the making of superfuzz bigmuff by mudhoney - featuring mark arm and steve turner

For the 35th anniversary of Mudhoney’s first 12-inch record, Superfuzz Bigmuff, we take a detailed look at how it was made. After Mark Arm met Steve Turner at a show in Seattle, they became fast friends and began playing in multiple bands together. They started Green River with Jeff Ament and Alex Shumway and eventually added Stone Gossard on second guitar. Tensions over the musical direction of the band eventually caused Green River to dissolve with Ament and Gossard going on to form Mother Love Bone and Arm and Turner deciding to form Mudhoney. With Mudhoney, they had a vision for fuzz drenched guitars and blending 60s garage with punk rock. They eventually added Dan Peters on drums and Matt Lukin on bass and had their first practice on New Year’s Day in 1988. Bruce Pavitt of Sub Pop offered to pay for some studio time with Jack Endino so he could hear the material they were working on. From those sessions, they released the "Touch Me I’m Sick" single in the summer of 1988. At that point, they went back into the studio with Jack Endino to work on the songs that would become Superfuzz Bigmuff.

In this episode, Mark Arm describes his approach of “vocalizing” rather than singing, and how playing guitar with this band changed how he thought about song arrangements. Steve Turner talks about his discovery of vintage fuzz boxes and how they informed the Mudhoney sound at a time when fuzz pedals were out of fashion. From the early days of Sub Pop to rocking baby blue 60s guitars to Dan Peters’ unique drum patterns to Matt Lukin’s relief of playing simple songs to Sonic Youth knighting them as the next big thing to a pivotal moment in Seattle music, we’ll hear the stories of how the record came together.

Notes and transcript

Purchase Superfuzz Bigmuff

Purchase Mud Ride: A Messy Trip Through the Grunge Explosion by Steve Turner and Adem Tepedelen

Episode Credits:

Intro/Outro Music:

“Monks on the Moon” by Hot Lunch from the album, Hot Lunch

Episode produced, edited and mixed by Dan Nordheim

Additional mixing and mastering by Jeremy Whitwam