Bucking stoner stereotypes, Fu Manchu have never been ones to be complacent. But then when they formed in 1985 under the name Virulence they were hardcore punks with a big debt to Black Flag. Five years later they adopted their new moniker and became part of the 90s stoner rock revolution, and more than 30 years later they’re still delivering the fuzzy punk goods. Below, founder, guitarist and vocalist Scott Hill dishes the dirt on new double album The Return Of Tomorrow.
You wait six years for a new Fu Manchu album, then along come two at once (kind of).
When we first started recording, we didn’t really mean to do a double record. But right as we started writing we were coming up with the typical fuzzy, heavy stuff, and then we had a few maybe mellow ones, so it was like: “What can we do different?”
You haven’t exactly been idle in that time, though, with tours, EPs, reissues and even soundtrack work.
When 2020 came along it was supposed to be our thirty-year anniversary. We had planned to do a ten-inch every four months that year, but ended up doing one a year until last year, then reissued King Of The Road and The Action Is Go. I guess revisiting some of that stuff got me in the mind frame of going back to very simple riffs, and might have influenced some of the songs on the new record.
Speaking of anniversaries, next year will be forty years since Virulence formed.
I got into punk rock and hardcore around Christmas 1980. A friend played me some live Black Flag and it all went from there. At that point all I wanted was hardcore punk – no Sabbath, no Kiss, no Led Zeppelin. It all went in the closet. We learned as we went, just watching other bands – how they’d play a chord, how they’d set a guitar up. Because this was all pre-internet.
So how does a punk kid become a stoner rock pioneer?
Around 1986 we heard the first seven-inch from Melvins. We’d read a review where somebody described it as Black Flag makes Black Sabbath – and anything Black Flag we would get. We were blown away. The Sabbath records came back out the closet! Melvins helped us turn that corner.
Where do you see Fu Manchu fitting in with that wider stoner scene these days?
I’d never heard the term ‘stoner rock’ before about 1994. It made me think of bands like Grateful Dead – who I don’t like! I’m very anti-hippie [laughs]. Nowadays it brings to mind your seventies rockers, ugly guitar fuzz.
Did you feel kinship with the likes of Kyuss or Sleep?
We were friends with the Kyuss guys – I met Brant [Bjork, Kyuss and sometime Manchu drummer] around 1990 when they were first starting. We did some of those desert shows together at this empty pool that was by a nudist colony. But you’d see other bands come through too – The Obsessed, Sleep, Clutch… It’s funny, cos it probably wasn’t as big as it seems now.
What is the new album saying about who Fu Manchu are in 2024?
The exact same thing we’ve said since 1990! We’re not a big message band, we’ve always said pretty much the same thing. We’re singing about bigfoot, running around chasing UFOs… all the good stuff.
The Return Of Tomorrow is out now via At The Dojo.
