Melvins frontman Buzz Osborne Rob Zombie Is A Lower-Level Fuckhead

Melvins have been doing their thing since 1983 and frontman Buzz Osborne has been there for it all. In a new feature from Rolling Stone, Osborne picks a handful of grunge records that he enjoyed, though says he’s “not overly intrigued by that whole genre.”

One of his picks is Spanking Machine by Babes In Toyland, and he recalls touring with them and White Zombie in the early 90s. Osborne says Babes In Toyland were great and White Zombie, specifically Rob Zombie, wasn’t exactly the best dude on the trek.

I don’t know that I would have considered Babes in Toyland a grunge band, but I think a lot of people do. They were clearly influenced by the Birthday Party, which I thought was cool. And Hole were kind of a bastardized version of them. To me, anyway. Babes in Toyland were a much, much better band. They wrote much more interesting songs and were much less interested in, like, “We have to write pop songs that are gonna be big hits.” You never had to worry about that with them. I like Spanking Machine from them best. “He’s My Thing” is on that one, and I like “Vomit Heart.” That’s probably my favorite song of theirs ever.

We played a lot of shows with them back then, and they were always fun. We did a tour with them and White Zombie, and we both got treated like fucking dogshit on that tour by the powers that be. It was a massively unnecessary situation of pointless rock-star behavior. I don’t know what was going through his [Rob Zombie’s] head, but if making enemies is what you set out to do, well, mission accomplished. I’ve been around people you would consider a rock star, like the guys in Kiss, and they never behaved like that. It just makes you hate lower-level fuckheads like Rob Zombie even more. If I got treated like that by the fucking mailman, I’d hate his guts. So it was fun to have Babes in Toyland along.