In an ideal world, it would be possible to talk about Mudhoney without once mentioning Seattle, Sub Pop, Nirvana or bassist Matt Lukin's infamous flatulence. In the world we're stuck with, the one where Mudhoney has just released its latest celebration of confusion, Piece of Cake (Reprise), it seems pretty clear that's not going to happen.

Mudhoney is the last of the big-deal Pacific Northwest bands to make a major-label debut, even though, in many people's minds, they were the first to bring Seattle national attention for something other than microbreweries and Microsoft. When Kurt Cobain was still living in Olympia, and still finding graffiti on his bathroom wall informing him that he smelled like Teen Spirit deodorant, Mudhoney was gigging around and laying down the tracks that would comprise the band's dazy, zoned-out, distortion-pedaled sound-which eventually became the Seattle scene's trademark. Grant Alden, the managing editor of The Rocket, Seattle's weekly music journal, says he's pretty certain that Mudhoney got the ball rolling. "Soundgarden did an album for A&M first, but Mudhoney is what got all the alternative music people focused on Seattle." Until Nirvana's debut album broke all previous sales records, Mudhoney's Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge was Sub Pop's best-selling title.

But the two bands apparently know no rivalry. They have toured together-in fact, Mudhoney's drummer Dan Peters went on the road with Nirvana before they managed to find a permanent player-and Nirvana recently took an opening slot on a Mudhoney gig at Seattle's Crocodile Cafe ("Guess how many people stayed after Nirvana played?" singer/guitarist Mark Arm asks jokingly).

"Sure, we'll ride on their coattails," guitarist Steve Turner said with a laugh several months ago, when I interviewed him at the height of the Nirvanarama. "It's pretty fucking incredible what's happened with them, but since day one, Nirvana was always described as a pop-band-meets-the-Melvins - like, these guys could be huge. So we expected it. In a perfect world, I always thought Nirvana would be huge."

"And I guess we've got a perfect world," Mark Arm added.

"I don't think it's going to happen to us," Steve said. "Lightning doesn't strike twice in the same place. And we don't play their kind of songs."

All of which is supposed to be an anti-hype alert, Mudhoney's way of letting on that they're not expecting to join Seattle's platinum club and they don't much care. Starting with the earliest singles like "Sweet Young Thing Ain't Sweet No More" and "Touch Me I'm Sick" (which was recently parodied as "Touch Me I'm Dick" on the Singles soundtrack, the Seattle Times claims Matt Dillon's character in that film was based on Arm), the band's dirty sound is music that always makes you feel as if the floor is shaking and everything around you is about to collapse. Mudhoney is rock 'n' roll as mudslide.

"Life-affirming, but a big fuck-you to society," is how Steve Turner describes punk band Flipper's music, and that's kind of the way he'd like people to think of Mudhoney.

At any rate, this is how Steve sees things: The guys don't want to make a big point about the difference between working with Sub Pop or a major label. They swear they'd still be an indie band if it weren't for all the financial problems Sub Pop suffered a few years back.

"They went through hard times and they kept on telling us less and less of the truth," Steve says. "So we figured we had to go someplace. We talked to Caroline (Sub Pop's distributor), but they seemed more uptight than any of the majors we talked to. We thought, why take a step sideways when we can go forward?" Mudhoney came close to signing with Epic, but when the label was not forthcoming about getting them any free boxed sets, they settled on Warner Brothers, which gave them all the Jimi Hendrix reissues they wanted.

Warner also let them cut their album with producer Conrad Uno at Egg Studios, which Uno claims "might be the best-known eight track in the hemisphere." While Mudhoney did all of their early work with grunge-meister Jack Endino at renowned Reciprocal Studios (where almost all of the Sub Pop catalog was recorded), they gave Uno and Egg a try for 1991's Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge, and seem pleased with the results. The board Uno uses at Egg once belonged to Stax Studios in Memphis, which might be why so many bands passing through town - most notably, Mudhoney pals Sonic Youth - have been drawn to Uno's basement to record. Uno, who is also the proprietor of PopLIama Records, is an aging hippie from North Dakota who discovered the sweeter side of Seattle in pop bands like the Posies and the Young Fresh Fellows. He admits he'd "never even heard of Mudhoney before I recorded them," but the chemistry between band and producer seems strong. The inside of Egg is only seven feet high - "there are places where I can't stand up," says Turner - and the eight-track console had to be augmented into a 24-track in order to make the place workable for Mudhoney's latest project, but the guys in the band were adamant about using Uno and his space.

