Montesano, WA · sludge metal · noise rock · sludge-metal · noise-rock

Melvins

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Forty years of deliberately difficult, punishingly slow riffs — and the band Nirvana learned from, still outweirding everyone downstream.

The band formed in Montesano, Washington, in early 1983, when Buzz Osborne, Matt Lukin and drummer Mike Dillard started playing together, taking the name Melvins from a disliked supervisor at the Thriftway store where Osborne worked as a clerk. Dillard left in 1984 and was replaced by Dale Crover, who has anchored the drum stool alongside Osborne through every lineup since.

Their earliest recordings appeared on Deep Six, a 1985 compilation on C/Z Records documenting the Washington scene, followed by a debut EP in 1986 and the full-length Gluey Porch Treatments in 1987. Those records took hardcore punk's speed and inverted it into something slow and crushing, a sound that became a direct blueprint for sludge metal.

The Nirvana connection goes beyond reputation: Crover played drums on the 1988 demo session that later fed into Bleach, and Osborne introduced Kurt Cobain and Krist Novoselic to Dave Grohl. Matt Lukin, meanwhile, left the bass chair to help start Mudhoney, one of several departures that kept the bass position in constant turnover.

Later bassists included Lori "Lorax" Black, daughter of Shirley Temple, and Joe Preston, before Mark Deutrom, who had produced the band's Ozma album, joined outright. Each change nudged the sound rather than reset it, and the trio format has at times stretched into a quartet with two drummers or two bassists.

Melvins have released more than 25 studio albums, moving through drone, noise and garage rock without settling on a formula, much of it through Osborne and Crover's own Ipecac Recordings. They tour persistently and have folded in outside collaborators over the years, including Jello Biafra and members of Big Business.

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