10 Hard Rock Musicians That Died Too Soon

10. Andy Wood - Mother Love Bone

During the early 90's, hair metal still had a firm grasp on the hard rock consciousness. As the poodle haired kings of the Sunset Strip were planning what kind of mansions they would buy once they hit it big, a new sound coming out of Seattle was slowly brewing, preparing to take the music world by storm. For all the notable superstars to come out of the grunge scene, the potential biggest one ended up checking out before he got his time in the spotlight.

Whereas most bands in the Seattle scene had a much more dour songwriting structure, Mother Love Bone was a lean rocking machine whose sounds seemed to fall somewhere between funk and hard rock. They may have been far from hair metal, but Andy Wood's charisma was on par with his childhood heroes Freddie Mercury and Steven Tyler.

Just as the band were set to conquer the rock world with their breakthrough album Apple, Wood suffered an overdose of heroin and died a few days after. While the band decided to fold, surviving members Stone Gossard and Jeff Ament ended up finding new life in Pearl Jam. Since most grunge superstars seemed incredibly uncomfortable with their own celebrity, Andy Wood could have been the bridge that people needed to transition between hair metal and grunge.