Grunge Is Dead

by Greg Prato

  CRAIG MONTGOMERY: There was a second wave of bands that got signed out of Seattle. I don’t think very much of some of them [laughs]. There was the Presidents [of the United States of America] phenomenon, which was totally out of left field, but that was because they wrote a great song [“Lump”] and had a huge hit. But now it’s gone back to the way it was … well, it’s not all the way back to the way it was before the explosion. But now you don’t have the idea that you’re going to get signed to a major and make all this money.

  CATHY FAULKNER: With every phenomenon, when it gets overused or to a point where you just can’t see anything, you can’t rerelease the same old hash. I have ultimate respect again for the bands who are into trying something different.

  The Presidents of the United States of America backstage at the Showbox, March 2004 (Dave Dederer on the right)

  SUSAN SILVER: In 2006, Alice in Chains decided to take a brave step and go do what they love to do — play Alice in Chains songs. It took four years after Layne’s death — and nine years after they had last played — to play again. So they did a benefit for care [for the Tsunami victims of Southeast Asia] that raised over $100,000. I said, “Why don’t you go do something else?” Into the picture come Ann and Nancy Wilson again, who I really want to stress what incredible guidance they’ve given musicians in this community. In March ’06, Heart was doing a VH1 special, Decades Live — usually they take classic rock musicians and bring new musicians to play one of each other’s songs. And Ann and Nancy asked if Alice would like to play.

  So we all went out there — which for me was significant, because it was five days after I had signed settlement agreements with Chris. Went off to the East Coast — [with] the gracious hosting of Ann and Nancy once again. I realized that it was OK. As much mental anguish as we had gone through — “Is it OK to go on without Layne?” — this mantra kept going through my head as I’m watching these guys rehearse, “Choose to live, choose to live.” They chose to live and what they love to do — play music. That was really inspiring. It gets to the point where they’re going to do an Alice song during Heart’s set, which is “Rooster.” Ann wanted [William DuVall, Alice in Chains’ new singer] to sing. And she did, all these years later, what Chris did for Eddie at the Moore Theatre, when Mookie Blaylock played for Alice in Chains, and gave her blessing to William at that moment during the show. I know that it’s really personal for me, but it was also a historic moment. That specific acknowledgment towards how things are now, that there’s a history not to be forgotten, and there’s a history about to be made.

  BEN LONDON: Back in the ’80s, if people wanted to further their career, they had to leave Seattle. Now, we’re in a place where we have booking agents, managers, two very successful independent record labels, lawyers. You don’t have to go to L.A. to get your “team” together the way you once did. Some of the people that were very successful had been very generous with their time — helping to educate younger bands about what to do and what not to do. And how to navigate the system. I know the Pearl Jam guys have given a lot of advice to the Death Cab guys, and Pearl Jam has proven to be a great example of how to run a great business.

  CONRAD UNO: It seems to have rebounded. There are lots of people trying to do new stuff or fun stuff, without worrying about it being “product.”

  ROBIN TAYLOR: Ten years later, here we are, hearing Modest Mouse on the radio. Which is still crazy to me.

  CHAPTER 37

  “Maybe I’m a geezer”: How Will Grunge Be Remembered?

  The scene’s participants weigh in on how grunge music holds up today, and how it will be remembered in years to come.

  STEVE MANNING: Hopefully it will be remembered as one of the most important movements in rock history. Clearly, it changed the music industry — especially in this country. People were not looking outside of L.A. for bands, and then all of a sudden, people realized there was great music everywhere. The Seattle music scene opened everybody’s eyes up to that. It was a really vibrant, interesting time in what then was a town. Seattle’s a city now.

  BRUCE PAVITT: It’s going to be seen as a very liberating period for rock ’n’ roll — records like Superfuzz Bigmuff are already seen as classics. Obviously, Nevermind is referred to as the most important rock record of the ’90s. So much of it was about live shows, and I’m hoping that more documentation of the live events will surface, and people will get a better feel about what was going on. Because you really had to be there. There’s no way that the records can translate that energy.

