* Music *
Sam Dunn: Back when we did 'Metal: A Headbanger's Journey'
we created this gigantic 24 sub-genre family tree of Metal,
we included grunge so we kind of committed ourselves
to this idea that Grunge is part of the story of Heavy Metal.
But not everyone sees it that way, people connect it also
to the story of punk or garage rock or of alternative music,
and so I've come to Seattle the home of Grunge to meet
with people and find out if really Grunge does belong
in the evolution of Heavy Metal.
* Music *
* Intro *
>> Back in the early 90's growing up in Victoria, Canada
just a 2-hour boat ride from Seattle grunge was huge,
and whether you were a punk, skater or a metal head
we all agreed metal was a part of the sound of grunge,
but I've always wanted to know if the Seattle
grunge musicians themselves saw their music
as a part of the history of heavy metal.
Sam: What in your opinion does grunge have to do with heavy metal music?
Mark Arm: Umm, I dunno, a lot of it is heavy. (laughs)
Sam: Is Grunge metal?
Kim Warnick: (Laughs) Well people think it is, and I guess
it might be a little bit but I don't really believe it is.
Brendan O'Brien: Some of the music was pointedly aggressive
and I guess some of that would be considered you know metal,
but I you know don't think any of us thought of it in that way.
Steve Albini: The heavy metal tradition always had a kind
of emphasis on virtuosity or on vulgar
exhibitionist musical tendencies.
There was always a kind of flamboyance, almost a camp
element to heavy metal and the grunge bands were all
much more straight forward in their presentation.
There wasn't a fireworks show, there wasn't a wall of Marshall
amplifiers, there wasn't a massive drum kit, and in a lot
of cases the musicianship was not necessarily, rudimentary is
the wrong way to put it, it was functional musicianship.
* Music *
Sam: Why do you think that sometimes Grunge hasn't
been included in the story of metal?
Jeff Gilbert: I think it was probably in grunge's
best interest that it wasn't associated with heavy metal
because heavy metal came with connotations,
goofy ones at that. You know fashion not thrashin'.
Kim Thayil: What was considered metal then was this
kind of hair farmer spandex music for
the future house wives of America.
Sam: Even though you were heavy you werent' what people...
Kim: Those bands sounded like The Partridge Family
with fuzzy guitars that's what they sounded like.
We didn't sound like that, we didn't look like that.
Michael Azerrad: You had Poison and Warrant and
bands like that defining pretty much what
metal was at least in the popular imagination.
When grunge broke through you had metal's pension
for the big and the overblown and the macho particularly the
hair metal bands there was just no place for that.
Melissa Auf Der Maur: The attitude was so ridiculous
over the top, and so decadent and indulgent and dumbass,
like it was jock mixed with metal and
that's not okay for intelligent people.
Steve: All that hairspray music was just a total
(beep) joke to us, that was music for (beep).
* Music *
>> It's clear that grunge musicians were totally opposed
to the sonic and visual excesses of glam and
this seems to explain why these musicians distanced
themselves from heavy metal back in the early 90's.
But I'm wondering if grunge's connection to
heavy metal might lie elsewhere.
Sam: To what extent was what you were doing metal do you think?
Hiro Yamamoto: Ohh I don't know (laughs) I mean it was dark
and there was kind of an edge to it,
I don't know if you would call it like heavy metal.
Grunge was definitely more of a punk rock kind of attitude,
although I mean you could say Metallica is kind of a punk rock
kind of attitude too so that's what kind of makes it similar,
I mean it was heavy music, loud guitars, real blatantly powerful
drums, real kicking, screaming, posturing on stage,
that was what made it more metal.
* Music *
Sam: What do you make of the argument that grunge IS actually part of metal?
Brian Slagel: I completely agree, sounded like metal to me,
I liked it and a lot of metal people I knew liked it too.
Sam: What metal bands were you influenced by when you were growing up?
Kurt Danielson: Iron Maiden and the first Van Halen record,
I remember it came out the same year as
"Never Mind The Bollocks" and I had both of those records.
