I think his 'tude and comments get him in trouble, as well as the fact that he is often blamed for being buried under a wall of muddy guitar.
His time is excellent/creative, to achieve the sounds he wants his techinique is interesting to say the least, his tone is admittedly questionable, but as already mentioned, he fits the canvas being provided.
He gets flack for saying he sometimes doesn't care, nor even know, what note he is playing. He's not the first one to use an electric bass as a percussion instrument.
Aside from a few cool grooves the band doesn't do much for me, but so what? They do what they do, and the singer writes with his brain/heart. Very very short list of modern rock bands can even get on that list.
To the OP, get a cheap guitar distortion pedal, and scoop all the mids out of your tone. I thought the clip was cool. Very retro 1980s LA sound. (Suicidal!)