Watch Mike Watt play ‘Big Train’ with Dave Grohl, Pat Smear, and Eddie Vedder in 1995
1995 was year zero for post-grunge. In the first full year since Kurt Cobain died and left a massive hole at the centre of rock music, it seemed like everyone was scrambling to become the next Nirvana. The gold rush to cash in on the Seattle sound sent some of the original artists of the scene reeling. A new influx of major label acts sanded down the rougher edges of grunge, and some of the pioneering artists began looking back to their heroes for advice.
In that way, Mike Watt was in the perfect place at the perfect time. Watt was already a legend within underground music circles thanks to his highly influential time in the Minutemen. A full decade after Watt’s best friend, bandmate, and musical partner, D. Boon, died in an automobile accident, Watt decided that it was time for him to record his first solo album. To do it, the icon assembled one of the most impressive collections of alt-rock musicians ever to appear on one record.
Virtually everyone who had been influenced by Watt agreed to play on his debut LP, 1995’s Ball-Hog or Tugboat. Members of Sonic Youth, the Meat Puppets, Screaming Trees, That Dog, and the Beastie Boys all participated, as did Henry Rollins, J Mascis, Kathleen Hanna, Flea, Frank Black, Dave Pirner, Nels Cline, Evan Dando, Stephen Perkins, and even former Parliament-Funkadelic/Talking Heads keyboardist Bernie Worrell.
Watt also managed to score some two of the biggest parties in the grunge scene. The first was Eddie Vedder, lead vocalist for Pearl Jam. Vedder and the rest of his bandmates were in the middle of their protracted battle against Ticketmaster at the time, and Vedder focused some of his energy on his side project, Hovercraft. When Watt asked Vedder to sing on the album, Vedder agreed and even volunteered to play in Watt’s live band supporting the LP, under the stipulation that Hovercraft would open the shows.
At the same time, Watt asked the surviving members of Nirvana – Krist Novoselic, Dave Grohl, and Pat Smear – to play on the album as well. Shortly after the sessions for Ball-Hog or Tugboat, Grohl recorded some of his favourite unused songs with producer Barrett Jones over the course of a week at Robert Lang Studios in Seattle. Those recordings would eventually be released as the debut of Grohl’s next band, Foo Fighters.
In the time between recordings, Grohl had assembled the first lineup of the Foo Fighters, which included Smear and the former rhythm section for emo forefathers Sunny Day Real Estate, bassist Nate Mendel and drummer William Goldsmith. Grohl wound up making the same deal with Watt as Vedder had: he would play with Watt on tour if Foo Fighters could be one of the opening bands. For a brief period in 1995, it would have been possible to see Watt, Vedder, and the first incarnation of the Foo Fighters all play in small clubs across America.
Check out Watt, Vedder, Grohl, and Smear playing ‘Big Train’ on The Jon Stewart Show from 1995 down below.
