Dale Crover (The Melvins drummer)

Episode 101- Dale Crover! Crover is best known as the drummer for Melvins, and has also been the drummer for Men of Porn, Shrinebuilder, Crystal Fairy, and, for a brief time, Nirvana. He is the guitarist and vocalist for Altamont as well as the Dale Crover Band. He has also toured with Fantômas (filling in for Dave Lombardo), Off!, and Redd Kross. He has a new solo record out now and the Melvins have a new record coming out on Feb 26 titled “Working with God.”  Dale has a great sense of humor and I laughed a lot in this episode. I hope you guys enjoy it too! 

00:00 - Intro
00:52 - Growing Up in Aberdeen 
04:41 - Early Influences & Bands
06:15 - Krist Novoselic & The Melvins
07:15 - The Melvins & Original Songs
09:45 - Kurt Cobain & Dark Sense of Humor 
10:36 - Kurt Cobain Possibly Joining The Melvins
11:15 - Dale Playing with Fecal Matter & Nirvana
12:40 - Seattle Scene & Moving to San Francisco 
15:30 - Joining Atlantic Records & Houdini Record
17:00 - Melvins Catalog & Making Records
18:00 - Kiss & Gene Simmons
20:34 - Bands Selling Out 
22:15 - Ozzfest & Pay to Play 
25:07 - Performing With Mike Patton & Dave Lombardo 
27:22 - Two Bass Players with The Melvins 
29:12 - NEW Melvins Album- "Working With God"
30:25 - Picking a Set List for The Melvins 
33:10 - Dale Solo Album- Rat-A-Tat-Tat!
36:45 - Movie/TV Licensing For Songs
37:35 - James Bond & Clockwork Orange 
39:15 - Pulled Over in Texas & Drugs
44:50 - Breast Cancer Charity 
45:35 - Wrap Up 

The Melvins Website:
http://www.themelvins.net

Melvins LIVESTREAM Feb 14:
https://melvins.veeps.com/stream/schedule

Breast Cancer Charity:
https://www.bcrf.org

Chuck Shute Website:
http://chuckshute.com

Transcript

Chuck Shute: 0:13

Welcome to the show and thanks for checking us out. Hope you guys enjoy this episode we've got a great guest, Dale crover, who is the drummer for the melvins. And he's been in a ton of other bands, including for a brief time Nirvana. He plays on a few songs on insecticide and bleach and some other recordings. But I just can't believe how many recordings he's played on. Besides Nirvana and the melvins I mean, if you count all his bands, the melvins alone have like 32 albums, and they have a new one coming out. And also Dale just released a solo album. So we'll talk about all this. And I had a really great time talking with Dale, even my girlfriend who was in the other room, said she could hear me laughing really hard. So I think you guys will enjoy this to check it out. All right, well, welcome. Dale. crover to the chuck shoot podcast. How you doing?

Unknown: 0:58

Chuck? How

Chuck Shute: 0:59

are you? Great, great. Yeah, it's beautiful. Sunny Day here. Your Are you still in LA? I am. Yeah. So you've lived there since like 99 or something. Right? Right. Yeah. So if we can, though, I do want to tell you there's you have such an amazing story. I've heard so many interviews you've done and you've got a lot of Tales to tell. And so if we can start at the beginning, back in Aberdeen, Washington, which is a I didn't realize three bands have come from that area, the Melvin's Nirvana and then I didn't know metal church had a couple members from there. And also you said a doobie brother.

Unknown: 1:36

Yeah.

Dale Crover: 1:38

I can't remember his name.

Chuck Shute: 1:39

Patrick Simmons. I think it was. Yeah. But so I I'm actually from Seattle. I moved to Arizona in 2008. But I've been to Aberdeen a couple times. But I want to hear from you. Can you explain to the listeners, Aberdeen, Washington like what it's like and what it was like growing up there in the I guess it would have been the 80s right. 70s 70s and 80s 60s.

Dale Crover: 2:05

I was born in 1967 in Aberdeen, Washington. Woohoo. And I don't know it was sleepy Middle of Nowhere logging town. And sometime after I was born, the industry took a big dump. And then it became a big depressing. Not super great place. I mean, growing up, I guess it was fine. You know? Yeah, like you were saying, there's actually three bands that came from there, which is kind of amazing considering how isolated and yeah,

Chuck Shute: 2:36

was there a big music scene? I mean, are those The only three bands that they all three bands that came from there made it or is it just was there other bands that didn't make it or

Dale Crover: 2:48

nothing? There wasn't like any bands there that were doing original music that that you know, were around that didn't you know really do something? I guess?

Unknown: 2:57

Yeah.

Dale Crover: 2:57

But I mean, it just wasn't much there. You know? Yeah, small town. And the weather place, there was no place to play. Right? You know, I mean, Melvin's really never played there. We went made to play a couple of shows. One after we actually left that area and came back and play once and help him hoquiam Washington, they call it but otherwise there was nothing. There was nothing going on there. Really? Yeah. And

Chuck Shute: 3:24

the weather, the weather. The weather there, though. Can you describe like the weather is so I mean, Seattle is kind of dark and dreary, but I feel like Aberdeen I feel like it's worse. I feel like there's no days of sun and Aberdeen. Yeah.

Dale Crover: 3:34

True. I mean, there was like, I haven't been there would be like 90 straight days of rain, and you wouldn't see the sun. No, not. It's, you know, not too different from England, you know? Yeah. Very much the same,

Unknown: 3:47

like Liverpool.

Chuck Shute: 3:48

Did that bother you at all? Or did you just get used to it because I kind of got used to it living in Seattle. And then it was like, when I went to college, and I was in Central Washington, I realized, Oh, the sun comes out a lot more over here and it totally and then when I move back, that's when it kind of I realized, Oh, I don't I don't really like this.

