Joe Preston on Melvins, Thrones, Sunn O))), and his career as the underground’s first-call bassist

The drive-by opinion on Joe Preston – if the casual music fan has heard of him – is that he’s a burly man living in a remote wooded area who once played with the Melvins . And while that’s true, it’s hard fair to someone who, despite his low-key demeanour, is one of the more thundering bassists to come out of the vaunted early-90s grunge scene.

But then again, boiling Preston down to a “grunge bassist” isn’t fair either. Sure, he played with Earth and the Melvins, the latter of which are perpetually lumped in with grunge, but the albums he recorded, Lysol, and Joe Preston , aren’t remotely grunge. Though he did appear on Night Goat, a cut that, funnily enough, did end up on the Melvins grungiest record, Houdini, which Kurt Cobain was involved with. Go figure.

Anyway, after things soured with the Melvins, Preston formed his one-man-band Thrones and went on to play with Sunn O))) and High On Fire. Of course, all of this was before he retreated from the biz. “I’ve been in so many different bands,” Preston tells MusicRadar. “Sometimes, it hasn’t ended all that great, but I’ve also toured so much… it’s hard to remember some of the things I’ve done.”

He may struggle to remember, but his cavernous discography, the only thing that matches his heavier-than-heavy playing, tells a story of a player that’s meant much more to the scene than meets the eye. To this, Preston shrugs, “People remind me about it once in a while.”

He adds: “But there's also the aspect of internet professors that want to correct your experience about what they've read about what your life is like. People have heard of me because of my one or two years in a band, but that was like 10 minutes for me, as opposed to actually playing live with somebody for a long time.”

“I've gotten used to being relegated as extremely unimportant,” he says. “I’ve been involved in all these projects, but I'm not the cool person in them, you know? So, it’s just such a weird thing.”

For now, Preston is lying low. His days of chasing the dream, joining bands, and looking to make big bucks via big albums are over. Preston has talent; if he wanted to, he could find a gig, but at 55, he simply doesn’t want to. “I have agreed to put very little energy into playing shows and only to things that sound fun,” he says.

“Since I've done that, I feel better,” he insists. “And the shows that I do are a lot more fun. It seems to be working out okay. But maybe I’ll write something, but don't hold your breath. I’m sure not.”

What got you going on bass guitar ?

“Basically, I was going to college and hanging out with this girl who wanted me to give her bass lessons, and after a while, I just started playing it more and more. And then, my brother was always trying to get me into bass, but I wasn't having any of it at first, but that eventually changed.”

Once you got rolling, did you have an inclination toward the type of player you wanted to be?

“I would say no, not at all. [laughs] I mean… I was really into punk rock and metal as a kid, and the person who inspired me as a bass player was Mike Dean from Corrosion Of Conformity. But I didn't go into it thinking, 'I’m gonna do this,' or anything like that.”

Can you remember your first bass ?

“I think it was Hondo or something like that, kind of like a [Fender] P-Bass copy. My brother gave me one of those, but unfortunately, that and my first amp are destroyed, but I still have them now.”

What was the local Portland scene like when you started seriously gigging?

“It had a lot going on. Portland had a bunch of different venues, and I got to see Municipal Waste’s first show, or it was definitely like their first week, or something like that. Like, I got to see a lot more once I started going to see bands, and I saw the Melvins when they first started and got to know them really well.”

By the looks of it, your first serious band was Earth. How did you get the gig?

“I had met Dylan [Carlson]; I lived in this apartment building for a while, and I got connected with him and Nirvana when they were first starting. They were all really obsessed with the Melvins, and after I first saw them, I really liked them, too. That’s how I started playing with Earth. I lived up in Oregon, and we would drive up to Olympia and practise for a weekend.”

What are your memories of putting together Extra-Capsular Extraction?

