After doing their part to unleash a sound that changed rock ‘n’ roll overnight, Mudhoney needed to figure out where to go next. After years of playing in bands around town, it seemed like the music industry had flooded into Seattle to snag up whoever was plugging into a fuzz pedal at any given dive bar.
But for singer and guitarist Mark Arm, guitarist Steve Turner, drummer Dan Peters and then bassist Matt Lukin, distancing themselves from the magnifying glass was the goal and they achieved that with 1991’s classic album Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge.
While Mudhoney’s first releases were foundational for what we now know as “grunge” — along with releases from their neighborhood peers, Nirvana and Soundgarden — this album found the band turning away from the sounds of their scene to further explore influences such as garage rock, ‘60s psych,and hardcore-punk to deliver a timeless record.
Recently released as an expanded “30th Anniversary Deluxe Edition” by the band’s longtime label Sub Pop, the new collection comes with tons of bonus material from Mudhoney’s sessions with producer Conrad Uno and it paints a vivid picture of just how unstoppable the band was during this time.
Mudhoney’s Steve Turner has been vocal in the past about his admiration for the lo-fi sound and stellar batch of tunes on Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge, even telling VICE in a 2018 interview that it was his favorite record the band has recorded.
In an interview with Ears to Feed, Turner spoke about his memories of making the album, future plans with Mudhoney, the joys of record collecting, the campaign to have Seattle’s new sewage tunnel named after the band and so much more.
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