Dale Crover: 4:06

Yeah, well, plus Aberdeen is also right underneath the the rain forest. You know, the National rain forest.

Unknown: 4:14

Mm hmm.

Dale Crover: 4:14

So it gets a lot of rain. You know, a lot of rain. Yeah, dumped on it constantly. But it's different. You know, like when it rains here, it'll just like open up and just pour. And there. It's just like constant. Like a constant drizzle. Right? Right. No, but nobody worries about umbrellas. Nope.

Chuck Shute: 4:31

Yeah, that's what I try to explain people like in Cialis. They're like, no, cuz it's just always raining. So why would you even Yeah, yeah. But so. So music, then you got into music at a young age, you started taking guitar lessons at the library, you know, you the monkeys and the Beatles are kind of early stuff. But then it was actually that the guy from metal church, who was your neighbor and he got you into all the heavy stuff like Judas Priest and maiden and all that. So that's when you started playing drums right?

Dale Crover: 4:57

Led Zeppelin to you got me That's a good one. Yeah, that was a really good one. I remember borrowing that record for him for a long time. And finally giving it back to him. And he's like, oh,

Unknown: 5:09

oh shit.

Dale Crover: 5:11

I thought somebody stole this and I accused of stealing this record, and he loaned it to me. Oh, no.

Chuck Shute: 5:20

But so then then you played in a metal band and you guys had to do like, of course, when you're playing in a band that age like you have to do cover. So you did Iron Maiden and priests and, and Loverboy and Stairway to Heaven, all sorts of stuff, right?

Dale Crover: 5:33

Well, yeah, I mean, it was like a high school cover band, you know? And once there was, you know, maybe about three of around our area. Okay. Actually, metal church before they were a metal church, they were called shrapnel, right. And those guys were playing high school dances as well. And they did all covers as well. But they're actually they did, but they're actually doing like Saxon songs and stuff. Okay. Whereas the one I was in, I mean, you gotta remember, I was like, 14 years old. Yeah. playing in a band. So being at least being that agent, you know, finding a band is is

Chuck Shute: 6:06

rare. Right.

Dale Crover: 6:08

So, yeah. So the timing from where we came from.

Chuck Shute: 6:12

Yeah. So talk about then how you ended up joining The Melvins. Didn't Nirvan's bass player kind of hooked you up with those guys. Right?

Dale Crover: 6:21

Yeah. But it was long before he was Nirvana's bass player.

Chuck Shute: 6:24

Yeah, he was working at Taco Bell or something.

Dale Crover: 6:26

Yeah, I knew his younger brother, Robert, we were in the same grade. And then I'd met Robert when I was in sixth grade, and probably didn't meet Krist until high school. And but then knowing who he was in high school, he was kind of like, he was popular. He was super tall, and kind of the class clown. And I remember him telling me that he was joining The Melvins. This is actually actually after I'd seen the Melvins perform on the radio show that my cover band had played with previously. Oh, yeah, six months previously. And oh, the dog wants to join the interview. Oh. Okay.

Chuck Shute: 7:14

But yeah, so it's interesting, because like you said, you're in a cover band. And that's obviously, if you're starting out. I mean, that's kind of what you got to do. But these guys actually played originals. And they toured to like, exciting places like Olympia, Washington, which, you know, yeah, the Capitol. But so that was like really appealing to you to actually try to do. That's like a lot harder thing to get, you know, people come see you, too, if you're doing originals if you don't have the name behind you. Right.

Dale Crover: 7:39

Right. Well, I knew that those guys were playing out of town and playing in like Olympia and Seattle, things like that, that I didn't really know the extent of it at the time. But you know, just being able to get out of town and play it was I thought that was pretty impressive. And yeah, playing original music.

Chuck Shute: 7:55

So how do you? How do you get people to come see you? with original? Is that harder to draw crowd? Or is there certain clubs that kind of just that they always have original bands, so people just used that and they liked it?

Dale Crover: 8:08

But yeah, back then we're playing places like the Tropicana which was a punk rock club in Olympia. And, you know, there was somewhat of a small scene for that stuff. That's cool. And then same with Seattle.

Chuck Shute: 8:20

isn't so today kind of get you into more that punk rock music like black flag and Butthole Surfers and stuff. Yeah, absolutely. Cuz you were playing. You were more into metal at that point. Before was Yeah, but,

Dale Crover: 8:33

but those guys also liked a lot of that stuff, too. You know, they like they liked a lot of weird new wave of British heavy metal stuff that I liked. Like, like, Raven or Motorhead. Right. Yeah. I think at the time, they probably even depreciated, like, you know, Metallica, venom Slayer. They knew about all those bands.

Unknown: 8:55

Mm hmm.

Chuck Shute: 8:56

No, that's good stuff. Yeah, those

Dale Crover: 8:58

well, also, you know, they could see that the, the, how much the same that was, you know, like, rebellious music in the same thing. For sure. more of an outsider type of thing and hard and aggressive music. Absolutely. Yeah. And you

Chuck Shute: 9:17

guys definitely have that melt metal influence on the band. For sure. It's it's dark. And

Dale Crover: 9:21

yeah, it's kind of when I first saw those guys. It's like I knew Okay, I know that they weren't. They're not a metal band. I know that they're a punk rock them. But I could also tell like, you know, that's sounds like metal than me. Yeah, I could tell it those dudes like Motorhead, you know for sure.

Chuck Shute: 9:39

A lot of that stuff. Yeah, definitely crosses over. Absolutely. So it's around this time to that, that this is when you first met Kurt Cobain. And you said that you met him and he was an instantly likable guy. Like but this is before you heard his music. So what made him likable in terms of his personality?

Dale Crover: 9:57

Yeah, I don't know. It's just it's one of those dudes As you know, easily likable and we hit it off right away. Didn't you say you have like a sense of humor?