“That was the first time any of us had really been playing in a real studio. I remember we didn’t have any way to tune our instruments between the three of us, so we had to re-tune to each other before the start of each song. [laughs]

“We also hadn’t been playing live for long, so the songs were kind of uncertain, and if we screwed up, it would derail the entire thing, and we'd have to start over. I remember we kept getting slower and slower, played super loud, and had lots of sustain.”

You toured with Nirvana while with Earth before they got big. What was it like seeing them go through the roof in terms of popularity?

“It was exciting and weird because when things started getting going for them, it all happened quickly, from being broke punk rock guys to being able to buy stupid stuff or whatever. In the spring or summer of '91, we went down there, and they were recording Nevermind.”

“It was just really weird to see them get to that level. I got to be with them when the A&R guys would take them out, and it was really weird because they went from being a band they’d never heard of to wanting to talk to them. It was a weird time because it was the beginning of all this brown-nosing from labels.”

From there, how did you end up joining the Melvins, who you mentioned you’d become friendly with?

“ There was no audition, and I already knew them. And I’d gone on tour with Nirvana [with Earth] and stuff. I’d also interviewed them for a magazine I was writing for, so I’d known them for several years by then.

“But I had just moved to Olympia, and I heard some ruckus outside my house outside in the street, and then on my porch, and it was Kurt and Dave from Nirvana, who had a note for me with a message from Buzz, saying, ‘This is not a joke, call Buzz about playing with the Melvins.’”

I’ve always found it interesting that as grunge was blowing up, after you joined the Melvins, the band recorded a drone record in Lysol.

“I don’t know… that’s just what we had song-wise. I’m sure I want to comment on where that came from, but that’s the new songs we had and what we were working on. I mean… none of this stuff, as far as I could tell, was part of a grand plan. It was just like what you end up working on. But things are so genre-oriented, and there were a lot of weird bands, but there wasn’t this… I’m not sure how to answer that.”

And then, there were the Kiss parody records, which were meant to be like Kiss’s four solo records from ’78. It’s been said that you weren’t really into it; what was the story behind the Joe Preston record?

“Well, it basically was Buzz [Osborne]'s idea, and we said, ‘That’ll be cool.’ But I was into it as much as any of those guys; I don’t know. I know they’ve said some shit about it, and like, I don’t really care, but I didn’t… it was the first time I actually got to record anything without anybody telling me what I was supposed to be doing.

“I don’t write songs all the time, and he was not happy with how I was putting things together. Like, I didn’t know what to do, so there was just a long song I’d cobbled together from a couple of different songs, but it was kind of going nowhere. Like, we played them once or twice, but the other one was someone else that, in a lot of ways, was mind-blowing, and the first time I got to be completely honest about something.

In a lot of ways, the Joe Preston Melvins record is a precursor to what you went on to do with Thrones. It must have been refreshing to do that after the Melvins didn’t work out.

“Honestly, it was. After I got kicked out of the Melvins, which I was really not happy about at all, I just kind of stopped. I just wanted to play something different after my experience in the Melvins, and I was like, ‘I really don't want to be told what to do or play." I thought, "Whatever I do, I want to do it alone.’”

How did you end up working with Sunn O))) in the early-2000s?

“A lot of collaborations I've been a part of came from just talking to people interested in striking up a conversation and saying, ‘Hey, we could do this thing.’ It worked out a lot, and I’ve done some surprising things. But we spent a few days hanging out, and they had rough ideas about what they wanted to do. We just said, ‘Let’s see what comes of it,’ and that’s how a lot of things I’ve done happen.

“But with Sunn O))), on the record with the coffin on the cover [Oracle], I ended up coming in, and they just wanted me to do a jackhammer solo on Belülrol Pusztít. We went to Home Depot, rented a fucking jackhammer, and then looked for something that we could go and destroy. [laughs] I ended up doing that because I was the only person in the room who could hold onto it for a while. [laughs]”

What led to you joining High On Fire in 2004?

