Temple of the Dog - 25th Anniversary

At a small club called the Off Ramp in Seattle, Washington, on the night of November 30th, 1990, a small crowd of approximately one hundred people watched as a group performing under the name Temple of the Dog took the stage.  They played for an hour and they played all the songs that would

be released the following year on their one and only album.  The songs were incomplete and still being written, arranged and finalized.  This would be the first and last full concert that the group would perform.  You can actually still find old grainy video of this show on YouTube.  But this is not where their story begins…

Mother Love Bone was a band on the rise.  They were the first of the Seattle Grunge bands to be signed to a major label (Mercury).  Their singer and band leader, Andrew Wood, was described by many as Seattle’s version of David Lee Roth.  He had an energetic stage presence and the rock star persona.  Like with so many musicians, outside appearances can be deceiving.  Wood was a heroin addict and on March 19th, 1990, he died of a heroin overdose.  Tragically, his death came just one week before Mother Love Bone’s major label debut album was released.  Wood’s band mates took his death hard, but none took his death harder than his roommate and best friend Chris Cornell.
Chris Cornell’s band Soundgarden was starting a tour just a few days after Wood’s funeral.  Cornell dealt with his best friend’s death the only way he could - through his songwriting.  Cornell wrote and dedicated several songs to Wood.  Cornell knew these songs were both lyrically and compositionally not going to work as Soundgarden songs.  Several months later he decided to reach out to two members of Mother Love Bone whom he had become friends with through living with Andrew Wood, guitarist Stone Gossard and bassist Jeff Ament, to see if they would like to collaborate on this project with him.  They both emphatically said yes.

After mourning Andrew Wood’s death, the longtime friends Gossard and Ament decided to move on and start fresh with a new band rather than trying to do the impossible task of replacing Wood.  Along with new guitarist Mike McCready who was a childhood friend of Gossard’s and new drummer Dave Krusen, they formed a new band called Mookie Blaylock.  The band had an album’s worth of songs written, but they were still looking for the right singer/lyricist. Until they found him they were on hold.  So the timing was perfect to work with Cornell on the project he named Temple of the Dog, a title he got from a lyric from the Mother Love Bone song Man of Golden Words.

The recording of the Temple of the Dog album took place at London Bridge Studios in Seattle, Washington.  The day before they were to begin recording the album, Mookie Blaylock held a tryout for their open vocalist position.  Gossard and Ament were blown away with a young surfer named Eddie Vedder, who had come up from San Diego to tryout. They ended up hiring him to join the band.  In the coming months Mookie Blaylock would change their name permanently to Pearl Jam.  The next day Temple of the Dog recorded what would become the biggest hit off the album, Hunger Strike.  Cornell was wanting to sing the second verse of the song in a deeper octave but was having trouble with his vocal range.  Vedder stepped in and sang the verse and Cornell said it was exactly how he wanted it to sound.  At that point Cornell decided to make the entire song a duet with him and Vedder.  Over the next fifteen days the rest of the album was recorded and finished.  The final lineup ended up being Chris Cornell and Eddie Vedder on vocals, Stone Gossard and Mike McCready on guitars, Jeff Ament on bass and Matt Cameron on drums.

The album was released on April 16th, 1991 through A&M records.  The album did not chart in the top 100 on its release and only sold 70,000 copies its first year.  In the summer of 1992 both Pearl Jam and Soundgarden had become mainstream successes behind their albums Ten and Badmotorfinger respectively.  A&M records realized that they were sitting on an album that was essentially a Pearl Jam and Soundgarden  companion album and decided to capitalize on the surging popularity of the bands.  A&M reissued the album and accompanied it with a music video for Hunger Strike.  The album would go on to sell one million copies and reach platinum status.

Despite the album’s popularity and longevity, the show at the Off Ramp in front of one hundred people remains the only complete live performance by Temple of the Dog.  Occasionally Chris Cornell will stop in at a Pearl Jam concert and they will perform two or three Temple of the Dog songs, but that is it.  Recently Rolling Stone asked the different members of the band if there were any plans for a 25th anniversary show and they all said not at this time, but they were all open to someday doing a reunion show….here’s to hoping.

In closing and on a personal note, I consider the Temple of the Dog album to be my favorite album of all time.  This past April marked the 25th anniversary of the album’s release.  I remember buying the cassette tape when I was fourteen years old for the standard $10.98 price at Peaches music.  I listened to it so much the track list on the side of the tape was smudged off.  It is one of the few albums that I listen to as much today as I did back then.  It has also been one of the few albums that I have upgraded every step of the evolution of music.  I bought the CD when I got a cd player and then upgraded yet again to digital and I have no doubt that when I am 80 years old I will have a copy of it on whatever the format for listening to music is then.  It is a timeless album where every track beginning to end is an absolute orgasm for your ears and your soul.

Sean O'Brien is the Music Writer for the Holiday Café. He enjoys going to concerts, playing the drums and rocking out to Grunge music.  He resides in McDonald, PA with his wife and daughter.