Chuck Shute: 10:08

Yeah. You said he had a dark sense of humor. Like he was painting statues of the Virgin Mary to look demonic and, and things like that.

Dale Crover: 10:17

Yeah, and doing all kinds of stupid graffiti. You know, painting cat butts all over the place and things like that. Yeah, and Well, I mean, you know, I'm sure you've seen a lot of his artwork like the gym gym monkey. Yeah. Oh, yeah, gym gym around for a long time before. Before I made it any place.

Chuck Shute: 10:36

I thought this was interesting that you guys had actually considered having Cobain play in the Melvins. But the reason that you didn't is because he didn't have any gear. And that just like kind of made me so sad and made me think like, how many kids are out there? that don't have the gear? Yeah. Yeah. That's such a crazy story.

Dale Crover: 10:56

Well worked out.

Chuck Shute: 10:57

Yeah.

Dale Crover: 10:58

But I mean, really, that, you know, that was like, maybe a thought for a day. Okay.

Chuck Shute: 11:03

But yeah, so he invited...

Dale Crover: 11:04

... let's see if he wants to play with us, yeah, he liked what we're doing and he got turned on to all the same kind of music about the same time as I did.

Chuck Shute: 11:13

Right. Okay. And so he but he did invite you to do a demo with him. And you guys played in this thing called fecal matter. And then it's and then you worked a little bit on nert you actually play I didn't realize this until doing the research for this interview. You played on my favorite Nirvana album insecticide. You played like? Four or five songs on there? That's correct. Yeah. And and also the bleach record. So did you think when working with Cobain at the time, did you think like, Oh, this kid's he's so special? He's gonna be in a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame someday. Are you just like, there's another punk rock kid from Aberdeen.

Dale Crover: 11:48

There weren't too many punk rock kids from Aberdeen, but now I always enjoy playing with them. And I felt that we had a great musical connection. You know? You know, what can I say that story ended really badly. And and it's unfortunate. Had it not ended the way that it did. I think that we probably would have played music again.

Unknown: 12:10

Mm hmm. Yeah.

Chuck Shute: 12:12

So yeah, so But do you ever have any regrets? Like, do you wish that you had stayed in Nirvana? Or what? How did that like how did you just because you were in the melvins, too. And so that was kind of your main band. I

Dale Crover: 12:20

wasn't. Right. Yeah. Right. You know? No, I don't have any regrets. Oh, My only regret is that he's dead.

Chuck Shute: 12:28

Yeah. So terrible.

Dale Crover: 12:31

Well, so I don't think there's I don't think there's anything that I could have done that would have changed that. Yeah, maybe. But I doubt it. Right.

Chuck Shute: 12:37

So the last time it was, I think I heard you say 1990 was the last time you had a real job. You were working at round table pizza, which I love rent. Was

Dale Crover: 12:46

this in Seattle? No, it was in San Francisco.

Chuck Shute: 12:49

That was in San Francisco. Okay, so we're See I interviewed a lot of guys from the 80s rock bands. And I'm always fascinated by that scene, the whole like, Sunset Strip of the 80s. Or how

Dale Crover: 12:58

much does all of the all of them worked at pizza place?

Chuck Shute: 13:01

I'm probably Yeah,

Dale Crover: 13:02

but how much I remember going into a subway around here. And like looking at the dudes and gone. Yeah, that dudes in a glam band? You know, you can totally tell.

Chuck Shute: 13:10

Right? For sure. But so how much involvement did you have? Were you around the Seattle scene at all? Because I know you were in Aberdeen, and then you're in San Francisco, and now you're in LA. Did you live in Seattle at all? I mean, or did you?

Dale Crover: 13:22

No. No, never lived there. I mean, we knew all those people from there. But But yeah, we we'd only got there and go to shows and I don't know, with some friends that I used to hang out with there. And get in trouble with. Okay,

Chuck Shute: 13:37

so what what made you guys decide to move to San Francisco, just a bigger city? Well,

Dale Crover: 13:42

we well know about that. But I mean, also, we had recorded our first record down there and met some people that that our label was from there. And I don't know. Seattle at the time was, you know, it wasn't some, though. There were great bands and things like that. There wasn't some like hotbed of of gigs happening. No, at that time. What you say you're from that right. From from Seattle. Do you remember? And I don't know how old you are. But there was a time period when there were no all ages gigs there because of some stuff that happened at a nightclub called scoop cheese. Oh, no, I haven't heard of that one. Yeah, so about the about mid 80s, probably about a year and a half or so after I had been playing with the melvins. All of a sudden, you couldn't get an all ages gig in Seattle. They just didn't exist because there was some travel drugs or something that happened at this nightclub. And so that was it for all ages shows in Seattle. And that's why a bunch of them happened in Tacoma. There was a bunch of big shows that happen there. And the late late 80s and there was only a few places really to play in Seattle Central Tavern was kind of happening for a while. There was a place called the Vogue. But in our Our eyes, we had an opportunity to go to San Francisco and do something different. And, you know, they're just, Seattle hadn't happened yet.

Chuck Shute: 15:09

Yeah, for sure. Okay.

Dale Crover: 15:11

There really wasn't anything happening there that we couldn't just go to San Francisco and make happen. Right.

Chuck Shute: 15:15

So yeah.

Dale Crover: 15:17

So then we moved away and started over. Yeah. And you guys, and then the Seattle thing happened and blew up. And then we came back in it and played shows. And it was like we never left.

Chuck Shute: 15:28

That's awesome. Yeah. And it's so cool. Because Kurt helped you out. Obviously, Nirvana blows up and, and they released the insecticide CD. And so that's got to be a nice royalty check. But then he hooks you guys up with Atlantic Records. And I like what you said about them that, you know, they didn't want to make you the next Nirvana. They wanted you guys to make their record label label look cool, because you guys have influenced a lot of like, Cool bands. And so you know, they kind of use that as a selling point, like, Hey, we got the melvins on our label, you want to you know, like, we're cool. We're the cool label, right?