“ I kind of stepped into that one. I had played my last show on a US Thrones tour, and I got this email that said, ‘Hey, George [Rice] quit, we’re looking for a new bass player. We want to talk to you about it.’ And by the time I got home from my last show in Denver, Colorado, two or three days later, there was a CD with some new stuff they were working on and a list of songs they wanted me to learn, and then I flew down.”

What was the chemistry like once you got in the room with the rest of the band?

“At this point, it was like, ‘We didn't even do this record; we’re just about to do a record.’ We started jamming for, I think, four days, but as we were going through stuff, it wasn't clicking right away. We took a break for lunch, and we said, ‘Why don't we just relax?’ And it ended up going well from there.”

What are your memories of recording Blessed Black Wings with High on Fire, which the late Steve Albini produced?

“Recording was really cool. It was with Steve at Electrical Audio; he was awesome to work with. He was a legend. As a person, for me, he has legendary status. I’d already met him several times and actually played with Shellac a couple of times, but getting to be there was such a nice experience.”

What made Steve special, and how did he most impact Blessed Black Wings?

“You know, he was a studio pro, and the people there know what they’re doing, and there was no attitude about it. It went smoothly, and Steve really wanted to help you make the record that you wanted. So, you go in knowing what you want, and luckily for me, all I really wanted to do was play and hang out, so working with him was really pleasurable and comfortable.”

It seems like the vibe within High on Fire was good, so why did you leave?

“After we recorded the album, I never had such a long break as we had after the tour. It was the longest I’d ever had, and two years went by without playing. I'd never had more than two weeks off ever, so two years really dragged me down. By the end of it, I was like, ‘I'm bummed out,’ and there’d be no money, and I just said, ‘I don't think I can do this anymore.’ But we ended on good terms, and working with them was great.”

You live in a remote area and haven’t been very active in the music scene lately. Are you days of touring the world over?

“ I recently played three shows, but I don’t really play shows anymore. My life has changed radically because of family stuff over the last decade, and touring turned into a pretty stressful thing for me to do.

“But I had three really good shows and got great feedback from people, which made me think, ‘I have to remember to check my attitude about stuff.’ I have to remember that while I might not like what I’m doing all the time, it might mean something to somebody, and it’s a good thing to spread it around.”

And how about new music?

“ No, not really. But my 30th anniversary of doing Thrones – which was pointed out to me – is coming up. I’ve had it be a good and bad thing when bands break up, but it’s pretty difficult to break up when you’re one person. [laughs] And when I write stuff, I go slowly and beat myself up over it, so it’s kind of done; it’s a soft breakup.”

Looking back, as far as gear, what’s been the secret to your distinctive tone?

“Oh, well, I’ve just always had the same gear. I still have it all, though it’s all falling apart. [laughs] I’ve also been a fan of really unpopular multi-effects pedals that are not easy to find, and a lot of them have started to get really expensive. But, like, I’ve used this one cord forever, and I've bought a couple of extras when I find them.”

“I haven’t gotten any new gear for a long time. The magic thing against my need for stuff really is, ‘Oh, I just can’t afford any extra crap at this point.’ I mean, to buy more Sunn Amps at this point would be expensive. They used to be like 200 bucks, and not hard to find, not anymore.”

“At this point in my life, I’m more interested in finding something nobody wants. But gear is really overrated; every time people start talking to me about pedals, string gauges, and shit like that, I really start to tune out.”

Having been through the wringer as you have, do you have any regrets?

“I hate the music industry. Personally, I think it’s the worst thing in the world. But here’s my regret: trying to make a living off playing music. That was the biggest mistake I’ve ever made in my life. It was one of those things where it sapped all the joy out of it for me. So now, it’s difficult for me to pick it up and go, ‘This will be enjoyable.’”

So, what’s your best advice for someone looking to break into the music industry?

“To set your bar low. Like, set your expectations for reward very low. If you do what you like and don't try to do what you’re ‘supposed’ to do, your rewards will be quite a lot. I don't know… I’m saying it all wrong. Just do what you love doing, and make the things you do worthwhile, rather than doing things that you don’t love.”