10 Perfect Supergroups In Rock History
2. Temple of the Dog
The Seattle music community was almost like a big happy family. Before everyone's eyes shifted to the Northwest off the back of Nirvana, bands would be swapping members left and right, with everyone playing with each other at one point or another on the scene. While Temple of the Dog may have been the first major supergroup on the scene, they were coming together for all the right reasons.
In the wake of Andy Wood from Mother Love Bone passing away, Chris Cornell used the next few weeks following his funeral writing different tribute tracks and wanted to see if the surviving members of the band wanted to play on them. While Stone Gossard and Jeff Ament were already hard at work planting the seeds for Pearl Jam, they agreed to come together for the sessions, giving the whole album a sort of Irish wake feel as the band mourns their musical brother. Since they were also trying out new singers at the time, this is actually one of the first major records to have Eddie Vedder on vocals, playing off of Cornell perfectly on their duet Hunger Strike.
After both bands split to focus on their own projects though, Temple of the Dog became a record that would get rediscovered a few months after the fact, with fans having their minds blown hearing the sound of Stone Gossard's licks underneath Cornell's massive wail. This was never about just making money though. This was about Andy's memory, and songs like Say Hello 2 Heaven were the first steps towards healing.