  JONATHAN PONEMAN: It’s exciting and powerful to me — passionate and inspired. I listen to that music and it still sends a chill up and down my spine.

  SUSAN SILVER: Pretty hard-pressed to point to anything that has even come close to it. The heaviest, grooviest sound. For me, being pretty young during the ’60s movement, but being alive and cognizant enough of what was going on the radio, and thinking it was pretty cool — it captured a time in history. And that’s what I’m most proud of with the music that was made in this area during this time — it captured a time in history. It’s the soundtrack for a cultural movement.

  MIKE INEZ: Kim Thayil put it great — “I’d just take the money and can the fame” [laughs].

  WHITING TENNIS: Kim is like “the Buddha.” He shows up at these [local] shows. I said, “How’s it going, Kim?” And he goes, “Well, every day’s Sunday.” He’s looking more and more like Ravi Shankar.

  Michelle Ahern-Crane and Scotty Crane

  KIM THAYIL: I see a lot of these K-tel-like collections — “Best of the ’90s” stuff. And noticeably absent from those collections are Soundgarden, Nirvana, Pearl Jam, and Alice in Chains [laughs]. I thought, “That’s how it should be!” Seattle will forever have its place, like San Francisco in the late ’60s, Liverpool.

  RIKI RACHTMAN: Now more than ever, I hear bands and they should just be writing Alice in Chains royalty checks.

  SCOTTY CRANE: Maybe I’m a geezer, but I was talking to my wife the other day [about] how “Hand of God” is one of my favorite Soundgarden songs ever. We had a debate about what was the best line Chris Cornell ever wrote. I said it was “The hand of God has got a ring about the size of Texas,” and she said it was “I’m looking California but feeling Minnesota.” I still go back and listen to early Skin Yard and Soundgarden. The recordings that Endino did with Malfunkshun [on 2005’s Original Remixes] are amazing— that shows how good the band really was. The Malfunkshun CD [1995’s Return to Olympus] that was later released was a remix of those recordings — it just doesn’t hold a candle to Jack’s original mixes.

  ADAM KASPER: It was kept honest and raw — that’s the thing. You still listen to old Neil Young records and Hendrix — the shit still sounds good today because it was not glossed-over and using trendy effects of the moment. We were very much trying to be authentic. I think that’s why it holds up.

  DUFF McKAGAN: It’s timeless music. And that’s the great thing about great music — the bands that didn’t stand the test of time, you don’t remember their fucking name. If you listen to Warrant or Candlebox — which is kind of two same type of bands — it’s not going to sound very good right now. And it didn’t sound very good then. You hear Soundgarden on the radio, and you’re just fucking like, “Yes!” To this day, you turn up your radio.

  BLAG DAHLIA: Not well I’m afraid. Too little emphasis on songwriting, too much on achieving a flabby, meandering style. And once the L.A. a&r guys got into the picture it was really laughable. Crybaby metal clowns like Candlebox and Alice in Chains emerged — and the most mediocre band of the era, Pearl Jam — proving once again that there really is gold in the middle of the road. I have good memories of the Seattle shit — it was fun. But I think largely, it’s a scene that didn’t really yield a lot of great records, it didn’t really yield a lot of great bands. There’s Nirvana, and there’s, like, a bunch of other stuff. The Dwarves of course soldiered on, and we’re still the best band of all time. Although it will
take most folks a few centuries to figure that one out!

  JEFF AMENT: I think it holds up pretty good. I’m always pleasantly surprised when I hear something that I haven’t heard in a while. Whether it’s Screaming Trees, Green River — even any of the super-old stuff, like demos I have laying around of Bundle of Hiss, Malfunkshun. I think there was a pretty wide variety of music happening, and unfortunately, it all got thrown under the term “grunge.” But in some ways, I think grunge means a lot more than just Superfuzz Bigmuff. When I think of grunge, I think of Mudhoney, Green River, or the Melvins — that was grunge. Nirvana and Pearl Jam kind of introduced it to the rest of the world, but I think the sound and the attitude came from those three early bands.

