Buzz and Mike: Two Pals from Back in the Day… through Today

It is August 23, 1998 and Mike Dillard is just off stage at a Melvins / Tool show in Seattle while the Melvins are wailing away and making one hell of a racket and Dillard thinks back to when he used to be in the Melvins all the way back in 1983 and the thing is now that he really has to take a piss and it’s the kind of piss where you can feel the pressure in your guts and it feels like a tennis ball is in there and the pressure is pounding and sorry for the description but it is necessary here, so Dillard runs down the stage steps and out a door and down a hallway or something and through the bathroom door and he sees a urinal and finally, finally, finally he gets to take a piss and it’s one of those really long ones where the whiz just blasts out of you and you can immediately feel the pressure in your bladder drop and ~~~~aaaahhh~~~~ what a relief~~~~ and then Dillard zips up and zips out the door and hustles his way back to the stage BUT the problem is that there’s a security guy there and he won’t let Dillard back inside and he says “no fuckin’ way Jose,” and crosses his arms and he won’t budge and tells Dillard that there are no exceptions and no one, check that, NO ONE, gets to go inside right now, even if it is George Fuckin’ Washington or Marilyn Fuckin’ Monroe, and especially not if it is you, random guy, so too fuckin’ bad for you, you are shit out of luck… and then… from the stage… comes a voice, “Miiiiiike… Miiiike where arrrrre yooouuuuu?”

That’s Buzz Osborne, guitarist and Melvins mastermind, calling from the stage. You see, before the Melvins took to the stage, Buzz, kind of out of the blue said to Mike, the Melvins drummer from waaaaaaay back in the day who left the band and was replaced by the iconic Dale Crover in 1984, “You’re going to play a song with us tonight.” Dillard said he couldn’t do it, so Osborne replied “if you don’t come out when I cue you, I will embarrass you so badly that you won’t ever be able to forget it.”

So, Dillard is trying to explain to the security guard that he is Mike, the guy that is supposed to be on stage, and he’s supposed to be up there drumming right now! “Riiiight,” the guard responded, his arms still crossed.

“Miiiiiikeee… wherrrrreee areeeeeee yoouuuuuuuu…” Buzz again calls from the stage. The words are getting longer and more menacing.

“I was shitting myself,” Dillard says. Yet, the guard did not budge. So, either Dillard did a mad dash, or maybe he slipped someone a hundo, or maybe he whipped out some fast talking, or maybe he even did a brutal Kung Fu chop, but in a manner of events no one seems to remember, but somehow, he got around the guard and got up on stage and sprinted over to the drum stool, hopped behind the kit, brought up his drum stick and snapped it down and the band launched into the Melvs classic cover “Sacrifice” and Melvins 1983 was BORN!

Or, really, the Melvins 1983 was re- born. You see, way back in 1983, or maybe a little before, Dillard was learning the drums and his friend he knew a guy that was playing guitar. Not too long after, a guy with thick eyebrows and curly black hair came over- his name was Buzz, or maybe it was “Roger” then, and they jammed and the Melvins were created. And maybe more importantly for Osborne and Dillard, they became lifelong pals.

Dillard says, “It was one of those friendships like the minute you meet someone you know it’s gonna be good friends. We met on a Wednesday and by the weekend we were hanging out, playing music, and raising hell.”

The big bang of the Melvins was a refuge for Osborne, and probably for Dillard, too. “If it wasn’t for music and art that I was able to access, I probably would have offed myself,” Osborne says. The pair mostly grew up in Montesano, Washington (Osborne had moved from the even smaller, Morton). Montesano is logging town and it is very, very rural.

“I’m surprised I got out of there alive,” Osborne says. “I took my wife there only once and she said, ‘This is even worse than you described.’”

Dillard adds, “It’s your typical American small town. At the time there were less than 3,000 people. It is basically a logging community. Lots of hard working redneck woodsy type people. It’s pretty small, one stop light. That created a high school environment that was very clickly. There was the privilege kids, the jocks, and the outcasts… and there were people like us. We were not high grade students. We were little more degenerate. We were obviously on the other end pf the spectrum and we kind of kept to ourselves. Even so, people always notice Buzz simply because of the hair.”