So long as it was loud there was a lot of heavy guitar,
it was worthy of turning up the volume and annoying my parents with it.
Sam: The sense I'm getting when I talk to people in Seattle
is the same, that in an early stage a lot of them
were influenced by a lot of metal
Buzz Osbourne: Absolutely, no question to that.
I know that Jeff from Pearl Jam was really into Venom
and Hellhammer and all that stuff.
I mean that stuff was really easy to like you know;
it was good you know, I still like that stuff.
Mark: For me there are some bands that are like considered
metal that are near and dear to my heart like Black Sabbath
first and foremost and Blue Cheer and Motorhead,
there's none of the super technical things that veers
on the part of metal that I don't really like.
* Music *
Jeff: All the grunge guys literally came from a
heavy metal background, drinking beer and listening
to Van Halen in your car stereo.
Everybody had that same starting point, where it separated off
was when the grunge guys discovered and ran with punk and
the metal guys just stayed right where they are.
Jack Endino: It seemed to me like it was taking up from a
place where metal and heavy rock left off in 1976 and was now
sort of going back there and picking up the pieces and
throwing some punk rock influence in and starting over.
I thought this is a continuation of seventies heavy rock with
some punk ethos thrown in here and a healthy respect for noise.
* Music *
>> While grunge musicians detested glam metal, they were
deeply influenced by the British and American metal bands of the
sixties and the seventies and so grunge's connection to the
history of metal is becoming more clear to me but what I
still don't understand is, what exactly is the sound of grunge
and why did Seattle become the home to this music?
* Music *
>> Throughout the series I've learned that many metal
sub-genres are born in cities that shaped the sound and
attitude of music, from early metal in Birmingham
in the late '60s to Bay area thrash in the '80s.
So I'm curious to find out how the city of Seattle
may have influenced Grunge music.
* Music *
Sam: I'm curious to know if you feel that there was anything
in terms of the character or the culture or the music history
of Seattle that allowed for this scene to develop?
Kurt Danielson: Well there's always been interesting
music coming out of Seattle. If you look back,
Hendrix came from Seattle, Quincy Jones is from the Northwest,
The Sonics' the garage band from the '60s that still exists.
* Music *
Jack Endino: In the '60s you had bands like
The Sonics and The Wailers.
They were club bands, they played dances, they played clubs
and they made records that are still influential now.
You had this garage influence on Seattle grunge and
you had this '70s hard rock influence on
Seattle grunge all being mixed together.
Michael Azerrad: You know Seattle is a real bastion a real
haven for hard rock and metal. Metal Church came
from around there, Queensryche, Heart came from there.
Sam: Why Seattle?
Was there something here that provided a back drop?
Jeff Gilbert: The weather, the economy,
the lack of good paying jobs.
There's not a whole lot to do up here if you're just like
watching paint dry and uh mopping up rain water
that seeps into every single basement in Seattle.
Buzz Osbourne: It's very wet in Seattle
so it's like living inside of a shell fish.
That's the best way of describing it.
Dale Crover: There's a lot of underage drinking going on.
Buzz: Over-age drinking too.
Michael: Seattle did have this blue-collar tradition of
people making planes and cutting down trees,
slicing them up and shipping them off somewhere.
That appealed to a hard rock metal friendly audience
but Seattle is also a university town and in the '80s
there started to be a white collar thing happening,
it became a yuppie city as well so you had these 2 aspects of
Seattle, you had hard rocking metal people and then you had
those kinda college kids who were into punk rock and more
underground music and that's how grunge really happened.
It's such a small town and you have these 2 opposite strains
of music and they just came together.
* Music *
Mark Arm: Seattle was an outpost at the time,
a lot of bands did not bother touring Seattle so we just
did stuff to please ourselves and our friends.
Shows were like parties, it wasn't like there was a
barrier really between the crowd and the band.
Kurt: It was as if we were paying more attention to our
friends' bands, we were influenced more by Green River,
what Soundgarden was doing or what The Melvins were doing or
Malfunkshun was doing as opposed to the bigger
commercial successes from elsewhere.
