Everybody Loves Our Town_ An Oral History of Grunge - Mark Yarm [72]
REGAN HAGAR Andy and Xana always fought, and there was blood. It was just part of how he liked his women. The fighting was always behind closed doors. But I’d see the aftermath. He would be physically beaten. Like black eyes, bloody noses. Now, in my older wisdom, I would say, “There’s a problem, and I should be getting involved.”
XANA LA FUENTE I used to slap him around because I’m pretty big and he’s small. And then one time, he started fighting back, and I was like, Damn, he’s pretty strong. And I was like, Never mind. I stopped. It would be more like wrestling—it wasn’t serious. I never felt like a victim of domestic violence.
KEVIN WOOD It was very weird having two grown people clawing each other’s skin and screaming at each other and fighting violently. Weird.… Come to think of it, maybe I didn’t see them actually exchanging blows, but I did see scratch marks and evidence of physical fighting.
RODERICK ROMERO (Sky Cries Mary singer) I was working at Raison d’Être, which was the first pretentious restaurant/café in all of Seattle. Andy Wood was a dishwasher guy, and Jeff Ament was the espresso dude. We all had to be there early in the morning to get that place up and running. It was awesome. We’d fight over what music to play before we had to open up, ’cause then we had to play jazz. Andy would want to play Kiss or Elton John, and Jeff would want to play Aerosmith, and I would want to listen to Bauhaus. Usually, we all settled on one thing we were all fine with, which was Southern Death Cult, before they became the Cult. But Jeff ran the scene. In the end, whatever he wanted to listen to, we listened to. He’d just look over at you and smile, and you’re like, “Okay, you’re right, let’s do that.” He has this way, this charisma that is undeniable.
JEFF AMENT Stone and I had known Andy a long time before we were in a band with him.… But I kind of saw a lot about his personal life and what was going on with it, and so when Stone first said, “Hey, you know, maybe we should try to start a band around Andy,” I was like, “No way.” It’s like, “I don’t want to be in a band where I’m gonna have to babysit anybody.”
And then I went and saw Stone play an acoustic show with Andy at this gay bar that was like three blocks down the street, and he was just so frickin’ great at the show. I could totally hear a couple of the songs that they played that night kind of over the top of a rock band. And so we gave it a go …
GREG GILMORE I had split—went to Southeast Asia with a one-way ticket and a pocketful of traveler’s checks—for about five months. The very day I came back to town, I was walking on Broadway and ran into Stone, who I didn’t really know well, and he asked me if I wanted to come down and play sometime.
REGAN HAGAR Green River and Malfunkshun shared practice spaces for a few years. Andy and I started playing with Jeff and Stone a lot for fun, doing covers. We did a few shows together as Lords of the Wasteland, which was essentially Mother Love Bone. When Green River came back from tour, they called Andy and me and said, “Green River’s breaking up. We’re parting with Mark and Alex, and we need a new singer and drummer. You guys wanna make a go at it?” And so we’re like, “Sweet, let’s do it.” But we didn’t break Malfunkshun up; it just was never even a thought to me.
We still had the same practice space, so Malfunkshun—Andy and Kevin and I—were going there on what was supposedly a day off for Mother Love Bone or Lords of the Wasteland or whatever the band was called then. The three of us walk in and there’s Stone and Jeff, and they’re playing with Greg Gilmore, who I knew from 10 Minute Warning and always kind of worshipped.
It was like, Whoa. Everyone looked at everyone else. We didn’t say anything, and we turned around and left.
KEVIN WOOD I remember that quite vividly. Me and Regan were heading over to meet Andy to do a Malfunkshun rehearsal. Andy was up on the bandstand, playing with all those guys—the Green River guys,