While in middle school and high school, Osborne had basically no friends. He didn’t fit in at school, at all, he didn’t fit in socially, and, he just didn’t fit in. Osborne tends to be a little tight lipped about exactly what his middle school and high school years so rough, but as he says, “it was the most miserable time of my entire life. Just completely miserable.”

Osborne spent a lot of his time “getting loaded and fucking around,” and also working odd jobs to make pocket money. With that money, he would give his mom cash who would then write a check and he would mail order records out of magazines, just based off the title or a 1’’x1’’ black and white photo of the cover. The gems that showed up – The Damned, the Jam, the Clash, Bowie, Discharge, Black Flag, Blondie, Talking Heads, the MC5, Black Sabbath, the frikkin Stooges- gave Osborne a whole world that suggested, there are other people out there and they are NOT like the jeans-n-plaid, beer swigging,’ REO Speedwagon lovin,’ loggers of Montesano.

Yet, no one in town would even engage with any of this far out music- in fact, everyone mocked it, except one guy. “I spent a lot of time taking my records over to Mike’s house,” Osborne says. “We’d play anything left of center. He wasn’t as knowledgeable as to that kind of music or art, but he was receptive to it- which is more than anyone else was.”

Dillard responds, “I don’t know what made us such close friends. Obviously, music. Maybe it was just our sense of humor. We had similar interests. We both kind of liked to cause trouble. We were both coming of age and dabbling in drinking beer. We did all that stuff together in the beginning. Between the two of us, I was probably more of an average Joe, kind of guy. I know Buzz says it was a miserable time for him, I didn’t consider it miserable. We complained about things, but he was literally, ‘I can’t wait to get the fuck out of here!’ I wasn’t quite as extreme, as far as hating it so much. We did share the same animosity towards the jocks and the privilege kids at school and the kids that got all the breaks because of their family heritage. I remember thinking he wasn’t going to stick around. I remember saying to other friends, even if the band doesn’t work out, he will be somebody someday for some reason, mostly because he was so much smarter than everybody else. “

The pair, along with early Melvins bassist Matt Lukin, would jam on Hendrix and Ramones, while learning to play their instruments. Outside of that, Dillard and Osborne would hang out and cause trouble- they’d got shoot stuff in the woods, slam beers (acquired via five finger discount or paying off older people), maybe some light arson. When asked about teenage hi-jinx, Osborne says, “the statute of limitations still hasn’t run out yet.”

Dillard offers, “I can’t go into too much. We were just running around. Just teenage vandalism on a low scale. Just fucking around and, oh, I don’t know, messing around with other classmates, pulling pranks. One of our favorite things to do was go over to my dad’s garage and construct a dozen Molotov cocktails. We would go out on the logging roads, and go out into the woods and there is no one around and we would launch the cocktails and watch them blow up- harmless fun.”

And pretty soon, against all expectations, the Melvins went from being two or three guys jamming in a garage to a for real deal band with gigs. One of their earliest gigs was playing a Christmas telethon benefit (which the hosts absolutely hated). And, then even recorded a number of surprisingly good sounding demos. (The telethon and demos are available as Mangled demos from 1983).

But, just as things were beginning to take off, the classic rock cliché arose, and the roads of Osborne and Dillard diverged. Dillard says, “We were playing and practicing all the time and I was getting into other interests. I was starting to think about what I was going to do for a career. We weren’t like, ‘we’re going to make a living at this.’ I was looking into other things and I had a steady girlfriend. I lost interest and I got burnt out on the idea at the time. I think it showed in the way I was playing and I think Buzz kind of was like, ‘I want to advance this band and do something more with it’ and Dale Crover was there. It was basically, ‘hey, man we’re moving on with this band, and it doesn’t feel like you’re gonna be a part of it.’ “

So, at this point, this is where two members of a band form an eternal ire for each other and snipe at each other in the press for decades, bitterly resenting the other, right? Well, actually no. Here is where the Melvins totally subvert the classic rock cliché. Dillard continues, “I was kind of on the same page about leaving the band, honestly. I was a little butthurt. I just lost my band. We didn’t talk for about a month and we happened to bump into each other at a mutual friend’s apartment one night and it was like, ‘goddam it's good to see you guys again!’… and we’ve been friends ever since. We hung out at Dales and had a lot of fun after that. I’ve never had a problem with it because it was obvious that Dale was the right fit. I mean, if it was some jackass I would have been upset.”