Jeff: Soundgarden would play down at the Vogue,
Alice in Chains over at the Off Ramp.
It was very exciting cause' every night there was
somebody cool playing in a dumpy dive where beer and urine
mixed like a feeder creek across the floor.
* Music *
Michael: Something really key happened in the Seattle scene
in 1984 which was that Black Flag came up and toured the
Album 'My War'. Black Flag comes into town playing this slowed
down heavy music obviously influenced by Black Sabbath,
that turned everyone's head around because all of a sudden
you could be really slow and heavy, that just really sent
shock waves through the whole community.
That really was the beginning of grunge right there.
* Music *
Jack: You know The Melvins need to be mentioned in all this.
The Melvins started in the northwest,
they were a big influence on Nirvana, they were a big
influence on all of us because The Melvins used to play
amazing shows, were basically, they'd mix metal and punk and
weird art rock just mashing it together.
Dale: I think it definitely has the elements of metal in it.
We always took our favourite parts of heavy metal
and put it in our music.
Buzz: What we are doing is what Captain Beefheart
would be doing if he played heavy metal.
Michael: Buzz Osbourne was one of the first to discover this
drop D tuning where you take the E string and tune it to a
D instead and that gives it a heavy d-tuned kind of sound,
that contributed greatly to the heaviness of grunge and he
taught it to Kim Thayil of Soundgarden and a lot
of other musicians picked up on it from there.
* Music *
>> As early as the mid '80smusicians in the
PacificNorthWestwere creatingasoundthat
containedmetalelementsbut withtheirownunique twist.
And the first company to recognize this new sound was
the local independent label 'Sub Pop Records'.
So what did Sub Pop see in this new heavy style?
Sam: Being at Sub Pop, something tells me this is irony.
Sam: What was it that you and Bruce saw in the bands that were coming up?
Presumably I guess there was no one there
to sort of harness this.
Jonathan Poneman: There was nobody there to harness it
per say, we didn't really approach things that way,
it was more just trying to document what was going on.
Michael: When I hear the word grunge I just think of,
you know the genius of the Sub Pop hype machine,
they turned this scene into an obscure like tertiary market
of the United States with you know,
a handful of bands playing to twelve of their friends
and turned it into this cultural phenomenon
that kind of resonates to this day
and it really started with that one word "grunge".
Sam: Do you think they saw Sub Pop as being part of metal or
do you think they positioned it as being something different?
Jeff: They positioned themselves as far away
from metal as you can get. Loud guitars but not metal guitars.
Kurt: If it so happened that it served their needs
to slam some hair metal bands,
why not because definitely that's what we weren't doing.
Jack: I think there was a niche basically the mainstream
record industry had painted itself into a corner with
terrible music and there was a need for music with some
honesty and some integrity and some emotion and just
kind of a little bit, a little trace of originality to it.
Music made by people with you know
real personalities and real characters.
* Music *
>> I'm starting to get a clear understanding of the sound
of grunge and it's connection to the story of metal
but still no one seems to agree on which grunge bands
can be classified as metal especially the genre's
two biggest bands, Nirvana and Pearl Jam.
So what's their association with heavy metal music?
Jonathan: When I first met Kurt Cobain he was definitely
well versed and immersed in metal.
Jeff: Do I call Nirvana a grunge band, nope,
a pop band, nope, metal band, nope, all the above.
Kurt: Kurt as a songwriter went through different phases
and I think in the beginning he was going through a period
where he was writing stuff that had a pretty heavy feel to it,
he could absorb influences from all around,
everything he saw, heard, experienced,
he would regurgitate in his own unique way.
There wasn't much technique;
there was a lot of just raw emotion.
* Music *
Sam: What about their sound, their look,
their performance, their lyrics are not metal?
Deena Weinstein: Nirvana's not metal in many ways
or at least clashes with what so much of metal was.
For example Cobain had this pain in his voice that metal doesn't
have and it goes along with their themes of, I'm hurting.
