Temple of the Dog: The Controversial History Of The Chris Cornell/Eddie Vedder Supergroup

Temple of the Dog's Controversial History

0:00 - Introduction/Formation
2:56 - Controversy #1/Success
5:40 - Controversy #2 & 3


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#soundgarden #pearljam #templeofthedog #grunge

I cite my sources and they may differ than other people's accounts, so I don't guarantee the actual accuracy of my videos.


Still a staple of rock radio to this very day, the Seattle supergroup Temple of the Dog would release their only album in April of 1991 that was self titled. What may surprise people is that the album wasn’t a big hit initially and it stirred up controversy and bad feelings afterwards. That’s what we’re going to discuss in today’s video.

Temple of the Dog would get their start almost a year before their record came out in March of 1990 when frontman Andrew Wood of the up and coming seattle rock band mother love bone would pass away due to a drug overdose. Former soundgarden frontman Chris Cornell was friends with Wood and even lived with him for a period of time. According to Gruntruck Drummer Scott Mccullum who talked to cornell around this
time he would reveal in the mark yarm book everybody loves our town. “I remember chris
being really pissed at Andy shortly after he died. I was really surprised by that. He
was really mad and upset that he had done what he did. He was really hurt.”

Cornell who was on the road with Soundgarden at the time would immediately pen two tracks about Wood titled ‘Reach Down’ and ‘Say Hello 2 Heaven’ that would eventually make their way onto the temple of the dog album. Upon writing the songs Cornell would provide demos of the tracks to Wood's girlfriend. Eventually Wood's former bandmates in mother love bone and future pearl jam guitarist Stone Gossard and bassist Jeff Ament would hear the tracks and be blown away. They would end up pushing Cornell to release the material. Cornell would recall “My initial thought was I could record them with the ex-members of mother love bone as a tribute single to andy. I got a phone call from jeff saying he thought the songs were amazing and let’s make a whole record. The record would be made up of material Cornell wrote and recorded and material the members of mother love bone recorded before and after Wood’s death.

It was during the rehearsals that Cornell came up with the song hunger strike that he thought was a filler song to round out the album to ten songs. Also present during the rehearsals was singer Eddie Vedder who had just flew in from California to audition with Wood’s former bandmates in a new group they put together called Mookie Blaylock that would eventually rename themselves Pearl Jam.

Cornell would remember “Eddie was sitting there kind of waiting for a mookie blaylock
rehearsal and i was singing parts and he kind of humbly but with some balls walked up to
the mic and started singing the low parts for me because he saw it was kind of hard.

We got through a couple of choruses of him doing that and suddenly the lightbulb came
on in my head. This guys voice is amazing for these low parts. History wrote itself
after that , and that became the first single.” And Vedder would appear on the other tracks "Pushin Forward Back," "Your Savior" and "Four Walled World.

Also contributing to the record would be future pearl jam guitarist mike mcreedy and soundgarden drummer matt cameron. And while the album was meant to be a tribute to Andy wood it did create some bad blood as soundgarden guitarist kim thile (prnounced like tile, but with h) would tell author mark yarm “the initial purpose of temple of the dog to be a tribute to andy wood, was not the concluding purpose. I think to be a tribute to Andy wood there were a lot of people who were close to andy like his brothers who probably should’ve been involved .It became something else, it became a Chris Cornell solo record with some of his friends.” he’d conclude. Andy’s brother kevin wood would express some anger over not being included telling the same author “I fully expected to be included in that project although they never called me. I was pretty pissed off at the time i didn’t get to play on that or even considered to be asked”.

The band would record the record at Seattle’s london bridge studios with renowned producer rick parashar who in the near future would work with both Pearl Jam and alice in chains. Parashar and Cornell would