The 1990s band Chris Cornell said was too good to reform: “It would be just total prostitution”
There would be no grunge without Mother Love Bone, a band often bypassed by casual onlookers of the genre.
When people think of great grunge bands, their minds tend to go towards the likes of Pearl Jam and Nirvana, which is fair enough, given they’re some of the biggest names within the movement. However, issues arise when people credit these bands with discovering the angsty sound of rock, simply because there were bands before them who set the foundations on which the whole style would be built.
One of these bands was Mother Love Bone. There were a number of artists in the band who went on to make a name for themselves within grunge, such as Chris Cornell and members of Pearl Jam. The singer, Andrew Wood, was one of the defining factors of the band, with a unique vocal tone that really gave every song the band put out a truly unique personality.
Their debut album, Apple, is considered one of the very first and greatest offerings within the grunge movement; however, the band never got a chance to tour it because Wood passed away from a heroin overdose in March 1990, at just 24 years old. His death was devastating news to his band members and fans, given his talent as a singer was pretty undeniable.
Jeff Ament, another member of Mother Love Bone, knew that the band had to die with Wood. While they were still in the early stages, that band had such a unique sound that the idea of trying to replicate it with somebody else felt wrong. They didn’t even listen to potential replacements, as they understood there wasn’t a single musician out there who could do what Wood did.
“Mother Love Bone as a band is history,” declared Ament, “Us going out and using the name, pretending in a sense that Andy’s still there, was never even a consideration… Getting out on the road as a band and promoting [Apple] with a singer pretending to be Andy would be a terrible waste. It would be just total prostitution. None of us got into music to be the next New Kids On The Block.”
Before the members of Mother Love Bone called it a day and moved on to other pastures, though, they decided to pay tribute to the singer who had helped them put together such a stellar debut album, and thus, the band Temple of the Dog was formed, who put out an album of the same name, which has gone down as another exceptional offering at the inception of grunge and a fitting ode to one of the movement’s pioneering voices.
Members of Temple of the Dog went on to form the likes of Pearl Jam and Soundgarden. The tribute band was very much left behind as a specific moment in time that nobody had any business touching again. Of course, when you release such a pivotal album, there are going to be people who ask for some sort of reunion. Chris Cornell admitted that the reformation of the group had crossed his mind, but he was hesitant to do it, for it was such a special project close to the hearts of all involved.
“There’s always a chance [we’ll record more songs],” he said, “Just from my perspective, it would have to feel great. It’s a scary thing. I don’t want to say it would have to live up to the [first] album, but I wouldn’t want to take away from it. That’s the issue with me. I don’t want to detract from what happened before.”