* Music *
Michael: This idea that you could be manly and sensitive
and introspective and even tortured was a fairly new
thing in the nineties because in hard rock and metal
you're suppose to be you know king of the world and
ruler of all known planets. (laughs)
Eddie Vedder is solidly in that introspective angst
ridden front man mold that a lot of the grunge front men were in.
* Music *
Sam: What was your sense with Pearl Jam,
what makes them metal, what doesn't make them metal?
Brendan O'Brien: You know honestly
I never thought of them as remotely metal.
Eddie reminded me more of Paul Rodgers than any
metal singer or even Ian Gillan from Deep Purple.
I never thought of them as a metal band, you know,
I just felt again, classic rock is a great word for that.
* Music *
Spencer Proffer: The Eddie Vedder songwriting
within Pearl Jam is really good songwriting,
it's just dressed up with tough playing so I don't
see that as metal, I don't think metal is generally synonymous
with good songwriting. It's synonymous with a lot of
playing and a lot of noise and a lot of, you know rebellious,
you know screw the man attitude and I think
grunge is a little more intelligent.
* Music *
>> I'm discovering that there is some strong opposition
to including grunge in the story of metal,
some people even feel that grunge is the furthest thing
from metal so I'm beginning to wonder if I was wrong to put
grunge in the heavy metal family tree.
Do any of the Seattle grunge bands see themselves
as part of the history of metal music?
* Music *
>> Given that not all grunge bands identified as
heavy metal back in the nineties.
My exploration into grunge's connection to metal is proving
to be far more challenging than I initially realized.
But if there's one Seattle band that surely
belongs in this story, it's Soundgarden.
A band that to my ears has an undeniable metallic sound.
* Music *
Sam: Where were your influences coming from in those early days
in terms of bands that you admired
or sounds that you were attracted to?
Kim Thayil: I almost have to compartmentalize
these different styles, with it Soundgarden's often been
appraised or evaluated, there was certainly heavy music
that I grown up with, stuff that might be traditionally called
metal that ultimately was not as satisfying as some of the music
that came about in the late seventies that we called punk.
Same time I still liked my Hendrix, still like listening to
Cream and Aerosmith, Kiss and Nugent. Those bands still
have some sentimental nostalgic weight with me.
Sam: What were you hearing in their music,
did you see them as a metal band?
Susan Silver: You know, I guess the classic that has been
written about them throughout the time, Sabbath and Zeppelin
and the meld of, it was hypnotizing, it was so heavy,
so melodic, plodenly melodic and complex.
Melissa Auf Der Maur: Definitely Soundgarden is the most metal
inspired of all of them because there was a little element of
grandiosity, people who were daring to sort of talk about
big mythological things within a cool,
we're hanging out at the coffee shop. (laughs)
Jeff Gilbert: You put on Black Sabbath and you listen
to Soundgarden's early riffs and they're remarkably similar.
Kurt Danielson: Chris' vocal range is really immense
and so I always noticed a definite infinity between
his vocals and Robert Plant's for example.
Kim Thayil: People have always drawn these comparisons to us
and Zeppelin and Sabbath. Sometimes I can hear it
generally I don't but believe it or not
although I was pretty well acquainted with Zeppelin
and Sabbath I wasn't really oriented towards those bands.
* Music *
>> Even though Soundgarden was influenced by classic
metal bands, they clearly didn't self identify as a metal band
during the early years of their career but once Soundgarden
signed with a major label and started working with
established metal producer Terry Date, on their album
'Louder than Love' their sound started to shift.
Terry Date: That was a lot of fun, that was,
we did it in Seattle, it was a major label record
but there was no interference from anybody,
we were able to do whatever we wanted to do
until the record was recorded. We didn't have to follow any
rules, we just did what we felt was the best
and really I was following the bands lead all the way through.
Hiro: Terry's background was way more metal so like the guitars
were more shimmery and a little higher end and heavier sounding.
I mean it had that kind of guitar sound that goes with metal.
