Everybody Loves Our Town_ An Oral History of Grunge - Mark Yarm [191]
I remember the marketing guru of Warner, Rob Friedman, saying, “Look, we’ll release your movie, open it in Seattle, San Francisco, and Los Angeles.” During that time, Cameron and I got wind of ridiculous things. With Nirvana becoming the iconic band of the moment, these marketing shills at Warner had come up with the new title Come as You Are, and unbeknownst to us, had gone and tried to secure a license, I believe, for both the title and song. We got wind of it when John Silva requested that Nirvana be able to screen the movie in Europe. We chose not to send the movie—which we had done organically and naturally, years before the scene ever made it onto the cover of Time—to be screened out of context. Digging in our heels led to a continued delay. Suddenly, Pearl Jam was exploding, and Michele Anthony and Donnie Ienner at Sony said, “Danny, Cameron, we can’t wait on releasing this soundtrack.” They just knew what they had. So we released the soundtrack in the summer of ’92, and the album exploded.
CAMERON CROWE Singles was in the can for a year before it came out. But the success of the so-called Seattle sound got it released. Warner Bros. said, “If you can get Alice in Chains, Soundgarden, and Pearl Jam to play the MTV party that we can use to publicize the movie, we’ll put it out.” So I painfully had to try and talk the bands into doing it. Pearl Jam said that they’d do it as a favor to me. So the taping happened, and it was … a disaster. It was populated mostly by studio executives and their children, who wanted to see the Seattle sound.
ALEX COLETTI (MTV Unplugged producer) The morning of the Singles event, we taped a Smells Like Grunge video countdown in the hotel in L.A. where the event was taking place. Already everyone kinda hated the term grunge, so of course we couldn’t have picked a more alienating title for the artists. Dave Abbruzzese and Mike Starr and a few other people did the video countdown. Dave really took to being on camera to the point where it didn’t help his relationship with the band. The other guys in Pearl Jam were very reluctant to do anything.
RICK KRIM The party was the day after the VMAs. It was amazing to see the contrast between the night before, where they had to be prim and proper, and the next night, just letting it fly. Ed had some drinks beforehand, and I remember him backstage, wearing an army helmet and kicking beer bottles like he was a field-goal kicker.
DANNY BRAMSON The show started, and Vedder goes out onstage begrudgingly. He’s got a bottle in one hand, and he grabs the mic and his opening words are “FUCK HOLLYWOOD!” That set the tone for the entire evening.
RICK KRIM It got a little sloppy onstage. The fire marshals were being difficult, and Ed was calling them out onstage, causing a little ruckus. Eventually it completely broke down and someone had to carry him off the stage and out of the building. I remember taking him to a car and getting him out of there.
DAVE ABBRUZZESE Eddie was actually drunk. I think it was the first time our illustrious leader failed to show up, and it just felt like a joke.
CAMERON CROWE They were playing covers, and somebody got into a fight, and Chris Cornell got into it, and I think Kim Thayil got into it. I remember Eddie yelling, “Fuuuck! What the fuck is this?” and studio executives grabbing their kids and streaming out. I was seeing this whole thing to get the movie released going down the tubes. But Singles came out, and the show aired twice, heavily edited. To anybody who taped it off the air, it’s a real collectible. Later, we made up T-shirts to commemorate the party and they said on the front SINGLES PREMIERE PARTY and on the back it said NOBODY DIED.
DANNY BRAMSON The soundtrack went from the Top 30 to the Top 20 to the Top 10. It was heartening to read both The New York Times and MTV saying that Singles was the soundtrack of the ’90s and was a really inspiring force for all quote-unquote alternative