Dale Crover

Dale Crover
Crover performing with Melvins at Toad's Place in 2006
Background information
Born	(1967-10-23) October 23, 1967 (age 57)
Origin	Aberdeen, Washington, U.S.
Genres	Sludge metal grunge hardcore punk experimental rock alternative metal doom metal stoner metal
Occupation	Musician
Instruments	Drums percussion vocals guitar bass
Labels	Amphetamine Reptile Joyful Noise Recordings
Member of	Melvins Altamont Men of Porn Redd Kross
Formerly of	Acid King Honky Fecal Matter Hank Williams III Nirvana Shrinebuilder Crystal Fairy

Dale Crover (born October 23, 1967) is an American rock musician. Crover is best known as the drummer for Melvins and has also been the drummer for Men of Porn, Shrinebuilder, Crystal Fairy and, for a brief time, Nirvana. He is also guitarist and vocalist for Altamont. He has toured with Fantômas (filling in for Dave Lombardo), Off!, and Redd Kross. In 2016, Rolling Stone listed him as the 69th greatest drummer of all time.^[1]

Melvins recruited Crover on drums in 1984 from an Iron Maiden cover band, following original drummer Mike Dillard's departure.^[2][3] Crover has been one of the two constant members of the Melvins, along with frontman Buzz Osborne, and is the only band member besides Osborne to appear on all their studio albums. In late 1985, Crover played bass in Fecal Matter, a band he formed with Kurt Cobain and Greg Hokanson. After Hokanson left the band, Cobain and Crover recorded Illiteracy Will Prevail^[4] on a 4-track on Easter 1986 at Cobain's aunt's home in Burien, Washington. Crover played bass and drums on the demo. "Spank Thru" from this demo appears on the Nirvana album Sliver: The Best of the Box. Fecal Matter disbanded in 1986.^[5]

Crover drummed on Nirvana's ten-song demo recorded January 23, 1988, at Reciprocal Recording Studios in Seattle. Nine of these songs have been officially released:^[6][7]

• "Floyd the Barber", "Paper Cuts", and "Downer" – Bleach
• "Beeswax", "Downer", "Hairspray Queen", "Mexican Seafood", and "Aero Zeppelin" – Incesticide
• "If You Must" and "Pen Cap Chew" – With the Lights Out

The original incarnation of Nirvana including Crover on drums played a 14-song show in Tacoma, Washington, on the night of the same day that they did the demo session. Three cuts from the show – "Downer", "Floyd the Barber", and "Raunchola"/"Moby Dick" – appear on With the Lights Out.^[8] Later in 1988, Crover and Melvins' bandmate Buzz Osborne relocated to San Francisco, California. Not wanting to break the Melvins up, Cobain asked Buzz for recommendations on who he should recruit as his drummer and it was Osbourne who referred Cobain to Dave Grohl, drummer of the hardcore band Scream at that time, commenting of Grohl that, "He's almost as good as Dale Crover." Crover briefly rejoined Nirvana during a short west-coast tour with Sonic Youth in August 1990.^[9] In April 1991, Crover played drums on a demo version of "Drain You" with Cobain on guitar and vocals and Dave Grohl on bass guitar. The track appears on With the Lights Out.^[10]

In the years 1993 and 1994 the Melvins played a tour visiting every state in the contiguous United States, and released their first record on a major label (Atlantic) which had been nominally produced by Kurt Cobain, toured with Nirvana on the first leg of their world tour for In Utero, and then played a later leg of the tour that ended up including the last shows that Nirvana ever played. The Melvins opened for Nirvana at what turned out to be their final show in Munich after Cobain's overdose in Rome and shortly before his death. Prior to Cobain's departure for what wound up to be a short stint in rehab, the Melvins had several other shows scheduled to open for Nirvana in Europe. When these shows were canceled, the Melvins 'took their Nirvana money' to book studio time in London. They recorded two of their best-remembered albums in one week: Stoner Witch, and Prick. The album released as Prick was originally intended to appear under the title Kurdt Cobain, but this idea was shelved after Cobain's suicide. During the same year, Crover founded the band Altamont with Joey Osbourne and Dan Southwick of Acid King. He produced and performed additional vocals on Acid King's début release that year. During this time he was also married to Acid King's frontwoman Lori S., but they divorced. When Nirvana was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in April 2014, although not officially inducted with the band, Crover was singled out for his work with them during Crover's successor Dave Grohl's acceptance speech. A high proportion of the most substantive and historically infromative entries in Kurt Cobain's published journals consist of unfinished letters that he started writing to Dale Crover.^[11]

It may be significant to point out that after Cobain's death and the waning of grunge rock's centrality in the popular culture of the 1990's, Crover's career with Buzz Osborne in the Melvins, though they started playing together a decade earlier in 1984, had still scarcely begun in 1994. The volume and influence of the music that they produced thereafter has only grown over time. Since 1994, the Melvins have released nearly thirty studio albums and twenty EPs while continuing to tour relentlessly since that time. They played with Nine Inch Nails on the Downward Spiral tour in 1995, and on a later tour with Tool they both opened and played as additional personnel with the headlining band after opening for them. They toured with Faith No More and with the legendary, seminal punk musician Jello Biafra of the Dead Kennedys while also putting out a collaborative album with him, and playing guitars and drums during the Dead Kennedys sets during the tour. Their collaboration with Lustmord on the Pigs of the Roman Empire is perhaps lesser known, but much cherished by fans. Crover is credited as the drummer on most of the tracks on Mike Patton's Peeping Tom project from 2006. The Melvins also play with Patton on the Fantomas records and have contributed to various other Patton projects. Crover is credited on nearly 400 releases according to Discogs.^[12]

He has released three LPs as a solo artist includingThe Fickle Finger of Fate and Rat-a-Tat-Tat.^{[13][14][15][16]} In the summer of 2024, he released Glossolalia on Joyful Noise Recordings with musical guests including Tom Waits, Ty Segall, Kim Thayil and Rob Crow.^[17] Crover has also released a number of other one-off projects at Joyful Noise including the percussion project Hew Time, which enlisted the drummers Coady Willis (of Big Business) and Joe Plummer (of Modest Mouse).

At the time of this writing (2024), Crover has been playing drums in the Melvins for forty years. Though largely unknown outside the circle of their devoted cult-following the Melvins predated and provided (to a large extent, and in a technically, formal sense of having written the standards or been the first to apply various techniques) the seminal inspiration or immediate musician-to-musician lineal influence on the bands that gave rise to the genres of grunge, sludge metal, stoner rock, stoner metal, the Palm Desert sound, doom and drone metal. They continue to release albums and tour on a regular basis.

Dale Crover made an appearance in Neil Young's video "Harvest Moon" playing Neil Young. This was largely due to his physical resemblance to the younger Young.^[18][19][20]

Cartoon versions of Crover and bandmate Osborne appear in an episode of Uncle Grandpa as well.^[21]

• Dale Crover discography at Discogs