Dale Crover: 15:58

Yeah, there always seemed to be this thinking that major labels are evil, and they're gonna rip you off. Yeah. when in actuality, we've been ripped off by more independent labels and things like that really fucked up. Yeah. major labels are on the up and up. They don't want to get sued. Oh, you know,

Chuck Shute: 16:19

How so? How does the independent label rip you off? What

Dale Crover: 16:21

do they don't pay you?

Chuck Shute: 16:25

Man, that sucks.

Dale Crover: 16:27

Take everything and leave the middle of the night and just close up shop. rad girlfriend. Yeah.

Chuck Shute: 16:35

So yeah, so you guys released that? Houdini, I think is that the biggest Melvin's record? And where do you do you guys have done so many records? Do you love that one the most? Or where does it rank on your top?

Unknown: 16:47

I like it.

Dale Crover: 16:47

I don't think I love it the most. But I think it's, you know, I'm happy with it. You know, I find that that's our biggest selling record. We still play songs off of it. So it's not like we hate it or anything like that. Yeah. Well, so

Chuck Shute: 16:59

what is your favorite record? Because you guys have so many. It's crazy.

Dale Crover: 17:03

Yeah, I don't know. I used to say stag all the time. But I don't know. We've made so many since then. And I think we've gotten better since then. So I don't know. All of them are great.

Unknown: 17:16

Yeah.

Chuck Shute: 17:17

How do you how do you keep up? Like, I mean, because you got like Axl Rose, doing Chinese Democracy. It takes him like 20 years to make a record. And you guys make so many records. What is your process just more simple for that kind of stuff? Like you don't produce it today?

Dale Crover: 17:32

I think maybe we're just more bold about things and not as we're not worried. We're certainly not worried about what people think. And it's not like we're making records to, to, for people to turn people off or anything like that. I don't know. I guess we're just, I guess we're just confident. And yeah, we're confident and very sure of ourselves, and we're not afraid.

Chuck Shute: 17:58

That's awesome. So yeah, then you guys, you guys have done some big shows. You got to play with kiss and then you got to play as fast. That was cool. So let's talk about the kiss one actually, because you did six shows on the reunion tour and you kind of have a relationship with Gene Simmons. We did

Dale Crover: 18:16

and we do. We still do. Gene was even in the Melvin's documentary there a friend made and said said some very nice things about us.

Chuck Shute: 18:23

So he's a fan. I

Dale Crover: 18:24

haven't dive inside. Yeah, I wouldn't saw Jean the you're wearing a Soundgarden shoot there?

Chuck Shute: 18:29

Yeah, that's right. Yeah.

Dale Crover: 18:31

Yeah, I saw Jean at the Chris Cornell tribute concert that we played a couple years ago. And, and I got to thank him for being in that movie, because I didn't I didn't get to see when he was filming it. Good to see it. And jeans. They've always been very, very cool. And very nice. And even told me that he loved me. So Oh, you go.

Chuck Shute: 18:54

That's really cool rag on gene. It's

Dale Crover: 18:55

funny. Yeah. rag on gene because I was just reading this thing of where he was talking about his base influences, you know, and, you know, with the internet things get,

Unknown: 19:04

you know,

Dale Crover: 19:05

the headlines get put up with these shows. And you know, it's like, Gene Simmons says that stones guitar players better bass player than guitar player, or, or that, you know, better than Led Zeppelin or whatever. And it's like, oh, no, I know what he does. And people are just like, Jim is what does he know? You know, it's like, oh, no, I know what he's saying. He's talking about Ron wood, who is an awesome bass player who played in the Jeff Beck group, who were predate Led Zeppelin and and is arguable that Led Zeppelin would not existed without the Jeff Beck group. You know, think about they got Jeff back on guitar who was in the Yardbirds with Jimmy Page, Rod Stewart style singer, you know,

Unknown: 19:48

Robert Plant,

Dale Crover: 19:49

you know,

Chuck Shute: 19:49

yeah,

Dale Crover: 19:50

those guys are even doing the same songs that the Jeff that group was doing. Wow, you know,

Chuck Shute: 19:56

your 70s rock so are you still pretty big kiss fan than you? It's Oh, yeah. Yeah, it's crazy how that influenced so many bands.

Dale Crover: 20:03

I think the last record is great, you know? Yeah. People always say to songs like bullshit, you know you're talking about. Yeah, listen to the live. Yeah, no,

Chuck Shute: 20:14

I like it. But it's interesting. I'm not as big a kiss fan as a lot of the people I interview. I mean, that's like the thing that that started a lot of these bands. That's what they decided to like

Dale Crover: 20:23

Jean. Yeah, yeah. I mean, is an awesome bass player. I think he's underrated as a bass player and as a singer, and he's definitely an influence for me singing style for sure.

Chuck Shute: 20:31

But so yeah.

Unknown: 20:33

Oh, yeah.

Chuck Shute: 20:35

But so what about like youth? What is this whole? Like, you know, the punk rock thing like, bands selling out and stuff? Do you think kiss sold? I mean, cuz he is. So he's selling everything, you know, everything's for sale. You guys are kind of the opposite. Right? And especially, that's kind of the punk rock. thing is that you don't sell out? You don't sell anything. You're not trying to make music.

Dale Crover: 20:54

We've tried it. Now, I mean, I don't know what people's definition. I mean, for us being on Atlantic, you know, that was selling out or whatever. Even before that we got accused of selling out. You know, I remember when we made the bullhead record people accused accused of becoming more commercial. It's like, really?

