Monday, December 3, Las Vegas Weekly

When you’re playing a club like House of Blues versus an arena, does it produce different results?When it’s a club, you can see people better. To me, that makes for a more fun show. I get off on seeing people have a good time. I’d like to do it in the middle of the crowd if I could.

Do you pick different songs for smaller shows like these? Sometimes, yeah. It depends on the mood. Being a three-piece, we have a lot of options, a lot of freedom for what we can play, versus a large band with a lot of people. If we want to change the song in the middle, you can just go—that’s the fun thing about it. Same thing with the set. The songs are arranged, but we can always change them as we go.

What was it like working with producer Rick Rubin on your new album, La Futura? We’ve been together a long time, and we’re kind of used to doing things one way, so it’s nice to shake it up a little bit. Putting Rick into the mix—you’ve seen him, he’s already got the beard—so, he fit right in already (laughs). It took us a little while to find a groove, but Rick is a very talented fella. He knows how to pull things out of you or when things aren’t going in a certain direction or aren’t working. I enjoyed it very much.

I read that you guys recorded it live … Yeah, we did a lot of it … I don’t know if you want to call it “old school,” but we definitely did some more basic stuff. … It’s not just three people playing live circled around one microphone, but it does have a strong element of an old-school type of recording. We used anything available or we don’t use things available, according to how it feels.

The latest video on your website has the tagline “New Video, Same Formula: Cars, Legs and Beards.” Have you ever toyed with changing up the formula? I promise you, if we did “Fly Me to the Moon” it would still sound like ZZ Top. It’s just the way we play. It just comes out sounding like that. I hope that’s a good thing. I don’t know what it is, but it is what it is. I’m talking in circles here, can you follow me? (laughs)

ZZ Top was just honored with the Living Legend Award from The Classic Rock Roll of Honour in the U.K. What do you think the band’s legacy will be? I’m not sure that’s for me to say. That’s like picking your own nickname; I think that’s against the rules (laughs). For our legacy, I hope people would listen to the body of the work and not just one segment. Most people have their favorites or don’t like us at all, and any of that’s cool. But I hope that people would listen to all of it. When I listened to Muddy Waters, I listened to early and later Muddy Waters. When I listened to Elvis Presley, same thing. When I listened to The Beatles or whoever, I try to listen to the body of work before I start thinking of their legacy.

Have you guys ever thought of approaching the Movember charity about becoming spokesmen? Oh yeah, we got a head start on everybody on that (laughs). I’ll tell you, if I don’t think about it or walk past a mirror, I’ll forget I even have it—it’s just so much a part of me. There’s a show on TV called Duck Dynasty, these guys in Louisiana, and its a hilarious show. They call themselves rednecks and say, “That’s like shaving my beard, I’d never do that.” I would have this thing, with or without the band. My wife has never seen me without it. I’m not sure I’d wanna take that chance.

Web Link: http://www.lasvegasweekly.com/news/2012/dec/03/weekly-interview-zz-top-bassist-and-co-vocalist-du/

Wed, Oct 24, 2012, Las Vegas Weekly, Entertainment

Will you prepare for a 12-show residency any differently than you prepare for a tour? Probably a little bit, because I think we’re going to have to alternate sets and do different things. Whereas when we tour we kind of tweak the set as we go and then kind of get in a mode of it being a certain way, with a few audible changes as we go along. I think with the Vegas sets, we’re going to try and make some different things happen to kind of keep each show a little bit different.

Like, keep a basic set and mix in a few songs? Or will you have multiple setlists? I think we’re really going to have to think about that. And as you just say that … (pauses) … an idea came into my mind … to really, drastically change the set. I can’t share it with you, but I think would be really good. I think there’s a couple different ways we could go about all this, and I think we should.

Is there you’ll be able to do, production-wise, to make these shows special since you won’t have to tear it all down every night? I’ve got a couple of ideas, and I think everyone is going to have to use their noggin to try to figure it out. I know Axl [Rose] is going to try and make every show different from one to the next. I think that would be the way he thinks.

Sounds like there’s still a lot up in the air. Do you think it will mostly happen spontaneously? Ya know, I don’t know. I think that we’re probably going to have to talk about how different we want to make the shows, then once we do that and we all get on the same page it’ll be easy to say, “Hey, how ’bout tonight we do it this way?” That way, people aren’t gonna go, “Wow, I saw them last week, and I saw that set.” It would be good to have them see a different set each time. To make people go, “Wow, that was totally different.” It might be totally acoustic for half the set tonight. Or maybe we’ll do half the set on f*cking kazoos! (laughs)

The residency is called Appetite for Democracy. Does that mean it will mostly draw from Appetite for Destruction and Chinese Democracy? I just think somebody came up with a cute term (laughs). I don’t really know where that came from, but it is definitely going to be more than just Appetite and Chinese Democracy. It’s going to be a lot of things—as much as we can throw out there.

