City: How come you named your record My Brother The Cow?

Mark: It just turned out that way. We can never come up with names for our records, so we just take something out of the blue, when we have to decide.

City: It's been almost four years since you released the full-length album Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge, and the only thing you have accomplished since that is the EP Five Dollar Bob's Mock Cooter Stew, how come? (note: they've somehow forgotten about Piece of Cake, released in 1992)

Mark: When we had finished Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge we toured for a year, and when we got back home we knew that it would take time to come up with a new "real" record, so we recorded a few songs for an EP. The record-company encouraged us and told us that it was a great idea, but when the EP was about to be released, we got no support at all. "We're not too exited about EP releases," they told us. The new record was planned to hit the stores last fall, but then the release date was moved forward, so that we wouldn't get caught in the Christmas rush. So the main reason why people haven't heard from us is record company politics.

City: So you're now sitting on a ton of great songs that nobody will get to hear?

Mark: No, hardly. We don't write until we know it's time to record. The songs on My Brother the Cow are, I guess, everything we have accomplished at the moment. When we write songs, we write fast, we skip everything unnecessary.

City: In the song Into Yer Shtik you sing "Why don't you blow your brains out too?." Is that a reference to the suicide of your friend Kurt Cobain, or is it about fucked-up, fanatic fans, or...

Mark: Into Yer Shtik was written way before all that happened, Jesus, I knew that people would try to see the connection. The song has nothing to do with Kurt at all. I think it's very sad that Kurt killed him self, but I was not too surprised about it. We, in the band had known him for a long period of time, he really liked Mudhoney, and as far as I remember he never felt too good.

City: Generation Spokesmodel also sounds like it could have something to do with Kurt.

Mark: Yeah, I know. But I think I was thinking more about Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam when I wrote it.

City: You used to play with some of the guys from Pearl Jam, in Green River and Dan Peters has played with Nirvana. Isn't it kind of dull when the others get rich and famous while you stay on the same track?

Mark: It's good to know that your friends have a job and are getting by.

City: The last song on My Brother the Cow named 1995 very much reminds of the classic Stooges song 1969.

Mark: The basic idea is the same, and it starts the same, so it's kind of obvious that it is some kind of tribute, but the guitar-riff is completely ours. We've only borrowed the frame.

City: In F.D.K. (Fearless Doctor Killers) you turn to politics, and you sing about religious airheads who kills abortion doctors , why? You never interfere with politics, do you?

Mark: Politics? I don't know if it's politics. We only make a statement about something very dumb. To believe that you can stop abortion by shooting the doctor, or the lady who works behind the reception desk, as in this case, is so god-damn stupid that you just have to say something.