  Chad Channing, 2005

  CHAD CHANNING: I think [Nirvana’s music] stands up pretty well. It definitely shows a testament to how rapidly a change in music can happen. One kind of music is really popular, and then bam, some band comes around, and it’s completely changed music. It wouldn’t surprise me if Nirvana albums were being bought for years to come. I look at some of the greatest bands around — the Rolling Stones, the Beatles, Zeppelin, Black Sabbath — they’re bands that will always sell. To me, it’s hard to imagine a day where nobody will ever buy another Rolling Stones album. I think it’s possible that Nirvana may end up in a similar thing, where people will always be buying Nirvana records for as long as music is music.

  TRACY MARANDER: For some reason, I have an easy time listening to Nirvana music without getting sad — but reading stuff makes me sad.

  SUSIE TENNANT: You watch Rock Star, and they’re doing all Nirvana songs. It’s going to be interesting watching [my children] grow up and see if that even registers to them.

  TRACY MARANDER: It’s hard to say [what Kurt would think of contestants on Rock Star singing Nirvana songs]. He might not want to admit it so much, but I think he would think it was secretly funny. I know he was a big fan of Weird Al — he secretly thought it was cool when Weird Al did a parody of them [“Smells Like Nirvana”].

  JIM BLANCHARD: And what were we left with? Car commercials with music that sounded like Nirvana wrote it.

  TOM NIEMEYER: Alice in Chains’ Dirt is the one that will remain most memorable for me from that period. It is the sound of our happy, naive little scene being choked to death by greed, power, and the worst elements of this fucking business that ever came to be.

  SEAN KINNEY: I don’t crank [Alice in Chains albums] up too much. And I hadn’t in a long time, for obvious reasons — it’s painful, sad, and brings up a lot of shit. Until we started jamming again. It had been long enough, we had dealt with things long enough — for me, it was really therapeutic to go back and go through that. But honestly, I hadn’t listened to those records in years.

  ROBIN TAYLOR: Looking back, I can see just how special and lucky we all were to be a part of it. Good times, good times.

  JIM TILLMAN: When you look at the history of the Northwest, you see that there’s representations from every decade, and almost every sort of genre that existed at any time. Starting with the Sonics in the ’60s, coming right up to the present.

  SCOTT VANDERPOOL: There’s a lot of bands — the U-Men, Feast — that were hugely influential on bands like Nirvana and Soundgarden. And no one’s ever heard of them.

  XANA LA FUENTE: I would like [Mother Love Bone] to be remembered [as] more of an influence than they’ve gotten credit for in Seattle. They did get the biggest record deal of any band in the country that year, and they did bring a lot of attention to the scene. I think Sony and PolyGram could have done a lot better work getting them more exposure on soundtracks. Anytime I play Mother Love Bone for younger people who haven’t heard them, they can’t figure out why they don’t hear it on the radio just as much as Pearl Jam. I’d like them to be remembered, recognized, and listened to more. I don’t think the music is outdated — it’s not like “Pour Some Sugar on Me.” Maybe a couple of songs, but there are some songs that are just timeless. Of course, I want Andrew to be remembered as a great vocalist and a great writer, and not as an addict. We’re all addicts in some form or another.

  BEN LONDON: We’re on the verge of some major grunge nostalgia. You already see stuff — like a band like the Subways — that has that kind of grunge/ Nirvana thing going on. I’m sure we’re going to see another resurgence of that.

  ART CHANTRY: It was one of those weird little strange things that happened, exploded, and then it was gone. Scarier than hell though — don’t ever want to fucking see that again.

  TAD DOYLE: I recently saw [the Melvins], and they’ve still got everything they always had. The passion is there, it’s not like watching a Rolling Stones concert — propping up the dead and winding them up. Nothing against the Stones or anything.

  GRANT ALDEN: I think it became a fashion, and it got tied up in heroin. It got tied up in all kinds of things, which were neither desirable nor had we anticipated them. The music does fine on its own — it wears better than a lot of the ’80s punk it grew from. At the same time, I don’t know [if ] that’s the death of rock ’n’ roll — if rock ’n’ roll has died. Because I don’t know that there’s been a similar kind of innovation that’s been popular since then. The swagger, the certainty, and the fun of it seems gone. It doesn’t sing to me anymore.

