Everybody Loves Our Town_ An Oral History of Grunge - Mark Yarm [39]
CHRIS HANZSEK We lived in Boston for two years, where I got my technical start in recording. A couple of college roommates wrote me a letter that said, “We’re living in Seattle now, and you ought to check it out.” My friends sent me compilations called the Seattle Syndrome, parts one and two, a record by the Blackouts, a record by the 3 Swimmers, and a single by the Fartz. I went, “Seattle looks like it’s got a bunch of crazy people doing crazy stuff.” So that sealed the deal.
We moved there in ’83 and on the first day of 1984, Tina and I opened a studio, the original Reciprocal. I did some sessions with the Accüsed; I did Green River’s first demo. When you’re recording for 10 bucks an hour, you can be remarkably popular. But after our one-year lease was up, the landlord saw to it that we didn’t want to continue. It was the loss of the studio that made me think, Geez, what else could I do while I’m hot to trot here?
KIM THAYIL Originally, Chris and Tina wanted to finance a record with Green River, and they came out to see a show we were opening for them. They were really impressed and wanted to make a flip-sided record: Green River on one side, Soundgarden on the other. We could’ve just left it at that, but Mark Arm and I thought it’d be important to include the Melvins and Malfunkshun and the U-Men.
We struggled with whether we should ask the guys in Skin Yard to be on it. So we debated it for a while: “They’re a little bit different, they’re a little bit younger, but they’re kind of like us, and we like Jack Endino. Maybe make it six bands, everyone contribute a couple of songs.”
CHRIS HANZSEK The label’s name, C/Z, was Tina’s idea. She told me that I was the Z, and she was the C. I said, “But my name doesn’t begin with Z,” and she said, “That’s okay, it’s in the middle.”
DANIEL HOUSE Back then people in the Seattle underground weren’t putting out records, and for the most part, when you did, you’d put out a single or maybe a four-song EP. Then suddenly, there’s this guy, Chris, who was recording a bunch of bands. He kind of came out of nowhere. I remember feeling that I had to talk Chris into including Skin Yard on Deep Six.
KIM THAYIL Chris Hanzsek was pretty confident that we could make the record without the U-Men, and I had to keep pushing Chris, saying, “Getting the U-Men would be very important to help get attention for the record.”
LARRY REID I remember us being completely on the fence about it. It was just that we were leaving on a big fucking tour, to play with the Minutemen and Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. It just wasn’t fitting into our schedule. We had to get to fucking Idaho that night. But Daniel was bugging me about it. We recorded “They” in one take—used whatever kit was there, didn’t unload amps, just guitars. It was 10 minutes from the time we pulled up to the time we left.
TOM PRICE All I remember is it was recorded at Ironwood Studios. I don’t remember actually recording the song—at that point I was kinda whacked out on drugs—but I’ve heard people say that there was some problem with getting us to do the record in the first place because we thought the other bands on it were too heavy metal.
TINA CASALE I had minimal input in the whole thing. I helped clean the studio up and put the tape on the machine, but Chris was the recording person. When we set up the mix-down, we said to the bands, “You can have two members come in and help with the mix-down.” Allowing the whole band to come in would’ve just been chaos.
REGAN HAGAR Each band was allowed one band member to come back to mix, and Andy and I both went. ’Cause we were like one, in our minds. We’d say, “These rules are set up, but we are excluded because we’re in Malfunkshun.” Our egos were really, really healthy.
When we were mixing the songs, we had Kevin really loud