Without Green River in 1984, there might be no Sub Pop Records today. Without Sub Pop in 1987, there might be no Mudhoney—or even Pearl Jam—in 2008. (Green River begat Mudhoney and Mother Love Bone; MLB begat PJ.) And without either in the 80s, there likely would have been no "Seattle Sound" explosion in the early 90s.

Fortunately, the timing and location were right for both the post-punk-rock band—originally comprised of singer Mark Arm, bassist Jeff Ament, guitarists Steve Turner and Stone Gossard and drummer Alex Shumway—and its fledgling label. Sub Pop released the band's second EP (Dry as a Bone) in 1987, and its first LP (Rehab Doll) in '88. The rest, for all involved, is culture-influencing history.

Ongoing history. This weekend, the label will celebrate its 20-year existence with a two-day music festival featuring the very band that put grunge—and Sub Pop—on the map.

Seattlest recently had the pleasure of chatting with Green River (and Mudhoney) frontman Mark Arm about his (first) seminal band's story, sound, and Sub Pop-honoring reunion.

Whose idea was the Green River reunion?
[Sub Pop] asked me about it around a year ago when they started thinking about the festival.

How did you get back together? Was it as easy as picking up the phone?
It was sending email, making calls. Getting everyone on board was the easy part. The logistics were tough. I just got back from a tour [with Mudhoney] and Stone's on tour with Pearl Jam right now. Getting in the same room took some work.

Was the Green River breakup a bitter one? Were there hard feelings?
I can't speak for the other guys, but I don't think anyone felt fucked over. When you're young and you have strong feelings about something ... we just didn't want the same things.

People want there to be drama in a band breakup because it makes for a good story, right? I'm sure on some level, feelings were hurt. But there was nothing that kept any of us from being friends. There wasn't a rift between us, in the long run or even in the short term. We all remained on speaking terms after the band broke up. There was no real animosity.

Come on Down was later labeled the first "grunge" album, and Green River the first band of the genre. Did you think you had a new sound at the time?
No. We thought we were part of, for lack of a better word, the hardcore scene. Green River was maybe a little bit more locked up than Black Flag, but we ran across a bunch of bands that we thought we had stuff in common with. We were part of the zeitgeist of the time. We were, for the most part, kids who grew up with hardcore and were growing out of it, rediscovering some of the records that we'd sold. There were a lot of people all over the country doing the same thing. A lot of bands were slowing down and adding metallic touches to their punk.

So it was just a label put on the music after the fact?
Yeah. To give everybody in Seattle the proper credit, though—both Malfunkshun and the Melvins existed before Green River. They had aspects of that sound, too.

There are some great songs on Dry as a Bone and Rehab Doll, but the albums never seemed to get their due.
I think they did. We were a fairly successful band at the time. We got to tour and release a few albums. We had a pretty strong local following, played a lot of shows in town. Green River never had any chance of making any money, but we did pretty good.

What do you think of the band's music when you hear it now?
Surprisingly, there are a couple of songs that were on our very first demo that are really pretty good, but my vocals are really bad. I think Come on Down has three good songs on it. Dry as a Bone is pretty kick-ass all the way through. But Rehab Doll suffers from horrible mid-80s production. That's the stuff I noticed in listening to everything in preparation for [the reunion show].

Will Sub Pop be giving those records the deluxe reissue treatment?
I haven't heard tell of any such thing. There are several versions of stuff for Rehab Doll that Jack Endino recorded. I don't know if he still has copies of that, but I sure would like to hear it. I think it sounds better than the stuff that actually came out on the LP. It wouldn't have that big, gross snare sound.

So how much rehearsal time will you get in before the show?
We had two rehearsals in April. And we'll have a bunch starting July 6. As many as we can.

Still remember the Green River lyrics?
I don't know that I ever remembered them. But they're coming back to me.

What will the band's lineup be? Will both (later guitarist) Bruce (Fairweather) and Steve be there?
It's going to be everybody who was ever in Green River. So, Alex on drums, Jeff on bass, and all three guitar players—Stone, Bruce and Steve. They'll be a three-guitar army.

They'll all play the whole set?
That's the way it seemed in April. We'll see what actually happens. Because Steve quit the band early on, he didn't learn the later songs. So it's up to him to get up to speed.

What former band would you love to see play together again?
You know, that's happened a lot lately. There was The Stooges and MC5. And we were asked to host a day of All Tomorrow's Parties, where we got The Scientists to come out from Australia, with the original lineup—except for the drummer, who's dead. Also, there's The Blasters. The only thing I could ask for right now would be Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band, but that's just never gonna happen. I think Captain Beefheart—Don Glen Vliet—has MS or something.

Any chance the Green River reunion could become something bigger?
There's no plan. I can't imagine a tour that Stone and Jeff would quit their day jobs for. [laughs] No matter how good the money might possibly be for Green River, it would not be anywhere near what they're making.

See Green River at Marymoor Park on Sunday at 7:20-ish. The band's slice of SP20 proceeds benefits The Northwest Parkinson's Foundation.

Photo courtesy of Sub Pop.