Why Mother Love Bone Could Have Been The Greatest Grunge Band Ever
\n Remembering the band that started it all on the 30th anniversary of \»Apple\» and the untimely death of Andrew Wood.
\n \n \n \n \n \n \n The_Phoenician \n \n \n \n \n \n
It’s late 1988, or 1989, probably. A long-haired, blonde twenty-something Andy Wood is being filmed in a local bar, probably in Seattle. Through a cheeky, yet incredibly heartwarming smile he says:
\»I want the world to know that Mother Love Bone is coming… to take over the world.\»
He carelessly fidgets with his hands as he speaks, and you can sense the pure, joyous excitement he’s brimming with.
And in a way, he was right. When Andy Wood spoke those words, grunge as we know it today was yet to become a historical phenomenon – Alice in Chains, Soundgarden and Nirvana were all still fledgeling bands playing gigs in local clubs. But Mother Love Bone, fronted by the ever-loveable Andrew Wood, having already released an EP through a major label, were waiting for Universal’s release of their debut album \»Apple\» to skyrocket them into international superstardom. Unfortunately, fate would have it otherwise, and the band’s bright future was sadly cut short by Wood’s untimely death from heroin overdose, only days prior to Apple’s release.
Fast forward thirty years, and we know Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Alice in Chains and Nirvana as the bands that not only made grunge famous, but defined the whole Gen X musically, having sold over 150 million albums since. Very few people, however, know of Mother Love Bone and Andrew Wood despite their seminal role in the development of what is today known as grunge. In addition to being the first Seattle band meant to break into superstardom, Stone Gossard and Jeff Ament, both previously of Mother Love Bone, went on to found Pearl Jam, and, prior to Adam Wood’s death, he and Chris Cornell had been roommates and very close friends for quite some time, which left a profound impact on Cornell both personally as well as professionally.
This year marks the thirtieth anniversary of Andrew Wood’s death and the release of \»Apple\», and in this article we’ll be going through the story of Mother Love Bone, in homage to what could possibly have been the greatest frontman and band of the ’90s.
Long before Mother Love Bone, Andrew Wood had been lighting the Seattle clubs on fire under the alias L’Andrew the Lovechild alongside his brother Kevin as the frontman of Malfunkshun, formed in 1980. Although he was only fourteen years old when Malfunkshun began playing, Andy soon became recognised for his flourishing showmanship and songwriting as well as the tremendous amount of heart he radiated both on- and offstage. Malfunkshun had been taking names right and left with Andy’s quirky energy and Kevin’s psychedelic guitar-shredding for some solid six years when they caught the attention of Seattle producer Chris Hanzsek who invited them to take part in the recording of \»Deep Six\», now an iconic relic of early grunge, alongside Soundgarden, Green River, Melvins and others. Hanzsek would later recall:
\»They were one of the wildest bands I ever saw and had something really mysterious going on, I’d say it was almost voodoo.Andrew struck me as somebody looking for something rare; he was a real treasure seeker.
\»When we were recording [Deep Six] and setting up for vocals, I noticed he had brought along three pairs of outlandish sunglasses and a few costumes as well. I said to him:
‘We’re only recording vocals, there isn’t an audience here,’ and he shrugged his shoulders and said to me: ‘I need to get into character!’ It was like watching a method actor.\»
Andy was incredibly prolific and would come up with great material with almost no effort. He would appear on-stage in a shoddy-glam outfit usually consisting of his mother’s dresses, full makeup and an assortment of wild hats the Mad Hatter himself would be proud of, and would captivate the audience with his powerful voice and endearing face. Most of all, he had so much unselfconscious fun doing it that it was infective. Simply put, he was destined for stardom. In an unpublished interview with Billboard from 2015, the late Chris Cornell, who had been bunking with Andy at the time, reminisced on his prolific creativity:
\»He would do these amazing free things that felt so – almost to the degree of just being dangerous in a way —because it was so free and un-self-conscious. I would think ‘How do you do that?’ We would always observe each other. That’s sort of like what I would equate to early college years, that doesn’t go away. Those experiences never stop being a part of who you are and how you think\»
However, Malfunkshun was deemed not too clearly cut by the major labels – SubPop even declined to pick the band up as it \»wasn’t grunge enough\». This seems not to have bothered Andy much – his job was to have fun, and make other people have fun as well.
On the other hand, Jeff Ament and Stone Gossard then of Green River were seeking to alleviate their music-making to new heights, but had a lot of trouble doing so as the vocalist Mark Arm intended to keep Green River as indie as possible. The two hit it off with Andy after \»Deep Six\» and came together to form a cover band. Bruce Fairweather and drummer Greg Gilmore eventually joined in, and so Mother Love Bone was formed.
The proficiency of Gossard and Ament seemed to lend Andy’s free-flowing creativity the structure needed to really shine, and it wasn’t long before major labels began wooing the promising Mother Love Bone for a contract signing. Finally, Mother Love Bone settled with the Universal-owned Mercury Records, who made the vanity imprint Stardog Records specifically for the release of Mother Love Bone’s debut EP \»Shine\», released on March 20, 1989. And so, the first major-label grunge release saw the light of day.
The EP sold incredibly well, and the band promptly moved to California to record their debut album, \»Apple\». Things were going swimmingly for the promising Mother Love Bone – or so it looked liked on the surface. Andrew Wood had been struggling with addiction ever since the Malfunkshn days. By the time \»Apple\» was to be released, his addiction was getting worse, his girlfriend Xana La Fuente was trying to get him to rehab. Andy and Xana (pictured below) had been famously in love since before Andy’s rise to stardom, and she even lived with him and Chris for a while, effectively supporting the two throughout their early creative endeavours.
Finally, Andy gave rehab a shot during ’89, but would relapse in March 1990, which sadly turned out to be fatal. Andrew Wood was found comatose from an overdose-induced aneurysm in his apartment. He passed from complications in a hospital on March 19, just days prior to the release of \»Apple\», which was to have been Mother Love Bone’s nationwide breakthrough.
\»Apple\» was released with a month’s delay, and was unanimously celebrated by fans and critics alike. However, there was little reason for celebration amongst those closest to Andy. During this period, Chris Cornell wrote \»Say Hello 2 Heaven\» and \»Reach Down\» in tribute to his late friend, and asked Gossard and Ament if they would record them as a single. The trio was joined by Soundgarden’s drummer Matt Cameron and Mike McCready, who was to play in a new band called Mookie Baylock that Ament and Gossard were putting together at the time. They were soon joined by Eddie Vedder who was auditioning for the said forming band, which finally resulted in the homage album \»Temple of the Dog\» – the name taken from a Mother Love Bone song \»Man of Golden Words\».
Afterwards, Chris Cornell continued to make music with Soundgarden, and Mookie Baylock was renamed to Pearl Jam, which became one of the most commercially successful bands of the whole decade. However, even though not acknowledged as it should be, the legacy of Andrew Wood and Mother Love Bone continues to live with this bands.
As we’ve seen, Andy made a lasting impression on Chris Cornell, and a lot of his material is said to have been used on Pearl Jam’s debut album \»Ten\», released only a year after his death, and we’re left to wonder what could have been had Andy and Mother Love Bone lived. Would they become known as the greatest band to come out of the Seattle scene, possibly the greatest band of their whole generation? Perhaps, but sadly, we will never know for certain. One thing we do know however, and that is that, in a way, Mother Love Bone did take over the world, for without them, and Andrew Wood, the music history of the ’90s as we know it would not have been the same.
Источник