  SEAN KINNEY: The business has changed so much too. There’s three record companies, and, like, two people run all the radio stations [laughs]. It’s getting monopolized — they can put anything on there, and it’s like, “You’re going to listen to this, we’re going to play this video, we’re going to play this one song. She doesn’t sing, but who gives a shit — she’s going to lip-sync and we’re going to play it so much that the sheep are going to buy it. Go buy it, sheep.” And they’re gonna — a lot of people do. But because of that, there’s always the flip side — where there’s an underground movement of stuff that’s blowing up. I think because of MySpace and things like that, bands can get noticed on their own. It seems like it’s starting to get back that way. And in the situation that our nation is too — and the world — there’s a lot to be angry about if you’re growing up. I’d be terrified if I was twenty-one and thought I had to be a millionaire, and have to have a Bentley. Feel like a failure at twenty-five because you’re not a CEO, and you don’t drive a Bentley and drink Cristal … with a bunch of hot chicks on a yacht! It’s just a bunch of crap.

  Kim Thayil, Gary King, and Jack Endino at Soundhouse Recording Studios, 2008

  What baffles me — we’re going to be “classic rock.” We probably already are in the Midwest. I’m always taking the piss out of it, but shit, that’s a great honor in the big scheme of things. That means you did something right — you’re not going away. Just makes you feel old, that’s all. The Quad cane and the colostomy bag is probably helping too — with the false teeth and the hair plugs! It’s been great, and when I’m in Seattle, I see the dudes from Soundgarden, and you run into the Pearl Jam cats. It’s surprising that every-body’s really unaffected by it. It was never like “the weird competition thing.” When we play, Novoselic’s there, Kim Thayil comes up and jams with us. Duff’s in town — he comes and jams. Still, you end up in a shitty, goddamn crappy-sounding, musty smelling jam room. And you’ve got a dude from Soundgarden, a dude from Nirvana, a guy from fucking Queensrÿche, and a guy from Guns N’ Roses — and me hacking away at some riff. It hasn’t changed much, y’know?

  EDDIE VEDDER: I think Mudhoney records will always sound like Mudhoney records, which sound like Stooges records, which will last ’til the end of time. And at the same time, it wasn’t like “lo-fi,” which means they sound as good on record as they do live. Mudhoney was never overproduced, it was like, perfect. If I was in any of those other bands, I certainly would not feel like I had anything to apologize for. Being in my band, I feel like there were a couple of things that I would maybe change, but I’m not ashamed [laughs]. And it mostly comes from what I was doing — it’s not a reflection on anybody else in
our group.

  It took me a while to figure out how to really sing — or not push it. I was a horse being let out of the gate — I was pent up. That first record, it’s really “throaty” [laughs]. It didn’t mean to be, but it became a vocal style that became co-opted by certain bands that I feel made really shitty music. And they weren’t making those records until we were on, like, our third record — or even fourth. And what’s funny — the bridge would sound like Layne, the verse would sound like me, and the chorus would sound like Kurt. Or they’d look like me and sound like Kurt, or look like Kurt and sound like me [laughs]. All this weird amalgamation stuff.

  If you listen to surf music, everybody sounded like the Beach Boys. If you get the Rhino Cowabunga! box set, there’s all these bands you’ve never heard of. It all sounded like the Beach Boys, with harmonies, guitars, and “Wipe Out” drum sounds. But it was all kind of good. For me what was weird — I was just like, “God, I would never listen to this [grunge-copycat] music. This is not good.” And it felt like they were co-opting the angst from whatever I’d been through. I don’t know anything about these people, but I didn’t feel like they’d lived through it. It wasn’t like they were co-opting what we were doing — it was like, the first record. Or those two songs. Still, all those musicians that were part of that time, everyone’s still either making music, or part of music in some kind of way — even if their bands aren’t the same they used to be. It’s still there.