In 1991, what started as a rock’n’roll tribute to a fallen pal ended up being the sleeper begin of the Seattle sound explosion heard world wide. It was solely on reflection that Temple of the Canine was acknowledged because the grunge period’s best supergroup, whose members went on to vary the course of music.
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All of it started with Mom Love Bone. Firstly of the 90s, when the grunge scene’s future world-shakers like Nirvana and Soundgarden have been simply starting to plot their assault on the mainstream, Mom Love Bone appeared the likeliest wager to bust out to stardom.
Like their friends, MLB had metabolized the 70s onerous rock they grew up on. However as an alternative of dressing it down by mating it with punk influences, they performed it as massive as potential. The place the likes of Kurt Cobain and Chris Cornell did their greatest to deglamorize the rock frontman picture, Mom Love Bone singer Andrew Wooden was bigger than life, from his flamboyant stage presence to his drama-drenched vocal supply.
The band launched its debut album, Apple, in July of 1990, however we’ll by no means know whether or not Wooden may have gained the rock-star standing he appeared destined for. He died of a heroin overdose on March 19 of that yr on the age of 24, turning Apple right into a posthumous assertion.
Wooden’s surprising loss of life was a heavy blow to these near him, particularly his bandmates and Cornell, who was his roommate on the time. The Soundgarden singer dealt together with his grief by writing songs for his late pal, like “Say Hello 2 Heaven” and “Reach Down.” They didn’t seem to be the type of tunes that may work together with his band, so he performed them for Mom Love Bone’s guitarist Stone Gossard and bassist Jeff Ament, and a plan was hatched to file them collectively as a tribute single to Wooden’s reminiscence.
Seeds of a supergroup
By the point Soundgarden drummer Matt Cameron and Gossard’s guitarist pal Mike McCready got here aboard, the thought had expanded to a complete album. Temple of the Canine was born, with the title taken from a line in a Mom Love Bone lyric.
Getting into Seattle’s London Bridge Studio, the place Mom Love Bone had simply recorded Apple, Wooden’s mates most likely felt his presence throughout the place as they started slicing Cornell’s songs there. Particularly when the band was engaged on the aforementioned pair of tunes straight impressed by his passing, which wound up opening the album.
“Say Hello 2 Heaven” feels extra like a Jimi Hendrix ballad within the vein of “The Wind Cries Mary” or “Little Wing” than something we’ve come to affiliate with the grunge period. Cornell’s elegiac tones glide above the bittersweet swirl of McCready and Gossard’s guitars. Simply as he begins to ascend to an anguished wail, his voice reluctantly dips again all the way down to earth, as if reminded that he and his late pal have been now in two completely different realms, no less than in the interim.
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Technically, “Reach Down” runs on a slower tempo than “Say Hello 2 Heaven,” however it rocks furiously nonetheless, like a sequence gang smashing stones at a measured however cruel tempo. Amid the hammering beats and reaper’s-scythe guitars, Cornell recounts a dream that introduced him visions of Wooden residing it up within the afterlife, and McCready and Gossard rip out an extended, manic flurry of heavy psychedelic licks.
A star is born
The remainder of the Temple Of The Canine album consists of earlier concepts that Cornell repurposed for the event, and a few unfinished Mom Love Bone tunes from Gossard and Ament that have been accomplished with the addition of Cornell’s lyrics.
Essentially the most well-known of those is the track that launched Temple of the Canine to the world at massive, “Hunger Strike.” The slow-burning monitor’s elliptical lyrics have been initially impressed by Cornell’s emotions about sustaining integrity amid the insanity of the music enterprise, however the intense, glowering vibe matches proper into the album’s framework.
When the band labored on the tune, Cornell felt he couldn’t fairly seize what he was going for. Destiny lent a hand within the type of a brand new arrival on the town. Simultaneous with the Temple Of The Canine mission, Gossard, Ament, and McCready had been engaged on forming a brand new band. The man in line for the vocal position had are available in from the West Coast to see how he match with them, and he occurred to be hanging out through the Temple classes. That “new guy” was Eddie Vedder.
Vedder wasn’t planning on taking part, however in some way he wound up on the track’s “Goin’ hungry” chorus with Cornell, as the longer term Pearl Jam frontman’s world-weary baritone contrasted brilliantly with the Soundgarden singer’s lupine shout. Although Cornell had been lamenting the track’s lack of a second verse, when Vedder sang the primary one over, with the drastic distinction between the 2 vocalists’ tones it made all of the sense on this planet.
The surprising visitor star ended up singing backing vocals on three extra tracks, however the largest increase Vedder would give the album was but to come back.
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The album unfolds
The three Temple songs with music by Ament and/or Gossard supply tantalizing hints of what may have occurred if Mom Love Bone had gone on. “Pushin’ Forward Back” runs on a 7/4 meat grinder of a riff as unrelenting as it’s infectious. With its heroin-centric theme, the moody “Times of Trouble” feels just like the loving however unvarnished warning Cornell wished he may have given Wooden. And the slashing slide guitar and depraved wah-wah punctuating the lonesome cry of “Four Walled World” are each a harbinger of the dynamic the guitarists would develop in Pearl Jam and one other trace at what may need been.
Coming from a spot of non secular darkness, Cornell gives a pair of equally uncertain views on salvation, with very completely different settings from one another. On “Wooden Jesus” Matt Cameron works up some feisty polyrhythms, with Cornell’s pointy banjo licks bouncing off the groove earlier than the guitars take over. Whereas the fearsome “Your Savior” could be the closest cousin to a Soundgarden track, constructed on a stealth funk really feel in a tough rock guise.
“Call Me a Dog” introduces itself as a piano-laced ballad however ultimately erupts right into a blitzkrieg of guitar frenzy and vocal firepower. “All Night Thing” retains its lamp low all through, closing the album on a last-call, empty-the-bar form of vibe with Cameron’s gentle contact on the drums, producer Rick Parashar’s mood-enhancing organ and piano, and nary a six-string in sight.
A sleeper hit
Temple of the Canine was launched by A&M on April 16, 1991, initially making solely a modest displaying on the charts. That August, nevertheless, Pearl Jam’s debut album, Ten, got here out and began gathering steam. The subsequent month, Soundgarden’s Badmotorfinger and Nirvana’s Nevermind have been each unleashed. By the start of 1992, with the latter’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit” main the cost, grunge had definitively gone from buzz-bin standing to ruling the roost.
With Soundgarden, Pearl Jam, and Nirvana put in because the period’s newly ordained rock stars, a band made up of members from the primary two immediately appeared like a vastly extra interesting thought. With Vedder and Cornell entrance and heart, the video for “Hunger Strike” went wall-to-wall on MTV, with the album ultimately reaching No. 5 and attaining Platinum standing.
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As a result of commitments of the members’ primary bands, touring was an impossibility. However Temple Of The Canine lastly bought to take a victory lap in 2016 with a Twenty fifth-anniversary tour, albeit sans Vedder. Tragically, any additional reunion potentialities have been mooted ceaselessly on Could 18 of the next yr, when Cornell’s loss of life added his title to the distressingly lengthy record of grunge frontmen that handed away, becoming a member of Wooden, Kurt Cobain, Alice in Chains’ Layne Staley, and Stone Temple Pilots’ Scott Weiland.
Three many years on, Temple of the Canine stands as a monument to the reminiscence of each Wooden and Cornell. However greater than that, it’s a bit of rock’n’roll historical past, documenting the second the underground rose as much as rock the mainstream into a brand new period.
