11. MelvinsLysol

I was obsessed with the Melvins in my late teens, and I used to listen to them in the car on repeat. They were sort of the stepping stone to Fushitsusha for me because I loved Melvins so much, a very heavy band, and then when I heard Fushitsusha, it made sense in that it was, oh, this is the next level of heaviness. And I actually didn’t listen to Melvins for a long time afterwards because I just immersed myself in Fushitsusha and then kind of came back to them eventually.

This record obviously is a classic and very influential on a lot of bands. Over the years I’ve definitely taken a few cues from Melvins’ songwriting and sonics, which is a lot easier for me to do than it may be for a metal band where it would be more obvious since nobody really expects it from Six Organs. Although I have been called out on it a few times. I remember I was recording with Tim Green in the studio, Tim Green was the engineer, and he had recorded Melvins. I was recording a song and he called me out a little bit. He said, ‘That chord progression reminds me a little bit of this song.’ I’m like, ‘Ah, you busted me!’

It’s funny, my high school band at the time was nothing you would wanna talk about, but we opened for the Melvins when they were on the Lysol tour. We were kind of a punk band, a very smalltown punk band, and we did our soundcheck first because the Melvins hadn’t showed up yet. And then I left to eat. I was in high school so just had a little guitar amp, and I remember coming back and being like, where’s my amp? To me it just seemed like a wall of amps, I’d never seen anything like that. And I remember the sound guy was like, ‘Oh, it’s back there’. I just felt so small, dragging my little amp out in front of their amps. But yeah, I saw them tour that record. It was very, very heavy, very cool.