And for decades thereafter, the paths of Osborne and Dillard continued to diverge: Osborne moved to San Francisco and made the Melvins a full-time thing before bringing the operation down to LA. “As soon as I got out of there, I realized that it wasn’t me that was the problem,” Osborne says. “It was that I was there.” From there, the band grew in audience and especially in influence, toured the world, played some huge stages, played a lot of medium sized clubs, released three records on a major label, did a couple of combo albums with Jello Biafra, and engaged in all manner of funky sound-and-vision projects.

Meanwhile. Dillard got married to the woman he was dating in high school, got a house about a mile from where he grew up, and since then has been working as a union machinist. Though, here and there, he has been in a few local bands. “Being locked up in a machine shop eight hours a day, and it is kind of a mundane job, it gives your brain time to think about things,” Dillard says. “ And then, getting out and playing music, and it’s a great release. There is no better mental therapy than playing the drums- getting behind something just to hit it very hard it is a great way to get out aggression. I’ve never felt better than when I am pounding on the drums.”

Yet despite the fact that Osborne was running around the world and Dillard was in Montesano building a family. The two remained in contact ever since. Dillard says, “even when they were doing the first tour, Buzz would call me from the road and tell me what was going on. We talk bout wives, his dogs- they’ve got a lot of dogs- we talk a little bit of politics. Usually, it’s just joking around complaining!”

“We talk about once a week,” Osborne says. “We talk bout whatever we are doing, various things that are happening. We’ll talk about weird life stuff that is harpooning. Funny life stuff. We still enjoy each other’s company.”

And so, it was that connection that made the 1998 reunion possible. And of course, when the band finally did release Mangled demos from 1983 Buzz decided to do a Melvins 1983 reunion with himself on guitar, Crover on bass, and Dillard on the drums. The new-old trio played some UK shows, some USA shows, and even played Jello Biafra’s 50th birthday party!

“It was terrifying!” Dillard says. “I mean, I had been playing in other bands all the years before that. But, it was pretty scary, although playing with Buzz and Dale- they are so relaxed and calm, it was actually very easy. We rehearsed a few times beforehand. It was a great honor. That was all on Buzz. Buzz said it would be really cool and I was ecstatic about it.”

So, wow, that was a lot of fun. It was just like back in the ‘ol days. Nice seein’ ya… and then Dillard, kind of blurted something out. “It was one of those of hand comments. I think we were hanging around bullshitting. I was like, ‘we should do some new stuff sometime!’ I mean, I said it three-fourths jokingly and Buzz took it seriously!”

And at that moment, Melvins 1983 became a proper recording unit. Dillard would fly down on the weekends or on vacation days from his day job to record at Toshi Kasai’s studio. During those mad sessions, Dillard frantically laid down drums in 48 hours between flights. At times, he would go from the airport straight to the studio. Their first LP was 2013’s Tres Cabrones which found the band kicking out short, fast, hard punk slammers with a fair amount of humor. Take “tie my pecker to a tree,” for example. They also did a version of the Lewd’s “Walter’s Lips,” a song they used to cover in the band’s earliest days.

With the project a success, the band then cut Working with God in 2021. That opened with a bold cover of Beach Boys’ “I get around” warped into “I fuck around.” The Melvins version ALSO has soaring, stacked harmony despite “get around” is changed into “fuck around.” Osborne says, “that song is not a joke song. We took it very seriously- even though it may be funny. That song took longer to record than any other Melvins song.” There’s also a classically sardonic track called “Brian the horse faced good.” Again, those tracks were mostly short and sharp, somewhat similar to those first few Melvins records. Though, between the daring beach Boys re-cut, and the menacing cover that showed a storm (perhaps an homage to the Cohen’s A Serious Man), it seemed that there was a flicker that Melvins 1983 could perhaps be just as wild and freaky as Melvins-Proper.

And that’s why the newest Melvins 1983 record is so interesting. In contrast to the band’s previous 120 second slammers, the new LP Thunderball has only five songs. Three of them are almost 10 minutes each. Plus. The lineup on this one is Buzz and Dillard with electronic artists Void Manes and Ni Maitres. In fact, one track is JUST electronics. Osborne took files submitted by Void Manes and Ni Maitres, and in true Lee “Scratch” Perry/George Clinton mastermind style, chopped them up and constructed songs from the submitted base parts and even worked them into the Buzz/Mike sections.