Chuck Shute: 21:14

Don't you have to? I mean, how do you what level can you still make money and pay your bills and not sell out? I mean, that's got to be a hard line to go there. I

Dale Crover: 21:25

don't feel like I mean, you know, my definition of selling out would be you know, us, you know, going completely vanilla and, and trying to write, you know, pop songs like trying to sell records, you know, not that we're not trying to sell records, but we're not. We're not, you know, purposely trying to write, you know, the next hit, you know, you're making music

Chuck Shute: 21:48

that you think is cool, right? You're not making music to make other people happy. You're making music to make yourself happy. And if other people like it, that's awesome.

Dale Crover: 21:55

Exactly. And we've we've managed to make a living. Yeah, absolutely. So yeah, but since we're a blue collar band as you can get, you know, yeah. hard working, working for a long time. No sign of retirement in sight. Love it. I

Chuck Shute: 22:13

love it. So, so yeah, the US kind of felt out of place on that Ozzfest tour tool wanted you to do a tool loves you guys, but you kind of felt like oddballs. Like but you didn't get to see Motorhead play that was kind of the highlight.

Dale Crover: 22:26

Yeah, they're a great watching those guys play every day. It'd be like a half hour set of them playing. And so they do their, you know, all their other hits. And it was great. So what the highlight of the day would be sitting around waiting for Motorhead to play. And then after that, let's go to bed.

Chuck Shute: 22:41

So why did you guys feel like the oddballs you feel like people weren't digging in or useful? Um,

Dale Crover: 22:49

I mean, musically, you know, I suppose we're different. I mean, we're certainly different than, you know, it was like the year of like limp biscuit. Okay.

Chuck Shute: 22:57

Yeah.

Dale Crover: 22:59

You know, I mean, the best one out there necessarily, like we weren't picked to be on the AWS best thing. We're only there because of the tool, guys, you know, which is fine. You know, I'm really glad they asked him and it was, it was quite an experience. You know, a bunch of the bands on our stage went on to be we're on the second stage, right? A lot of them went on to be really big bands, like a System of a Down. Oh, yeah. It's huge Incubus things, you know, the bands like that. What we didn't realize until later, is, you see we were, we were getting paid us best was giving us like 500 bucks and tour giving us another 500 bucks and taking us on their bus. And it wasn't until I was talking to one of the guys on the second stage, one of the bands that came in with the band, but I'm talking to the singer and he's like, man, we're having a hard time. We had to call call home and get money from our parents. I'm like, Oh, really? Oh, you guys are losing money. He's like, well, we're not getting paid. I was like, Why? You guys aren't getting paid? Yeah. And then I realized like none of those bands on that second stage. We're getting paid.

Chuck Shute: 24:11

A lot of them don't they do the pay to play this is the thing I

Dale Crover: 24:15

yeah, because after that, because because it's doubled down on Incubus went on to be big. So now, you know, so pay. Oh, I think yeah, it's, it's weird.

Chuck Shute: 24:25

You guys don't do that? Do you?

Dale Crover: 24:28

Charge bands to play with us? Or do you

Chuck Shute: 24:32

know do you don't pay to play on to get onto a tour or festival or anything? Now

Dale Crover: 24:36

we've never we've never had to do anything or we've been asked to do things like that, that we've always just declined. Okay. You know, bands would do that. They would. I mean, that was definitely I guess more of that time period. I mean, I'm sure it still happens. Yeah, you know where there will be a buy on for a tour, to where you can get on the tour to try to help sell your band.

Chuck Shute: 25:00

To get the spotlight, I guess it kind of works for the up and coming bands, but

Dale Crover: 25:03

we'll tell you to spend a lot of money on that. Yeah.

Chuck Shute: 25:06

Well, let's How about do you like performing with? What does that band called fun? How do you say this fun Tomas de la San Tomas with Mike Patton. And Dave Lombardo. I saw you guys do a show. It's like two drums. Oh, you

Dale Crover: 25:21

saw the double thing

Chuck Shute: 25:22

that is so yeah. Tell me what it's like. I mean, Dave Lombardo. I can't remember did it? Did I sit? Did I? Did you say that you influenced you inspired him? Which is amazing. He's an amazing drummer. Did I? I thought I thought that's what I heard. Or maybe he, but you got to pay him.

Unknown: 25:37

have mutual respect for each other? Yeah.

Chuck Shute: 25:40

So it's, it's gotta be cool. performing with him. And Mike, Pat and Mike Patton is a genius.

Dale Crover: 25:46

Goddamn genius. It was great. You know, it was really fun playing with Dave. I realized watching him when we're playing. We've been playing together for a little bit. I'm like, you're left handed, aren't you? And he's like, yeah, like cuz I'm like, why does it look so weird the way he starts his film, because and I always kind of like, I would try to imitate it sometimes. You know, before I kind of know just like, is this john Phil he would do? I don't know something like, I guess maybe on a song like, honey bucket. I was trying to imitate a Dave Lombardo drum fill for a part of it. And, and then I realized it's because he starts with his left hand.

Unknown: 26:26

Oh,

Chuck Shute: 26:27

interesting. Can you keep up with him? I mean, he's so he can go so fast. Can you go as fast as it is him you guys ever tried to like

Dale Crover: 26:36

I can't be he can't go as slow as me. So I got him there. I like I like, he's got it. Yeah, his his stamina for that stuff is is amazing. You know. You know, I could do it. I'd have to work myself up to it. But certainly I took over for him in San Tomas when he couldn't do some touring. Yeah, you know, so I've had to fill those shoes. So it isn't really fast double bass stuff. Yeah. Luckily, with the Panama stuff. It's not like you have to do a constant double bass thing for for, you know, more than about 15 seconds. You know, okay, let's do a slayer song. We got to do it for you know, yeah. Four minutes. That would be hard.

Chuck Shute: 27:19

And speaking of double bases, like you guys actually have a couple albums where you have two bass players playing it on the on the record of this. That's pretty cool. That's kind of like an interesting idea. Like, what how did you think of that?

