Sara Thompson April 2nd, 2021 - 11:55 PM
Melvins fans were in for quite the April Fool’s Day surprise with the supposed release of THUD!, an all-bass album. The band released an Instagram post teasing the fake album in a tongue-in-cheek allusion to their frequent exchanging of bass players throughout the band’s 30+ year history. The post pointedly mentions that “In addition to the core lineup, the record features recent bass-mongers Steven McDonald, Trevor Dunn and Jeff Pinkus, with a special noise bass solo emailed in from former bassist Kevin Rutmanis.”
The Instagram post featured album artwork and a lengthy post containing the humorous fake reasons that the band was going to release an all-bass album, with Osborne supposedly explaining, “Over the years Dale and I have played so many ear-splitting live shows, it’s sheared the higher frequencies out of our hearing range. I’ve been writing songs for 5 years now that I can’t even hear. It’s mostly just by feeling the vibrations these days. Writing exclusively for basses gives us a chance to actually listen to what we’ve done.”
Dale Crover also “says that he wanted to retain his percussive identity for the record, and studied slap-bass techniques for weeks on end: ‘Thank Christ for Flea.’”
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The hilarious exchange continues with, “Osborne says that the biggest challenge was writing songs where listeners could differentiate the parts from each other: ‘By the time we were ready for Toshi to hit the record button, my strings were so loose that they were literally falling off of my bass if I strummed too hard. This is the most brown-note-laden album ever recorded.’”
According to All Music, the band has indeed had an ever-changing lineup concerning bass players. Trevor Dunn joined the mix in 2012, followed by the movement from usual drummer Dale Crover to bass. The band worked with several bassists for their work Bases Loaded, and their 2018 album Pinkus Abortion Technician featured two bassists, J.D. Pinkus and Steve McDonald, both of which appeared on Basses Loaded.
All jokes aside, Melvins has been working on many projects that are quite real. The band released a new song in January called “The Great Good Place” along with the announcement of their Valentine’s Day livestream special, “Divine Monkeyshines: Valentine’s Day Special.”
Crover began the year with his single “I’ll Never Say” followed by the January release of his second solo album, Rat-A-Tat-Tat!
Photo credit: Mauricio Alvarado
