, a track with Butthole Surfers bassist Jeff Pinkus, one with upright bass from Fantômas’ Trevor Dunn, four tracks as Melvins 1983 with drummer Dale Crover holding down the low end, one with the current Melvins lineup assisted by the two members of Big Business and, most notably, a collaboration with their old friend Krist Novoselic of Nirvana. You can hear the McDonald-assisted “Hideous Woman” below.

Rolling Stone caught up with guitarist/vocalist King Buzzo Osborne to talk about the band’s busy year.

A handful of the Basses Loaded tracks have appeared on 10-inches — the Beer Hippy EP, the War Pussy EP and the Chaos as Usual split with Le Butcherettes. What is your attachment to the clunky, annoying 10-inch format?
I like it better, art-wise, than a seven inch. I think it looks better. I don’t have any particular love for any size vinyl. They say size matters — maybe it does.

At what point did you say, “OK, this is going to be a full-length record.”
Well, we knew we didn’t have enough. We had recorded a little bit with Krist Novoselic. And that was a really, really funny story. It was before where [the surviving members of Nirvana] played with Paul McCartney. Dave Grohl had said that he wanted to do all that stuff with us. He wanted to do Nirvana songs with the Melvins, and maybe have David Yow singing. So Krist Novoselic came down and we started rehearsing, and Dave was supposed to show up — and he just never showed up. Blew it off, totally. And it was his idea! I didn’t appreciate that, you know? I’m a lot of things, but one thing I’m not doing is sitting next to the phone in curlers, waiting for Dave Grohl to call me, you know? When he totally blows you off like that, it’s fucked. But whatever. There’s nothing I can do about that. So we did some recording with Krist while he was here.

Is he playing accordion on it?
He does. It’s a really great track. It’s different than pretty much anything we would have done. Really cool. I would love to work more with him, but honestly his life is kind of a mystery to me. I don’t have a lot of connection with those guys anymore. So we’re lucky to have that amount with him.

Did you and Dave ever straighten it out?
Dave never talked to me about it in the first place. Dave talked to Krist about it in the first place. … We were rehearsing with me Krist, Dale and David Yow. Dave just was supposed to show up, never showed up. I was like, “Krist, let’s just go to his house. You know where he lives.” He wouldn’t do it. So next thing you know, they’re doing all this stuff with Paul McCartney.