You’ve been in Guns N’ Roses almost 15 years, right? Yeah, ’98! F*ckin A!

I know you played on Chinese Democracy, but were you involved in the writing process or was the album already written by the time you joined the band? I came in sort of … in the middle of the record, but there was a lot to write and a lot to put together still. So I was pretty much involved in helping put all that stuff that you hear on Chinese Democracy together in one aspect or another.

When you took over GNR bass duties, did you try to play like Duff McKagan? Or did you try to make it your own? I think, other than him being more riff oriented than I am, we’re not all that different players. We both kind of came from a punk-rock background, and it wasn’t all that much of a stretch. I did, however, tweak my sound a little bit so that it would fit sonically with what was going on. I didn’t really try to sound like Duff necessarily, but to make it sound as powerful as I could while still fitting in to what’s going on.

Did you switch amps or basses? I tried all sorts of stuff, but eventually I went back to what I know. And that’s Ampegs and P and J basses.

I read that you and Paul Westerberg are working on new Replacements material. Yeah, we recorded some songs live in the studio a couple weekends ago to benefit Slim Dunlap, the guitar player that took my brother’s place. He had a massive series of strokes this last spring, and he’s pretty laid up, so we’re trying to raise some money for his recovery. We did, like, four songs. [Ex-Replacements drummer] Chris Mars did a song to throw on there, and we’re going to release a Replacements EP at some point. The proceeds will all go to Slim.

That will surely feed Replacements reunion tour rumor mill … You never know. We certainly had a f*cking ball doing it, and it was fun to get in the f*cking mud and just kind of sling around until it kind of warps into something and you’re just like, “Wow, we can actually still f*cking do that.” I think some time, maybe end of December or early January, we might try to just record some songs together, not for any purpose for The Replacements necessarily but just do some recording just to have that vibe, whether it’s for his record, my record, whatever. That’s just something we talked about. It could fall apart at any point. We both had enough fun with it that it seemed like it would be a good thing to try and do.

During the ’80s, The Replacements exemplified anti-mainstream music. Now, you play in Guns N’ Roses, one of the most popular bands from that period. Was that a strange transition, mentally? Ya know, they’re totally different things, but they’re both totally the same in a lot of ways, in that its rock ’n’ roll. It’s what I’ve always done. Axl is about as anti-corporate-rock as anyone I know, Paul [Westerberg] included. It just so happens that their model of anti-corporate-rock got through and people liked it. People bought it. I can’t speak for the whole band, but I can speak for me getting down with Axl, and he comes from the same place as all of us.

Web Link: http://www.lasvegasweekly.com/news/2012/oct/24/appetite-residency/

Wed, Oct 17, 2012, Las Vegas Weekly, Entertainment

Why are you playing 51 shows—all 50 states plus Washington, D.C.—in 51 days? Dale: We wanted to do something big and dumb (laughs). We had heard George Thorogood attempted [50 shows in 50 states] but never completed it, so we thought it sounded like a cool idea. I guess George’s people got wind that we were attempting it and said “Oh, no, we finished it.”

Do certain shows stand out, or is it all just a blur at this point? Dale: Well, we’re getting to play all these places that we’ve never been before, like Casper, Wyoming. We played like a VFW there, which was a little odd but it turned out to be a great show. Last night we played in this old theater in Charlottesville, Virginia, and obviously we love playing theaters because the sound is so good. Overall, it’s been a really positive experience. When we get to Vegas, it’ll be Vegas, LA, Hawaii and then we’re done. Oh, and the Vegas show is on my birthday, so that should be fun—a Vegas birthday. The show has been moved, like, three times, because for some reason we started selling tickets. Vegas is usually a bust for us, so that’s great news.

Has the way you guys write changed through the years? Buzz: Nothing stays the same, thankfully. I try to remain as open-minded as possible in all areas and not concern myself how it will be perceived by the general public. I make things that I like, and I don’t particularly care what our fans think. I think they should like it. That doesn’t mean they will like it, but I can’t concern myself with those kind of details.

Buzz, you’ve described the Melvins’ sound as “Captain Beefheart, playing heavy metal” stemming from a punk background. What do you think makes music punk? Buzz: Attitude. That’s it. There’s a lot of bands that consider themselves punk rock that I don’t think are at all. But that’s me. I’m a different kind of person. I see things differently. Honestly, I have no idea what motivates people or why they do what they’re doing. I usually don’t trust their motivations, whatever they may be. I can’t fully explain it. I know it when I see it, but we are definitely [punk] more than anything else. In the grand tradition of it, like the Sex Pistols or whoever.

Dale: Punk is doing something completely outrageous and against the grain. It’s as simple as that.

Web Link: http://www.lasvegasweekly.com/news/2012/oct/17/chatting-melvins-mainstays-buzz-osborne-and-dale-c/