* Music *
Kim: The sound of the record is sonically bigger
and wider than any previous record we'd done before.
I think on that record we really tried to make things tight.
There's some fans that thought perhaps "Loud Love"
was a little bit too clean, some of our peers that kind of
came up to us playing punk rock venues and clubs,
might have thought it was a bit slick.
Sam: Were you happy with the direction of the sound of the band on that record?
Hiro: Well this is kind of when I started like, you know,
we were becoming more, definitely more metal.
To me it was, we were a punk band, being on a major label
they want to be able to market you so how are they going to
market you, they can market you like Metallica and Megadeth.
They had a marketing system for that kind of stuff.
Punk rock they didn't really have.
* Music *
>> I'm realizing that although grunge bands like
Soundgarden were fans of metal music, they were definitely
coming from a more punk inspired ethos.
Sam: But the one grunge band that I swear must have
identified as being metal is Alice In Chains because in the
early nineties they played the Clash Of The Titans tour
with Megadeth and Anthrax and Slayer.
* Music *
Dave Mustaine: We needed to have somebody who was
connected but a little bit detached, removed but integrated
and I feel that Alice In Chains was the right band to do this
because they have their own musicality and melody
which people can relate to.
They're kind of like the Grateful Dead of speed metal.
David Ellefson: Plus we found out Alice In Chains used to be
a glam band so we needed to make fun of them on this tour,
put them in their place.
Sam: In the eighties the popular sound in rock and metal music
was what was coming out of L.A. and the whole
glam metal thing, I mean, were you influenced by that?
Sean Kinney: I think the main influence out of that
was Guns N' Roses. Yah.
Because they were more real, there was a little danger.
Sam: Were you guys copying a bit of the look of the Guns N' Roses vibe?
Sean: I tucked my pants in my cowboy boots for a minute.
Oh yah oh yah, There's a photo like that.
At first Alice In Chains were more of a L.A. brand
of glam metal but very quickly they evolved
into something else.
I think they were the band in Seattle that was known best
for combining heavy metal with some grunge stuff.
Jeff: Alice In Chains is the missing link
between traditional metal and grunge.
What they did is they just made a hybrid out
of what Soundgarden and Pearl Jam and the Melvins
and Nirvana were doing and found that middle ground.
Jerry Cantrell: Metal is a big part of our upbringing like
probably most rock guys, you know what I mean, there's some
great metal bands that we grew up on and that's certainly,
certainly a part of our sound but I don't think we ever really...
Sean Kinney: We're way more aluminum.
Jerry Cantrell: Yah. (laughs)
Sean Kinney: You know.
We were on Clash Of The Titans,
we were opening up for Slayer, Megadeth and Anthrax.
We're kind of one of those bands that has a luxury of being able
to play and we would play with anybody.
Jerry Cantrell: Play with anybody.
We didn't care who we played with, there was some bands
that wouldn't have done that but we didn't give a (beep).
Sean: We just wanted to play, you know, so we did that and we,
you know, that's a rough crowd, can't say people didn't
throw (beep) at us, they did but we would
just throw it right back, you know.
Scott Ian: Those dudes got pelted with more (beep)
than I ever seen a band get pelted.
People were just throwing their beers, buying more beer
and then throwing it at Alice In Chains
and never once did they back down.
They (beep) took that (beep) with middle fingers flying high
and you know when "Man In The Box" started to break,
what a month or two after that tour ended, everyone who
threw beer at them went out and bought that record.
* Music *
Sam: What was the first indication to you that this
thing called grunge had become something mainstream?
Mark Arm: The first thing that happened was like
Alice In Chains record went gold and then "Nevermind" came out
and then that was quickly followed by Pearl Jam's "Ten".
You know once that happened it was obvious it was mainstream
and then it went to this next level thing where people from
local bands are on the cover of Time Magazine,
Marc Jacobs doing grunge fashion shows, you know like basically
taking flannel shirts and putting holes in them and
selling them for a couple hundred dollars.
Jerry Cantrell: When (beep) like that started happening
it was just like whoa, really?
