Buzz Osborne of The Melvins Discusses 'The Who Sell Out' —The Record That Changed My Life

The Who
The Who Sell Out (1967)

The band that changed my life was the Who.

It’s hard to pick just one album, but if I had to pick the one that really showed me how things could be done, it’s The Who Sell Out. They really went to town on that, doing something that no one had ever done before.

That album has the song ‘I Can See for Miles,’ which really put the hooks in me. The Who Sell Out is still weird now! Nobody does anything that cool today. It’s great and goes all over the map, musically speaking. And I don’t even think it was a big hit back then, unfortunately.

I remember talking to the guitar player in the Stooges, Ron Asheton, about what bands he liked as a kid, and he said one of the main things for him was seeing the Who open for Herman’s Hermits in the mid Sixties when they destroyed all their gear. In order to be that weird now to middle America, I don’t know what you’d have to do.

The Who really opened my eyes, and I’ve continued to love their stuff ever since.