Saturday, April 23, 2011

Temple of the Dog! 1991's "Hunger Strike!"


In the 90's, I really missed the 80’s and shrugged the 70’s…then, as time went on, I started really missing and appreciating the 70’s. Then in the 2000's, I started shrugging the 90's and kept going back to the 80's (and still do of course!). But then the other day I heard “Hunger Strike” on the radio and I started to really miss the 90’s! I started to think about some of the cool songs that came out of this decade. I then got on to YouTube and searched for this video and it brought back memories of how the decade started with this “new” kind of music. Grunge!

You know, there was a time that Eddie Vedder started looking a lot like the Lion from the Wizard of Oz….


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But, I digress….

"Hunger Strike" was written by vocalist Chris Cornell of Sound Garden who had formed the group Temple of the Dog in 1990 as a tribute to his friend, the late Andrew Wood, lead singer of Mother Love Bone. It was a released as a single on their only self titled album in 1991.  The line-up included Stone Gossard on rhythm guitar, Jeff Ament on bass guitar (both ex-members of Mother Love Bone), Mike McCready on lead guitar, Matt Cameron on drums and Eddie Vedder providing lead and backing vocals. Soon after this concept album, Vedder, Ament, Gossard and McCready formed Pearl Jam.

Cornell on the song:

“When we started rehearsing the songs, I had pulled out "Hunger Strike" and I had this feeling it was just kind of gonna be filler, it didn't feel like a real song. Eddie was sitting there kind of waiting for a rehearsal (Mookie Blaylock….later Pearl Jam) and I was singing parts, and he kind of humbly—but assertive—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 choruses of him doing that and suddenly the light bulb came on in my head, this guy's voice is amazing for these low parts. History wrote itself after that, and that became the single.

This song rocks! I'm STILL going hungry!

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