Dale Crover: 27:33

Yeah, I don't know. It's something that we've, well, we're at the time, we've been playing with Steve McDonald from my cross. And we'd also planned on doing some playing with Jeff, Jeff Pincus from the Butthole Surfers. And somehow we found ourselves in in the room with both of them. And and we're like, Hey, what are you guys playing together? You know, and it was like, Oh, this is very cool. I mean, it's definitely something that we probably thought about before. And I know that we've kind of, we've done something like that before live, you know, where we'd have like, Trevor Dunn come up and join us playing nightbot along with two bass players from Mr. bungle. Yeah, he's

Chuck Shute: 28:17

great.

Dale Crover: 28:18

Yeah, or I mean, you know, Melvin's have in the past had also two drummers, like we have the big business guys in the band. And so it was me and Cody was playing drum drums together. I don't know. Yeah, just just seemed like something that we could do. And you know, both of those guys are completely unique bass players on their own. And it just worked. Yeah, I

Chuck Shute: 28:38

love the the one of the album's that you did on that, though. You called bases loaded. That's the secret name. We thought of that.

Dale Crover: 28:45

Yeah. Actually, Trevor done. Okay.

Chuck Shute: 28:48

Yeah, he's, he's great.

Dale Crover: 28:50

He went, yeah, he wanted to call it Yeah, he wanted to call it basis loaded.

Chuck Shute: 28:53

Oh,

Dale Crover: 28:55

was really funny. You know, we joked about having a record called back. So we realized that we had all these songs with different bass players on them and asked him if we could use that title. And he allowed us to, that's, that's

Chuck Shute: 29:09

awesome. That's perfect. So So tell me about the new Melvin's album. Working with God, it comes out February

Dale Crover: 29:16

26. Speaking of bass players, yeah, I get to play bass on this record. It's, yeah, it's the version of the band called the melvins 1983. And that version is is close to the original band as you can get. It's with Mike Dillard, the original drummer buzz the original guitar player, and me the not so original bass player. And when I guess this was probably it's been a while now, when jello Biafra had his 50th birthday party. That version of the band reunited to play the original demo track stuff. It'll go download tracks from Melvin's. And we got together and we're rehearsing and like, This is fun. We should just write new songs. And so that's what this is. Okay.

Chuck Shute: 30:11

Yeah, I heard the original drummer. You're single. Yeah. Which was great. Good place. I think that's the only one Oh, yeah, it's, it's got a big drum opening. So that's not you playing you only play bass. It's

Dale Crover: 30:21

not.

Chuck Shute: 30:22

Okay. Yeah. Interesting. So when you guys do a live show, for the melvins, how do you pick a setlist? Because, like I said, You have so many albums and so many songs, you're not expected to know all those songs, are you?

Dale Crover: 30:38

No, I'm sure that we've forgotten hundreds. But I have a pretty good memory. I'm bad at putting like, names to songs. But if you start playing something, that's all I can probably, like, remember it pretty well. You know, for the most part, I don't know, there's songs that we kind of always play. Sure. And I mean, there's like, there's like, kind of a I'd say there's probably about 30 songs that we kind of get rotated. Okay, always, you know, like, I mean, we're probably gonna play the bit. Most likely. Or, or honey buckets been in there a lot lately. Chuck had gone away for a long time. Really? Yeah. And other other than we just I don't know, probably felt like we couldn't do it justice, but sounds pretty good now. Okay. You know, or night go. You know, that one's gonna be in there most likely. You know, there's certain songs that we feel are probably our most popular. We will play. Sure. And I don't know. But then yeah, there's always songs people go How can we don't play this? You should do this one or that one? Right. Sometimes it will listen. Do you ever throw in my wife, sometimes my wife will make suggestions because Oh, really? Yeah. Yeah. Just she's like, Oh, that's a really good song. You guys should do that. And so sometimes we listen to her.

Chuck Shute: 32:01

Do you guys ever do covers? I've never seen you live

Dale Crover: 32:03

all the time. Really? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. What

Chuck Shute: 32:07

are some of the covers that you do?

Dale Crover: 32:09

sacrifice by flipper was on one of our records. That's a pretty, I'd say kind of a popular one. Tons of kiss covers. No one's always done covers.

Chuck Shute: 32:17

Yeah, well, that's what I heard the kiss one. Yeah. Yeah, no, it's always fun when you can just throw a cover of a song that's not on a record too. And then it's kind of like a surprise for fans because they haven't heard it

Dale Crover: 32:28

ever since day one, like like Melvin's have always done covers just because we've always liked it. You know, and me coming from a cover band. Right? That's how, that's how you learn. Yeah, you know, I remember when I first joined the band, we did the Hawaii Five o theme. Oh, that'd be cool. And we also did a mantra song. We did this mantra song called I got to fire. It was like on the central second montross record. These are songs that unreleased Yeah, that would be cool to hear that. But yeah. It's fun. Or, you know, we've done everything from we got the beat by the go Go's to live in after bed night by Judas Priest.

Chuck Shute: 33:06

Yeah, well, I love that song. So then tell me about your solo. Record your solo records out now. And you got a couple and this is new ones called rat a tat tat. It's right there. Yeah. And so it's interesting because you play drums guitar and sing but I don't do you play bass on this one? I

Dale Crover: 33:20

don't think you play bass. No, I didn't play any bass on this one. I played a little bit on the last one. But Steve McDonald played almost every song. He's a great bass player. He's been in my life band. And then I've been in his band and then he's been in my other band and we're like in every band that we play in together. Okay, fun. And so he played bass. He's, he's great bass player loves playing and he's he really helps out quite immensely. And then the after track that he didn't play on his Dan Southwick who's in a band called ultimate that I

Chuck Shute: 34:00

play in? Yeah, and you sing on that one too, right?

