Since forming in 1983, The Melvins, a cult punk band from Washington, has stayed decidedly out of the spotlight.
The band is best known for its early links to rock icon Nirvana — Melvins drummer Dale Crover played for Nirvana in their early days, while Melvins lead singer Buzz Osborne was a high school friend of Kurt Cobain and famously introduced to Cobain to Dave Grohl, who became Nirvana’s drummer and went on to play in countless bands, most notably as the lead singer of Foo Fighters.
Despite how influential The Melvins brand of slow, sludgy rock was on countless bands in the ’90s, the group somehow avoided being a part the grunge explosion.
And for Crover, that doesn’t make a bit of a difference.
“I feel like we’ve been really successful doing on our own terms, no one else’s,” Crover said. “We’re the boss. It’s great to be able to make a living off this.”
Crover, Osborne and third member Trevor Dunn are currently attempting to set a world record. Touring as a smaller group billed as Melvins Lite, the trio is attempting to play 51 shows in all 50 states, plus Washington, D.C., in 51 days. Tonight’s show at the Spanish Moon is the band’s 44th stop on the tour. Crover said the world record attempt hasn’t exhausted him more than any other tour.
“On a normal tour, you don’t really have a day off anyway,” Crover said. “It’s really not as bad as we expected, because for a lot of these dates, all the drives are really short.”
Crover said the tour was born essentially out of boredom, as the band felt they had nothing better to do.
“We wanted to do something big and ridiculous,” Crover said. “We came up with this idea about a year ago and it’s taken us that long to get the whole thing planned.”
While The Melvins’ usual lineup consists of two drummers, an electric bassist and a singer-guitarist, the Melvins Lite lineup adds Dunn, an upright bassist, into the mix, while eliminating the additional drummer. Crover said the lineup change adds a jazzy element to the music he and Osborne, the band’s original members, felt was a positive addition to the group.
“Just watching someone play upright bass in a punk band is kind of cool and funny,” Crover said. “We added Trevor because we thought he brought something different that not a lot of other bands have. It’s just one of the ways we keep things interesting.”
Crover guaranteed that even though the group is billed as a lite version of The Melvins, fans can count on a show that’s just as loud as the music the band is known for.
“We really only call it Melvins Lite so that people know the difference between this and the full band,” Crover said. “It’s certainly just as powerful. We are absolutely not going to disappoint anyone at our shows.”
“We are absolutely not going to disappoint anyone at our shows.”