You're in the middle of it, you're aware of it but I mean
when it started to get a little silly and it wasn't from us
being any different than we were, any of the bands,
it's just like, you're the fresh new thing, you're the shiny new
thing, you know, you only get to be that once.
* Music *
an MTV News special report.
The body of Nirvana leader Kurt Cobain was found in a house
in Seattle on Friday morning dead of an apparently
self-inflicted shotgun blast to the head.
>> As grunge bands were going multi-platinum
and grunge culture was exploding in the mainstream
the movement was dealt a heavy blow in 1994 when
Nirvana lead singer Kurt Cobain committed suicide
in his Seattle home. Experts have long attributed the
death of grunge to this tragic moment.
But what exactly was the impact of Kurt's suicide on the
Seattle scene and the evolution of grunge music?
Sam: Is it fair to say Kurt's death killed grunge?
Jack: What was it that it killed?
I mean when Kurt killed himself I mean grunge in the sense of
some spontaneous self-generating regional cultural phenomenon
had already run its course at that point and all you had left
was a handful of commercial business entities,
bands basically who were part of the major label machine
continuing on with their business plan into the '90s,
the original well spring had dried up at that point long since.
Melissa: By the time Lollapalooza 1995 and all these
labels are grunge, it was pretty much done we had already
recognized that it had been sold as a Coca-cola commodity.
Hiro: The whole idea of why bands were bands was no longer
to play music and have fun it was to get on a major label,
people were coming to Seattle to have someone discover them
so definitely the whole vibe of Seattle changed.
Announcer: This week Soundgarden calls it a career;
we'll take a look back at all 12 years of it.
Sam: What were the factors that led to you guys deciding to call it quits?
Kim: One is just being around for 12 or 13 years.
To have 4 people be on the same page for that
period of time is a rare occurrence.
Sam: How did the fans and media react?
Kim: I think people were pretty bummed.
I remember a number of articles turned up around the country,
some people thought it was a loss and just another nail in
the coffin of Grunge if that's the story line they're following,
the label grunge that's important to record companies
for marketing, we were never even really quite sure that
grunge even came into being, let alone became extinct.
* Music *
>> By the mid '90s grunge appeared to be dead;
Kurt was gone, Soundgarden had broken up, Alice in Chains
had stopped making records and Pearl Jam were on hiatus.
But this episode is about grunge's place in the
evolution of metal music and in the late '90s the sound
of grunge began to evolve into something completely different.
* Music *
Sam: We began to see bands like Candlebox,
Creed in the mid to late '90s...
Jack: I hated these bands.
Sam: But they bare the hallmarks of grunge at some point.
Jack: They do but they were so explicitly derivative
it drove me nuts every time I heard them.
Kurt: These imposter bands started popping out of the
woodwork, umm filling in the void left by the original bands
which seemed vital and exciting, at the end of the day it turns
out to be just as bland as the Grateful Dead.
Sam: Did you like any of that music?
Buzz: It meant nothing to me
Dale: Yeah, it just seemed like imitation
Buzz: Absolutely pedestrian, to me, it's like next you know
I might as well be listening to a Madonna record.
Mark: Like what the (beep) is this?
And if those bands have grunge influences and somehow
I'm responsible for grunge, (beep) kill me.
Sam: Why do you feel that way?
Mark: Have you heard the bands? (laughs)
* Music *
Michael: All those 2nd generation grunge bands
grew up on the first generation bands
and you just naturally echo the stuff you grew up on.
Maybe you put a new little spin on it
which those bands I don't think really did.
That's the problem, it's just incredibly derivative
and made much more radio friendly
Joe Weiderhorn: I think the grunge light movement
came not from bands so much as the record labels.
I think the record labels said 'Hmm, let's have more of that
let's find bands who we can encourage to write songs that
have a little bit of angst and a whole lot of melody
and create something that's not challenging,
that's not confrontational and that the mainstream
can just whole heartedly embrace.
* Music *
Sam: Do you see yourselves as an evolution out of
what grunge bands may have started
I mean what's your sense on that?
