There was once a band named Green River, a pioneering grunge group back in the mid-80s. The band had a difference of opinion and two of its members, Stone Gossard and Jeff Ament walked out.
They met the lead singer of a band named Malfunkshun and together, formed a new band. They called themselves Mother Love Bone and released their only album, Apple, in 1990.
It featured:
- Andrew Wood – Vocals/Guitar
- Stone Gossard – Guitar
- Bruce Fairweather – Guitar
- Jeff Ament – Bass
- Greg Gilmore – Drums
Sadly, Andrew Wood didn’t live to see the impact his band’s solo record would have on the future of alternative-hard-rock – or as it was called then, grunge. He died of a heroin overdose & cerebral hemorrhage in 1990, four months before the release of his band’s first studio album – Apple.
It must be true what they say about great minds thinking alike – Andrew Wood had an interesting room-mate, a man who fronted a little band called Soundgarden and would go on to form Audioslave with the members of Rage Against the Machine (minus Zach de la Rocha) in the 21st century.
After Mother Love Bone disbanded following Wood’s death, Stone Gossard and Jeff Ament started jamming with a Seattle guitarist named Mike McCready (whose band Shadow had just broken up) and were looking for a lead singer. They contacted former Red Hot Chili Peppers’ drummer Jack Irons – he passed but asked them to check out his basketball buddy, a young surfer from San Diego named Eddie Vedder. Eddie Vedder sent them a demo tape from San Diego and the Seattle trio asked him to fly up to jam with them.
Around hat time, Chris Cornell & his band Soundgarden’s drummer Matt Cameron hooked up with Stone Gossard & Jeff Ament with the idea of forming a one-time-only rock super-group named Temple of the Dog and recording an album of the same name.
Temple of the Dog featured:
- Chris Cornell – Lead Vocals, Guitar
- Eddie Vedder – Backing vocals
- Mike McCready – Lead Guitar
- Stone Gossard – Rhythm Guitar
- Jeff Ament – Bass
- Matt Cameron – Drums
Two Parts Soundgarden + Four Parts Pearl Jam = Temple of the Dog
The Year 1991
That year, 1991 will forever live on in music history as one of the most significant.
- It was the year Temple of the Dog released their only album, titled Temple of the Dog. It went unnoticed and off everyone’s musical radars.
- It was the year Soundgarden released Badmotorfinger and Chris Cornell sang a song called Jesus Christ Pose – a song that after all these years of smoking perhaps 100,000+ cigarettes, Cornell will never be able to deliver perfectly ever again.
- It was the year Guns N’ Roses released their ultra-ambitious, epic 2-part albums ‘Use Your Illusion I & II’.
- It was the year Metallica abandoned their 80s speed- & thrash-metal sound and went for a more Hard Rock sound with The Black Album.
- It was the year a band named Pearl Jam released an album titled Ten.
- A major turning point in the history of music, Nirvana released Nevermind that would go on to sell over 10 million records in North America and catapult grunge and alternative hard-rock into the mainstream, kicking Michael Jackson’s Dangerous – and also create a musical icon & legend named Kurt Donald Cobain. It was the death of Synth-Pop and the re-birth of Rock.
Nirvana may not be the best band to have come out of Seattle in the early 90’s: but it was the first band that got wide, mainstream success – and MTV airplay – that brought the world’s attention to other bands in the area with similar styles: their success saw Pearl Jam sell over 10 million copies of Ten. Suddenly, everyone was interested in knowing more about Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains, Soundgarden and were hunting for copies of Mother Love Bone’s Apple.
Some time in 1992, a wise record company executive noticed he was sitting on a potential gold mine. Pearl Jam was huge. Soundgarden was huge. Grunge was huge. And he had an album in his catalog called ‘Temple of the Dog’ that comprised members of both bands. They re-released the album & shot a video that gained circulation on MTV. The song was called Hunger Strike.
What you see above are – in my opinion that is shared by a couple of million other people – the two greatest voices that Rock Music has heard in the past two decades or so. They were young, they had talent, they had dreams of making it big some day – and they did. They weren’t manufactured by a VP (Marketing) to exploit results found in a market survey covering suburban white females, ages 13-19 from middle-income homes. The world wasn’t listening to their style of music when they got together – the world is listening to their style music because guys like them got together and made music.
It has been 16 years since then. Soundgarden has split up. Chris Cornell did a few solo gigs and then in a unexpected turn of events, ended up fronting Audioslave.
Audioslave = Rage Against the Machine + Chris Cornell (Soundgarden)
Pearl Jam went through a whole bunch of drummers – Dave Krusen, Matt Chamberlain, Dave Abbruzzese, Jack Irons…and now Matt Cameron.
Eddie Vedder, check. Mike McCready, check. Stone Gossard, check. Jeff Ament, check. Matt Cameron, check. Pearl Jam was now only one person short of re-creating ‘Temple of the Dog’.
And what would you know – the only reason I wrote this entry is because today, I stumbled upon a clip that fulfilled this dream. Their singing may be all over the place but who cares – it is two of the greatest singers in the history of music, together on-stage along with the greatest band in the history of the known universe.
Pearl Jam + Chris Cornell + Hunger Strike on the same stage = A Beautiful Day in Rock N’ Roll History. Enjoy. \m/
Filed under: Music, Opinion | 3 Comments
Tags: Chris Cornell, Ed Vedder, Pearl Jam, Rock, Soundgarden, Temple of the Dog
have you heard of Mike Patton? he is know for having one of the best voices (if not the best for some) of rock. You might know his name from Faith No More, almost fathers of rap-metal.
Actually, only Chris Cornell’s singing was all over the place in this clip, Eddie still nailed his part.