Dale Crover: 34:02

Uh huh. Your frontman guitarist. Yeah. And then Toshi, because I engineered the record, played on a bunch of the tracks as well. He plays in the live band as well. And second guitar and keyboards. And then I have a drummer, besides myself. Her name's Mindy Jorgensen. And I also make her play other things like saxophone.

Chuck Shute: 34:25

Oh, yeah. So would you do any solo? Are you going to do any solo shows? I mean, obviously, right now, it's hard to plan shows but would you tour for this record?

Dale Crover: 34:33

Yeah, well, we were hoping to, and I don't know when this is going to air Exactly. But on Valentine's Day, there's that we've been doing this Melvin's TV, where the first episode air on New Year's Eve, and this is episode two. Okay? So it's where we play Melvin's play five songs, five bucks, interview ourselves and we have an opening band and the opening On this one coming up is going to be the Dale crover band. Oh,

Unknown: 35:04

nice. Yeah,

Chuck Shute: 35:05

that's really cool. Yeah, I noticed the songs. calm. Okay, calm.

Dale Crover: 35:10

I'll put that in there even even after that I don't know if this one's like I said, I don't know when this is gonna air.

Chuck Shute: 35:14

I'm gonna try to get this out. Maybe Friday.

Dale Crover: 35:18

Perfect time I'll be up for a week. Perfect.

Chuck Shute: 35:21

Okay, so yeah, so you know listen to some of the songs on this record. It's got it might crazier to have kind of like, a funny hit me I was like thinking the 70s band had kind of this dark 70s vibe. And I was it finally hit me it was I think it's Emerson lake and Palmer isn't that's what it kind of sounds like is

Unknown: 35:36

crazy on that. Which song? Was it? Maybe

Chuck Shute: 35:39

I'll never say I'll never say I think that one or maybe it was one of the other ones. But it kind of had that kind of like dark, kind of like kind of mellow vibe to some of the songs not all of them. But are you a fan of them at all? Or am I crazy on salad

Dale Crover: 35:53

surgery? Right? Isn't that what that record is called? Possibly. Brain salad surgery well, and then I remember my cousin being really into that stuff when I was growing up and hearing a lot of that stuff. He had a keyboard so he's really into prog stuff.

Chuck Shute: 36:08

Okay, yeah. Yeah, it seems like you have so many different I mean, you have so many projects and bands, the other bands, even Red Cross men of porn shrine builder, Crystal fair. I mean, is there anything that you want to try that you haven't tried? Like, any style of music that you want to do that you haven't done yet?

Dale Crover: 36:29

Not in particular. I guess I got a not enough going on. You know, but uh, I don't know. I'm always up for the challenge. If it's something interesting and cool.

Chuck Shute: 36:39

Mm hmm.

Dale Crover: 36:40

Yes, there's a bunch of money.

Chuck Shute: 36:44

Yeah, I mean, you guys must do okay with the with the money with all the album's you released but also the movie in life. TV licensing, right. Cuz, like I heard one of your songs, a history of bad men. And I'm listening to the song and I'm thinking this should be in a movie. And then I looked it up and it isn't a movie. It's a horror movie with Lindsay Lohan.

Dale Crover: 37:01

Oh, right. Yeah, actually, she's doing a striptease to it, which is okay.

Chuck Shute: 37:06

That's for me. I haven't seen the movie. But I saw that was.

Dale Crover: 37:08

I've only seen that clip. I think it might even be up on YouTube. Oh,

Chuck Shute: 37:12

I should check that. I

Dale Crover: 37:13

mean, we don't we don't really get a lot of opportunities for licensing stuff, you know. But our stuff definitely available for licensing. Anybody out there wants to license our stuff. You know? Well, you

Chuck Shute: 37:24

have a song in a Natural Born Killers and episodes A True Detective and jackass. I mean, those are pretty big things, right? Sure. Yeah. You

Dale Crover: 37:35

know, well, but we really want is like, you know, a James Bond. Theme Song. Yeah, that would really pay me some money. Now we're talking. Yeah. Well, you

Chuck Shute: 37:47

got a big here. Yeah, that's true. Yeah, we gotta have that. Why not? Why not? If they get they're probably gonna do another James Bond. I'm sure they're not done.

Dale Crover: 37:55

Well, then they probably have the theme song already. But you know, get back out and change it right. Yeah. No, it was supposed to come out already. Oh, James Bond movie. It's been held up because of this damn COVID thing we got going on.

Chuck Shute: 38:06

Are you a big James Bond fan?

Unknown: 38:08

Yeah. Oh, really?

Chuck Shute: 38:09

I didn't know that.

Dale Crover: 38:11

Oh, love James Bond. Yes.

Chuck Shute: 38:12

What other kind of movies are you into?

Dale Crover: 38:16

Let me see. I guess I'd say probably one of my favorite movies would be like clockwork orange. Oh, I

Chuck Shute: 38:22

love that movie. So dark Kubrick. Yeah, genius. Yeah,

Dale Crover: 38:26

that was a good one. I was just talking about the first time I saw that the other day, which was I remember I was probably 16. That's about when I saw it. Yeah, I'd seen I'd already you know, I've been in the mountains. And I'd seen people at shows wearing Clockwork Orange shirts. And I didn't really know what it was. I thought I didn't know if it was like a band. And then I saw it's a movie. And a friend of mine had it at his little rental store. He had. And I remember watching him going oh my god. thing about it. Yeah, just be like,

Chuck Shute: 38:57

wow, that's how it was for me because it had come out in the 70s. And I was it was the 90s when I saw it, so I just grabbed the tape. I think my friend had recommended it. I just remember going What is this? It's kind of blows you away? Yeah, for sure.

Dale Crover: 39:10

I've always been a fan of easy writer. Ah, yeah,

Chuck Shute: 39:14

that's a great thing, too. Yeah, for sure. So, oh, speaking of going back to tool, your big influence on them, can you can you tell the story I heard you tell us on another podcast, but I don't know if my listeners are gonna hear that one. So if you could... if you could tell the story again, where you guys got pulled over by a cop in Texas, and he found all these drugs on you guys. Oh, yeah.