Mark Tremonti: I don't consider us part of the grunge scene,
I think we were just kind of a band that came out in the
middle of a music scene that really didn't
have an identity at the time.
Scott Stapp: I think we started something new.
I think grunge ended and then we came out and
it was more of timeless classic rock music kind of thing.
We believe that if that those same people that may have hated
us dug deeper into our records they'd end up buying it.
* Music *
Sam: It seems as though Layne Staley, Eddie Vedder
kind of set in motion a new style of male rock vocal
I mean would you agree with that?
Jack: I call it yarling.
Sam: The yarling?
Jack: We call it yarling (imitates sound) that's yarling.
Mark: Before I heard the term yarl my friends and I called it
underbite rock, it sounds like the singer is singing
(imitates sound) with an underbite.
Sam: You're not gonna help me with the yarl?
Kim: I don't know how to do it it's the yarl.
C'mon.
Oh all these eyes looking at me for the yarl.
Buzz: (yarls) Try that.
Dale: Eee Ooh Buzz: (fake yarl)
Michael: Eddie Vedder concocted that way of singing
because it was his original way of expressing himself.
It came from a really real place and then it kind of got codified
and made into a formula and it didn't even mean anything it was
just like you have to sing like that cause' the signifies alt
rock soulfulness, and it kind of just got repeated mindlessly.
* Music *
Sam: How did you feel about those Eddie Vedder
comparisons that were being made?
Scott: That was a comparison that the press was making.
I thought it was only natural you know
I have a baritone voice. I've heard Cornell,
I've heard Vedder, umm I've heard Hootie and the Blowfish
Mark: My roots were metal so the darker leaning stuff
like the earlier Soundgarden stuff I was really into
early you know Alice in Chains record.
It seemed like all the bands in the grunge movement weren't very
alike, it's hard to pinpoint what the grunge scene was
cause' Soundgarden and Mudhoney and Screaming Trees are
very different bands and to lump us in there as well...
Scott: It wasn't something that bothered us from a standpoint
of as we're getting thrown away or just passed off as a
sound alike because we knew our sound was totally different.
* Music *
>> At the dawn of the 2000's, the original grunge bands
were still absent from the rock landscape and the only
trace of their sonic legacy could be found in bands creating
a so-called post-grunge sound, but then a band emerged that
turned post-grunge into a stadium rock phenomenon.
(fans cheering)
Sam: Some people say they are a post-grunge band
what do you think of that idea?
Fan: They need to open up a live a little.
Friend: Grunge is a long time ago.
Sam: Grunge is gone?
Fan: Grunge is gone. Grunge is dead.
Sam: What do you think about that?
Are they part of the grunge history?
Fan: I don't think so they came out in a mixed up kind of era
but I think they've established themselves
as one of the best bands around now.
* Music *
Sam: What was that climate like after the fall of grunge music,
what do you think grunge did to the rock landscape?
Chad Kroeger: There is a lack of identity there in
the late '90s, everyone was kind of looking around like
'Now what are we supposed to do?' Nobody knew what was going
on or what was cool, or what to write
it's like there wasn't even a scene almost.
Sam: Some of the interviews you've done in the past
previous interviewers have asked you about being labeled post-grunge.
Chad. Right.
Sam: You didn't take very kindly to that association,
I'm just curious as to why?
Chad: My thing always is you know back in the day
anything that came out that was rock and roll in the late
'90s was post grunge, I mean anything that come out anytime
after grunge is going to be called post-grunge right.
Ron Burman: I mean theres definitely elements of other
bands there and it reminded me of a lot of the bands from
Seattle personally but different not exactly like any of those.
Nickleback felt like unlike a lot of other bands
it didn't feel forced, Nickleback actually sounded
like and felt like when you saw them that's who they were.
They were influenced by all these things and they were
100 percent that and they weren't putting it on.
Michael: Maybe Nickleback's attraction rests in the fact
that their audience is probably unaware of that
first generation of grunge bands.