All of that is to say, just as the Main Melvins are forever morphing and growing, now Melvins 1983 is sort of its own unit, evolving on its own parallel path. “King of Rome” opens with Osborne smashing out a hard crunching riff while Dillard smashes along with a hammering cadence. “Vomit of Clarity” is full on electronics. “Short hair with a wig,” is an atmospheric, spooky number that has Dillard laying down, ominous tribals beats while Osborne walls, harmonized by broken fax machines crying the distance. “Victory of the Pyramids” is a nearly 10-minute epic that has Osborne’s soaring guitar reminiscent of Bowie’s “Heroes” and finds Dillard in full on rat-a-tat-a-tat mode. The title itself, was inspired by Napolean’s battle in Egypt. One of the main contrasts between the new ’83 album and the first two is how dark and mean and scary it sounds.

“The earlier records were goofier to some degree, which I thought was important,” Osborne says. “For this one, I weas tired of humor at the moment. Let’s see what happens. If we do another one, it will be nothing like this one.”

As to the dark vibe of this one, Osborne says, “I find inspiration all over the place. If you tell me, ‘lets write a song about carpet,’ okay then you figure out how to do that- with that subject, there is a million things you can do. In Blue Velvet, the opening scene is where there is a guy watering his grass and he has a stoke. He falls down and then it pans down to the grass and you see all these inspects. You could write about a guy having a stoke on grass or the battle of insects below the grass. Your brain is the only thing stopping you form a writing about anything. You CAN write a song about anything.”

Dillard comments on the sinister, heavy vibe of Thunderball, “Buzz called me up and said, ‘I have bunch of material.’ .He had told me that when he was writing stuff, it was going to be different than the previous releases. It was going to be more hard hitting. I don’t think I realized what he was cooking up.”

“The recording was kind of stressful,” Dillard continues. “It’s really weird for me. I don’t do this all the time. I don’t spend my life making music like these guys do. I can tell you one thing about working with the Melvins- they work really fast. They don’t fuck around. It’s kind of weird. Buzz likes to throw stuff on you. “Here it is. Play it and just go for it.’ He’s not one to pound stuff into the ground. This particular session, I was supposed to be at the studio at like four in the afternoon and the plane was 5 hours late! Buzz and Toshi had already been there working on stuff the whole day and I show up and start laying down the tracks. It’s not nice and relaxed for me- not because of them but because of me. As far as working with them, I don’t know how you could ask for a better situation.”

“When I did hear the new stuff, all mixed, I don’t want to say it was shocking, but it was kind of shocking. He put it all together and it’s like, ‘holy shit! When did you have time to do that?!” He was on tour. he was doing a regular Melvins record. He is a machine, he really is. He’s got a reputation of being a reify machine, but it is really true. It’s not that he doesn’t work at it, but he is remarkable. I couldn’t believe this record when it was done. He did it all himself, in his spare time!”

And, with the new release finding the Melvins 1983 in experimental mode, it’s tempting to use the cliché that “the circle is complete,” except that phrase is totally wrong. Despite the fact that Osborne is off recording and touring, and Dillard is based where he grew up, there really was never a break. Dillard and Osborne were always still friends. Instead, its almost more accurate to describe Melvins 1983 as the road continuing onward.

Dillard reflects, “I kind of do have the best of all worlds- I have a family and a good job and I get to be a part of the Melvins world. My only regret is that I can’t tour with them more, if I had more time away from my job, I could probably be a part of some of the touring. I have to take a good chunk of time off from work just to record. My only regret is I can’t do the live stuff more.

Dillard continues, “Buzz is obviously one of my closest friends. I feel like he is someone I can trust with anything. I can tell him anything. I’m sure he shared things with me that he has never shared with anyone else. How do you put a value on someone you can trust that much. In fact, we were discussing some random thing and I told him that ‘if you didn’t trust me anymore, I be devastated.’ Buzz is one of my very closest friends with a doubt. “

Osborne, who usually doesn’t open up emotionally a whole lot in interview, comments, “Dillard and I would trust each other with anything. If I gave him a bag with $100,000 in it, I wouldn’t have to count it when I got it back. My wife says, ‘you don’t have a lot off friends, but the ones you have are really good friends.’ Dillard is a really good friend.”