Everybody Loves Our Town_ An Oral History of Grunge - Mark Yarm [1]
Of course, most people don’t like to be reduced to a label (retch-inducing or otherwise), particularly when it’s applied seemingly indiscriminately by the media, as grunge often was after Nirvana broke into the mainstream with Nevermind’s lead single, the loud-quiet-loud anthem “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” in fall 1991. As more than one person asked me over the course of my putting this book together, how is it that a band like Pearl Jam—a well-polished musical outfit whose sound owes more to classic rock than punk rock—was labeled grunge, a word that evokes scuzzy guitar tones and all-around rawness? The answer, it would seem, comes down to genealogy (two of Pearl Jam’s members come from what many cite as the first grunge band, Green River) and, more simply, geography (they are, after all, from Seattle). “If you lived in Seattle and were under 30 at that point, you were grunge,” is how Ben London, who fronted the not particularly grungy Seattle band Alcohol Funnycar, described the early ’90s to me. Though in short order, the term would transcend geography, being applied to the Stone Temple Pilots (from San Diego), Bush (the U.K.), and Silverchair (Australia), all multiplatinum, “corporate rock” bands accused of jumping on the grunge bandwagon.
We could argue forever—and people on Internet message boards do—about what bands are grunge, because the label is entirely subjective. Are Alice in Chains grunge or heavy metal or both? Were 7 Year Bitch punk or grunge or Riot Grrrl? How about contemporary Canadian arena rockers Nickelback: Post-grunge? Neo-grunge? But with the passage of time, some in the Seattle music community have come to grudgingly accept the g-word. “We never considered anybody to be grunge,” guitarist Steve Turner of Mudhoney—the band whose raw, scabrously funny single “Touch Me I’m Sick” epitomizes the so-called Seattle sound—told author Clinton Heylin a number of years back. “In 1995, we came out of the closet and said, ‘Fine, we’re grunge. If anybody fuckin’ is, we are.’ ”
Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain once posed for a famous photo clutching his infant daughter, Frances Bean, and wearing a T-shirt bearing the words GRUNGE IS DEAD. This sentiment—then merely a joke/wishful thinking on the wearer’s part—also has become a point of vibrant debate, particularly since Cobain’s April 1994 suicide, which provided a convenient end to an era for some. But in the current decade, grunge seems to be quite animated: The Melvins, Mudhoney, and Candlebox are still kicking, and three of the big four grunge bands are also active concerns: Pearl Jam are celebrating their 20th anniversary this year; as of this writing, Alice in Chains are planning another studio album with their second singer; and Soundgarden are back together after a 13-year break. Meanwhile, surviving Nirvana members Dave Grohl and Krist Novoselic reunited with Nevermind producer Butch Vig to record a song for the latest album by Grohl’s Foo Fighters.
While Turner’s bandmate Mark Arm (no relation to this author, by the way) professes not to know what grunge is, he says, “I hate it when people say a particular type of music is dead. That’s a retarded notion. That’s viewing music as fashion”—and anyone who remembers the heyday of flannel and Doc Martens knows that grunge was viewed as fashion. “It doesn’t make any sense. It’s not dead as long as somebody’s playing it or writing songs in that style.”
So grunge, whatever it may be, is not dead. But enough from me—after all, I’m just a music writer from Brooklyn. This is a book made up almost entirely of the words of more than 250 musicians, producers, managers, record executives, video directors, photographers, journalists, publicists, club owners, roadies, scenesters, and hangers-on—people with firsthand knowledge of a truly remarkable era in rock-and-roll history. I hope their stories and commentary—at turns silly and insightful, hilarious and harrowing—affect you