They hear some of the trappings of that music in Nickleback and
they respond to what's great about it but umm
maybe they just don't know like you know the good stuff.
Sam: Would there have been a Nickleback without
an Alice in Chains or a Pearl Jam...
Mark: There probably wouldn't have been
a Nickleback that sounds the way they sound without those
other bands having success because they were only emulating
what they think would make them money.
Sam: Do you think it would be uncomfortable for the
grunge bands to see Nickleback as derivative
of what they were doing?
Jeff: No it's uh, Jerry Cantrell from Alice in Chains is a
big Nickleback fan and has gone on stage with them, he gets it.
Chad Kroeger: Mr. Jerry Cantrell of Alice in Chains!
You have to come and see Nickleback to get Nickleback
beyond what you hear on the radio, and when you come and see
the band live the one thing Jerry from Alice in Chains would
always say if he ever took flack you know something like
'why are you hanging out with those mainstream dudes?',
'well, you ever seen them play live?',
'well no why would I go see...' 'well maybe you should'.
If you are not a fan of our music they probably wouldn't
know we've got songs like "Burn it to the Ground" and
"Because of You" and "Side of a Bullet" that we actually have
Dimebag from Pantera playing guitar solo on,
there is that whole other darker heavy side.
Their heavy songs are really heavy, just slaying guitar
you know, and you can hear their influences, you can hear the
Pantera and Metallica they have those influences in there.
Jeff Gilbert: There's room for them in this landscape,
they've gotten very good at what they do and that's some big
rock guitar sound and that's what I think was missing for a
long time that's the void they're filling right now.
Ron: When you leave a Nickleback show I think you feel like, wow
I went to this killer concert and I got to rock out and hear
a lot of songs that I know and love and it's a great time.
Its like a party every night so everyone that's there
feels kind of special.
* Music *
>> In the absence of the original grunge bands in the
early 2000's, Nickleback filled a void in the musical landscape
by creating a sound that was palatable for young rock fans,
but today much to the surprise of fans and the media
the old guard of grunge are staging a comeback.
* Music *
Sam: What do you make of the fact that Soundgarden
and Alice In Chains are reformed and back on tour
is there something that these guys are filling again?
Melissa: There are some die-hard fans that are dying to
see it again but also people who discovered it afterwards
who hands down see that that music is better
than most music made since.
Michael: Those bands were such a jolt when you first heard them,
it was just a new wave making hard rock music,
it was just something that really appealed to your heart
and soul in a way that a lot of hard rock had not before that.
It made a deep and lasting impression on people,
people connected with those bands pretty strongly.
Jerry Cantrell: We just kept following what felt right
you know, it just grew from a real organic place.
The sad reality you know is we lost a lot of
really cool guys along the way.
There was definitely a lot of price that was paid there and
it's one that you wish didn't have to be paid but it was a
really magical thing to be a part of, and whether or when
people started paying attention to it and then stopped paying
attention to it it never stopped being important to us.
Sam: What's the legacy of grunge do you think?
Jerry: I still like the music, I still like the people,
I still love our town and then today to see the majority of
those guys making music, I mean the Pearl Jam guys are
back together, Soundgarden just did some shows,
we're doing our thing, Mudhoney has played some gigs.
Sam: Are you still infusing the spirit of those metal bands we
started talking about at the beginning of the interview?
Mark: You know you try to move forward after 22 years
but we still can't help but to bring in like the Stooges
and Blue Cheer and MC5 and Black Sabbath.
* Music *
Sam: Why is it a good time for Soundgarden to be back out there now?
Kim: It's because we're available and
wanna play with each other.
I guess anytime that we decided that we wanted
to do that would be a good time.
It's just great to know that there are fans out there that
think it's a good time for them, that's perfect.
Sam: Is it a nostalgic thing for fans?
Kim: Maybe, but not for us. A lot of the motivation is
curiosity to see where we're all at creatively
and creating new material. I don't think we have any
ambitions to play the county fair um casino circuit,
although we've heard it's really lucrative.
*