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JOHN LEIGHTON BEEZER (the Thrown Ups bassist; the Blunt Objects guitarist) Todd was hemophiliac, and when kids were born with hemophilia, they used to wrap them up in cotton, like they were fine china. And at a certain point, his mom got fed up with this and said, “Even if he has to die young, he’s gonna live like a normal kid.” So this was a guy who basically expected to die at any time.

Todd was the drummer in our band the Blunt Objects, which also featured Jim Sangster, who ended up playing bass in the Young Fresh Fellows, and John Conte, who went on to a band called the Living, which featured Duff McKagan and Greg Gilmore. Todd’s drum set was literally speckled in blood; any little cut would just bleed continuously, and he’d have to get a transfusion after every practice. His attitude was, Fuck, we’re only here so long, so let’s have some fun. I think that’s where the attitude of the Blunt Objects came from. And the irony was that Todd did survive well into adulthood, and he didn’t die from hemophilia—he died in ’96 from AIDS he got from a blood transfusion.

STEVE MACK The word got out that we had these crazy punk-rock parties. We started intersecting with a couple of other large party houses: There was one house full of women, and then there was another house full of guys, where people like Mark Arm lived and hung out. It was like this golden triangle.

But at the same time, there was a nasty streak amongst the sort of Seattle street punk rockers, the Bopo Boys. Here we were, these nice, middle-class suburban kids who just dug this crazy punk rock, and all of the sudden, these street kids came in, and they had speed and heroin and liked to get into fights and trash our house. I remember one night in particular, I found my television in the fireplace—on fire.

We had a party on New Year’s ’84—by this time, we were in our third house—and after, my friend Mike Faulhaber said, “I got an idea. Let’s just stay up until our first class,” which would’ve been another two days away. “We’ll make music.”

“That sounds fantastic!”

“Okay, but we’re going to need a lot more drugs.”

So Mike and I were in my bedroom, just making all this music, and at some point, I believe at two in the morning, Leighton walks in with his eyes as big as basketballs. He had decided to try a little experiment: “I’m going to try to megadose myself on psychotropes tonight.” He said, “What are you guys doing?”

“We’re on an epic quest. We’re going to play music until our first class, in 51 hours. We’re just going to keep playing.” So Leighton joins us and we just kept going and going and going. We made it until about 4 o’clock in the morning before my first class, which was at 9:30. By this point, Leighton had collapsed. Mike and I, we both looked at each other and I said, “I can’t go any further!” He’s like, “I can’t, either!” At that point, we both collapsed.

Leighton came back a couple of days later, and he was like, “I really think we’re on to something. We’re going to play, but we’re never going to rehearse.” Leighton kept asking me to sing, and I just wasn’t feeling it. So I let them carry on with it, and it was at one of those parties that one of our drinking buddies, Ed Fotheringham—he was the crazy Australian—stepped up to the mic, and a match was made.

JOHN LEIGHTON BEEZER After that party, I remember we were leaving the basement and Ed said, “You know, that sounded like throw up looks.”

So I said, “Well, I guess that makes us the Thrown Ups.” And the name stuck. That was when it became me and Ed and Mike, and we recruited a drummer from a band called the Limp Richerds, Scott Schickler. A year later, in the winter of ’85, we played our first show, opening for Hüsker Dü at the Gorilla Gardens. We had a jar of oysters, and I threw the oysters at people in the crowd. Ed always came up with the ideas for the shows.

Mike left the band, and right after Steve quit Green River, he joined the Thrown Ups. And then Mark joined, too, replacing Scott. That was Mark and Steve’s way of staying together