The Muffs

The Muffs have a new CD due out in May. Kim Shattuck doesn’t have much to do until the record is released and the summer concert series begins, so she agreed to chat on the phone about the album and a single on Sympathy For The Record Industry. The Muffs live is widely recognized as a display of supreme entertainment. 

Happy Birthday To Me, a title I asked Shattuck about late in the conversation, is the most commercial and produced example of Muffs music to date, although Shattuck would argue that point. The band produced the shimmering slice of garage pop punk themselves. The trio format of the 1995 release Blonder and Blonder (the title Shattuck feels is the most pro­duced) carried over into 1997. Due to an overwhelming desire to view Shattuck holding a guitar as she sings into a microphone, the first and most obvious question concerned tour dates. 

“We have plans to go on a headlining tour in July, but we’re still trying to get hooked up with an opening tour for early spring,” Shattuck said. Her songwriting skills have been called “obsessively obtuse” in the past. The lyrical content of “That Awful Man,” “Honeymoon,” “My Crazy Afternoon,” “Pennywhore,” and “Outer Space” doesn’t appear that obtuse to me, but the advance CD came without a lyric sheet and I had to rely on the my ears. The question I had was whether the songs were inspired by specific individuals. 

“When I’m writing the lyrics, anything that happens and affects me really strongly,” said Shattuck. “If I’m affected by something that happens in my life I usually write a song. It doesn’t necessarily mean that it will be about it, but subconsciously stuff comes out. ‘Outer Space’ is about me. The other ones are about me being angry with somebody.”

The next question concerned the hardcore country nature of “Pennywhore.” Shattuck informed me that each of the three Muff’s CDs contains a country song. The first has “Another Day,” the second contains “Red-Eyed Troll,” which brings us to “Pennywhore.” Shattuck said, “I wrote that actually for no records. I wrote it in between writing songs. Sometimes when I write I’ll hit a wall and I’ll write just a cute little ditty to get me through it before I write other stuff. I have lots of cute little ditties lying around, but this one was really good and Roy (McDonald, drums) really wanted to do it.” 

The vinyl hounds in the crowd will already be aware of The Muffs’ history with Sympathy. The label is the work of one man, a man who is undoubtedly of a genius level in the intelligence department based on the selected gems of trash rock he’s released over the years. How did The Muffs meet Sympathy label owner Long Gone John and begin the relationship – a relationship continuing to the present with the release of “I’m A Dick” – in seven inch form?

Shattuck said, “I don’t remember. I think he was a friend of ours socially. I don’t remember who approached who. We were starting to be a band and we hadn’t put out anything yet and he asked us if we wanted to. We split the cost with Sympathy For The Record Industry and Au Go Go Records in Australia. We did four songs and then we let Long Gone John pick the songs he wanted because he’s our friend. The other guy from Au Go Go is our friend too, but maybe Long Gone John paid more money. Like a hundred dollars more. He got the extra song. We always put out singles on Sympathy because Long Gone John is a really cool guy and our label (Reprise) lets us.” In the FYI department; ”I’m A Dick” on Sympathy has a different vocal take, an alternate lead and they cover the Amps‘ “Pacer” on the flip. 

Now I’m sure everyone has been waiting to learn the meaning behind the CD title, Happy Birthday To Me. Shattuck said, “It’s basically me getting mad because I was ignored on my birthday by everybody. I’m giving you the very short version because there is a long, long story to this, but…I was supposed to be taken out by some people and they didn’t take me out, they didn’t call me, they forgot or they ignored it. I wrote ‘Happy Birthday To Me’ sarcastically on our list of titles and it got picked.” 

Sometime in May, Happy Birthday To Me will magically appear on store shelves. I’m positive end-caps, listening stations and drive aisle dis­plays will follow shortly and The Muffs will achieve the same sales figures as the Spice Girls. Because, after all, the music is pop and the singer is a girl. In your dreams maybe. 

Shattuck on the Happy Birthday To Me title: “We finally decided on the title and it’s a title that I thought up (that’s a first for me for album titles). It’s going to be called ‘Happy Birthday To Me.’ I guess I’ll have to elicit a kiss from myself now. I’m really relieved that it’s settled now because it became so tedious trying to squeeze a title out of everything that anybody ever said, funny or not. The artwork is cool. It’s hard to describe. You’ll just have to wait.”

There are 15 songs on the album and the first three are under two minutes long but they’re full songs with intro, verse, chorus, verse, cho­rus, bridge, solo, bridge, chorus, repeat, so I really don’t understand how they turned out to be so short. I think it’s a good thing though and the album DOES clock in at around 35 minutes. –Wa

Read more interviews from the archives:
Good Riddance
Syd Straw

Enjoying the nostalgia of the archives? Consider becoming one of our donors!