Or maybe they were just adamant about staying true to their crazy old ways. "We've never done a record with Butch Vig," Mark announces proudly, "and we never will."

Piece of Cake sounds a lot like all the other Mudhoney albums, except that it's tighter and stronger, with more crunch and speed, and a few additional effects-a prologue of freaky organ grinding and about 28 seconds worth of farting noises that bass player Matt Lukin makes on what should be track 15. It's become increasingly clear that these guys couldn't sell out if they wanted to - Piece of Cake harks back to early Mudhoney, when the band's sound was crazier, crankier and far more instinctual. All in all, success hasn't un-damaged them yet.

"It's not much different for us really," Mark "The biggest change, as far as I can tell, is says. Is that our CD lists for $16.98..."

"...instead of, say, $13.98 like it did at Sub Pop," Steve interrupts. "We just found out today. We're not very happy with Warner right now. It's the new rip-off-the-public price."

I ask them if maybe they don't have their information wrong. I'd thought they were just charging more for sure-sellers like Garth Brooks and Michael Bolton. Evidently, this was the wrong thing to say.

"We're kind of Garth Brooks-esque," Mark insists, sounding insulted that anyone would suggest otherwise. "I don't know if you've seen our new stage show, but I wear a cowboy hat with one of those microphones like a telephone operator's. There's more freedom of movement, the microphone doesn't bump into my face-it's practical, it looks good-"

"I like to think that Neil Young started the whole Garth-ism thing with Trans," Steve interjects, referring to the headgear.

"Actually, it was Neil Armstrong," Mark says. With Mudhoney, it's hard to get any straight answers. They much prefer to play the merry pranksters, bemused that they've gotten as far as they have on so little motivation. The way they tell it, Mudhoney has always had humble ambitions. The band came together after Mark quit Green River (a seminal grunge unit that also begat Mother Love Bone and Pearl Jam) and hooked up with Steve, who'd quit Green River a year earlier so he could go to college and study anthropology (Mark had already received his degree in English). Matt Lukin had just been kicked out of the Melvins (who have since moved to San Francisco and signed with Atlantic), so he joined on as bass player. Dan Peters rounded the group out on drums. "We never meant to make an album," Steve says.

"We never meant to make more than a single," Mark adds. But the lineup was a good one, the guys in the band genuinely liked playing together, so Mudhoney managed to stick. There are always breakup threats - before Warner came along and offered the band a contract, Mudhoney almost went kaput out of sheer inertia - but some strange, centrifugal force keeps them together.

"We're not one of those bands that can replace members," Steve says. "We figure, if one of us leaves, it's over."

"Yeah, we're not like Guns N' Roses," Mark throws in.

"What's the life span of a good band?" Mark asks, seemingly rhetorically.

"I always figured it was about three years," Steve answers, and Mark nods. "You've got a few good years in you if you were good to begin with."

Mudhoney has had more than three good years, but they attribute that to all the time they take off. "We're mellow," Steve says. "We don't do this every day of our lives."

Side bar:

Mark Arm plays an Epiphone Credwood Custom for normal tuning and a Hagstrom III for slide In open G#. He uses Dunlop .073 picks, Fender Bassman amps and an Ibanez distortion box from the '60s. Steve Turner plays Fender Mustang Competitions with racing stripes. He uses picks he just describes as "thicker then Mark's" and a Big Muff Pi distortion box, among many others. They both use thick strings, light top, heavy bottom (they also say that they've seen Kurt Cobain's guitars up close and they don't believe he really uses piano wire). They tune all of their guitars down to Eb. Turner: "We didn't used to have a tuner so we tuned to each other, we were all over the place, wherever that was ­ I think you call it a floating E. But then we got a tuner, and we found out we were at Eb, so we decided to stay there." Ann. "E just wasnąt right, and if you tuned down to D the strings were too loose and floppy and stuff." Matt Lukin plays through an Ampeg bass head with an SZP cabinet. Dan Peters plays Yamaha drums.