Dale Crover: 39:36

Yeah, we did. We got pulled over in Texas. Right outside of Houston. And the cop find some weed on the ground right outside of our van. Yeah, it wasn't ours. And they all say Yeah, right. That's not you know. Anyway, it's my mom. All right. Well, I mean, funny enough that I knew it wasn't ours.

Chuck Shute: 40:04

Yeah.

Dale Crover: 40:05

Cuz, cuz I knew none of us had any weed. None of us are stupid enough to have any weed in Texas. At least I thought... especially the guy who got blamed for that part, because I knew that he didn't even smoke weed. Okay, which was, our road manager at the time. And anyway, so yeah, we get pulled over by this, you know, big huge, Buford. pusser style Southern cop. And he finds this weed is like, Who's weed is this? All right, everybody out of the car. And you get so out of the car. And he's like, I'm gonna search all your bags, you know. And, he's been the total like, debt cop or whatever. Yeah. And, , I'm kind of talking to him, like, hey, that's not. Oh, yeah. Who is a spokesman for the group, huh? You smoke weed. And then so he goes to search my bag, where I can't see he's like, behind our van. And then he comes up. He's like, you come here. And I go back there. And I look at the look at I see my bag on the hood of his car. What the fuck sticking out of my bag. And so he cussed me. And then he's like, he starts pulling stuff out of my bag. He's like, Look, what we got here. pulls out it pulls out a gun pulls out a nine millimeters like you got firearms. That's a federal offense in Texas here. And then he pulls up scales. I'm like, why? Got scales? going, What? What the fuck? Yeah. And then he's like, oh, Lord, look what we got here. And he pulls out the biggest bag of cocaine ever seen in my life... Oh, man. Looks like you're going to prison. Just like a lawyer. Oh, really? You want to learn after all this? You don't want to get da down here and talk to them. But no, lawyer? lawyer?

Chuck Shute: 42:04

smart.

Dale Crover: 42:05

All right. And then, and then he puts me in the car. And are you freaking out at this point? Oh, yeah, I'm totally just I'm thinking like, okay, this this. He's planted all this stuff in my bag. You know what? What? I don't I don't get you know, what's his What's his scam here?

Chuck Shute: 42:24

Yeah, cuz you didn't put some of your stuff. It was obviously planted by somebody

Dale Crover: 42:28

by him. Right, you know? So I tried to figure out what the deal was like, Okay. You know, I didn't think it would you know, I'm like, does he want money? You know, yeah, bribe him. If you look at my bag a little further, you might find something. When he puts me in the car, and then you know, I'm like, Hey, can I talk to my my friends up there? He's like, I don't know why he's going to jail. Choose what fun we're on.

Unknown: 42:58

Please. All right.

Chuck Shute: 43:02

That's not part of the story.

Dale Crover: 43:06

And so my, my road manager comes back and looks at the car and sees all this stuff spread out. You see what's going on here? stuff in my bag. Don't let him Don't let him look in your guys's bag, but you watching him. And so then he starts explaining to him like, you know, I have reason to believe that this is not at all.

Chuck Shute: 43:28

What is the ring doorbell? Or

Dale Crover: 43:31

it's just the telephone. Okay. Old Fashioned answer machine.

Chuck Shute: 43:38

Oh, okay. Interesting. That's fun. Yeah. Anyway, so yeah, so they've got you. Like, all this drugs out here. You're in handcuffs. And

Unknown: 43:47

yeah.

Dale Crover: 43:49

You know, and my road manager is trying to explain, I have reason to believe that that's not his stuff. Oh, really? Who is this guy? And he's like, Oh, he's name's Dale. Crover. He plays in this band that Melvin's is like, I've never heard you guys. I guess your show's canceled tonight, huh? And Snoop Dogg had just come through and had been busted. And I was gonna be on CNN, just like the big Snoop Dogg bust and so then he gets me out of the car and I'm gone. Okay. And he's like, Well, you know,just want to tell you guys, Adam Jones from Tool said, you guys are pranked. He was friends with Adam. Ah, that's how that happened. That is classic. Did you get him back for that? Not yet. Oh. So there we go.

Chuck Shute: 44:46

You gotta get him back for sure. Yeah. All right. Well, thanks so much for doing this interview. I do like to end with a charity. I don't know if your publicist told you. Is there a charity that you work with? Yeah, I want to give a shout out to

Dale Crover: 45:00

You know, I don't have one in particular but how about breast cancer? Okay,

Chuck Shute: 45:05

perfect. Yeah, I'll put that on.

Dale Crover: 45:07

That would be easy enough.

Chuck Shute: 45:08

That's easy enough. Absolutely. I'll put that in the notes if you want to throw a few bucks there and also they need to get the new Melvin's record and the new Dale crover and then are you have any other new music coming out with all the other 20 bands that you're in are?

Dale Crover: 45:21

probably know, you know those two things for sure. Yeah, get my new record. Get the new melons record. That's,

Chuck Shute: 45:28

that's out that's fresh. Okay, be freshly out of the oven. All right, awesome. Well, thank you so much for doing this. Dale. I appreciate it. Thank you and be in touch. Alright, thanks. Again. All right. See you later. Love that story. That is a classic prank. He's got to get Adam back for that. pretty elaborate. Thank you to Dale for coming on the show. Again, check out the new Melvin's album and Dale solo record. his solo stuff is very different from the melvins. But both are very good. And make sure to follow down the melvins on social media. And while you're at it, you can give me a follow share the episode if you enjoyed it. Or if you're listening on Apple podcasts. You scroll down all the way to the bottom, you can write me a review and let me know what you think. I appreciate all your support. It really helps me out. Have a great rest of your day and remember to shoot for the moon.