Melvins

No band emerging from the punk and alternative underground has drawn upon Black Sabbath’s deliberate, monolithic roar to greater purpose than the Melvins, whose influence has proved enormous even while they stayed confined to cult renown. The drop-D tunings and lumbering gait heard in grunge acts such as Tad, Mudhoney, and Soundgarden would scarcely have existed without the path the Melvins cleared, and Kurt Cobain repeatedly voiced his admiration, which helped secure their initial major-label contract in 1993. In doing so they linked the outer fringes of punk and metal audiences, two scenes that would discover more shared territory from the nineties forward. Their first EP, 1986’s 6 Songs, still alternated between brisk punk numbers and outright heaviness, yet by the time of 1991’s Bullhead the group’s signature colossal sound had settled into place. Though instantly identifiable among their contemporaries, the Melvins displayed greater creative adaptability than almost any peers, exploring varied approaches—the sprawling suite of 1992’s Melvins (aka Lysol), the bold studio explorations of 1996’s Stag, the dense sonic environments of 2017’s A Walk with Love and Death, and the unconventional song structures of 2024’s Tarantula Heart—alongside shifting line-up formats that included multiple guest singers on 2000’s The Crybaby, dual drummers on 2006’s A Senile Animal, a rotating cast of bassists on 2016’s Basses Loaded, and added pop and groove elements on 2022’s Bad Mood Rising, all of which sustained their output across more than three decades.

Formed in Aberdeen, Washington—the same hometown that later produced Nirvana’s Cobain and Krist Novoselic—the Melvins supplied a crucial template for Nirvana and other Seattle-area bands. Those younger groups adopted the Melvins’ Sabbath-derived weight while supplying the concise pop frameworks the originators themselves seldom emphasized. Although disciples such as Mudhoney, which included former Melvins bassist Matt Lukin, achieved widespread fame after Nirvana’s 1991 breakthrough, the Melvins themselves saw only modest growth in their following. They did obtain an Atlantic deal, yet after three albums the label parted ways in late 1996, returning them to independent ranks with 1998’s Alive at the F*cker Club on Amphetamine Reptile. The late nineties and early 2000s brought a rapid succession of releases—The Maggot, The Bootlicker, The Crybaby, Electroretard, The Colossus of Destiny, Hostile Ambient Takeover, Pigs of the Roman Empire, and Houdini Live 2005: A Live History of Gluttony and Lust—most appearing on Mike Patton’s Ipecac imprint.

Alongside Melvins duties, singer-guitarist Buzz Osborne teamed with Patton, former Slayer drummer Dave Lombardo, and Mr. Bungle bassist Trevor Dunn in the experimental group Fantômas, yielding 1999’s self-titled debut, 2001’s The Director’s Cut, 2002’s Millennium Monsterwork by “the Fantômas Melvins Big Band” (captured live in San Francisco on New Year’s Eve 2000 yet issued two years later), 2004’s Delirium Cordia, and 2005’s Suspended Animation; meanwhile the Melvins’ then-bassist Kevin Rutmanis joined Patton in Tomahawk. In 2006 Big Business bassist Jared Warren and drummer Coady Willis entered the Melvins ranks for that year’s Senile Animal, and the same lineup recorded the subsequent Ipecac releases 2008’s Nude with Boots, 2010’s The Bride Screamed Murder, and the live set Sugar Daddy Live.

The band pared back to a Melvins Lite configuration in 2012 for Freak Puke, with Crover and Osborne joined by standup bassist Dunn rather than the Big Business rhythm section, thereby reinforcing an already formidable low end. Further variety arrived with 2013’s Everybody Loves Sausages, an album of covers featuring guests including Jello Biafra and J.G. Thirlwell, while November of the same year brought Tres Cabrones, which reunited them with original drummer Mike Dillard—previously heard only on early demo tapes—while Crover shifted to bass. Another cross-pollination occurred in 2014 when Crover and Osborne joined Butthole Surfers’ Jeff “J.D.” Pinkus and Paul Leary for the eclectic Hold It In.

Two distinctive projects surfaced in 2016. A set begun in 1999 with Mike Kunka of Godheadsilo finally appeared as Three Men and a Baby under the name Mike & the Melvins. Mid-year saw Basses Loaded, on which the band enlisted several favored bassists—Krist Novoselic of Nirvana, Steve McDonald of Redd Kross and OFF!, J.D. Pinkus, Trevor Dunn, and Jared Warren—for individual tracks. The long-desired double album arrived in 2017 with the 23-track A Walk with Love and Death, incorporating material composed as the score to Jesse Nieminen’s film. In 2018 the group explored a two-bassist format on Pinkus Abortion Technician, with J.D. Pinkus and Steve McDonald sharing duties alongside Osborne on guitar and Crover on drums. Periodic reunions with Dillard produced several shorter releases under the Melvins 1983 banner, culminating in the full-length Working with God in 2021. During the COVID-19 pandemic the band streamed a series of concerts under the Melvins TV banner and completed the all-acoustic Five Legged Dog, issued in October 2021 by the Osborne/Crover/McDonald lineup; the nearly two-and-a-half-hour set reinterpreted songs from across their catalog alongside influential covers. Bad Mood Rising, released in September 2022 on Amphetamine Reptile, restored their signature sludge on extended pieces such as the fourteen-minute “Mr. Dog Is Totally Right,” while introducing unexpected melodic turns on “It Won’t or It Might” and a semi-funky pulse on “Hammering.”

For 2024’s Tarantula Heart the core trio of Osborne, Crover, and McDonald enlisted second drummer Roy Moyarga, previously associated with Hellyeah, Stone Sour, and Ministry. The double-drummer unit recorded lengthy jams built around Osborne’s foundational riffs; he subsequently shaped finished songs from those rhythms, adding melodies and solos, with additional guitar contributions from Gary Chester of We Are the Asteroid and Ed Hall.