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Temple Of The Dog to mark 25th anniversary by going on first ever tour

By Andy Malt | Published on Friday 22 July 2016

Temple Of The Dog, the short-lived group formed by members of Soundgarden and Pearl Jam in 1990, are to re-issue their one album and reunite for a US tour later this year.

Temple Of The Dog were formed by Soundgarden frontman Chris Cornell to record songs he had written in tribute to Andrew Wood, the frontman of Mother Love Bone. Wood died from a drugs overdose in March 1990, days before the release of his band’s debut album.

“I was compelled to write them and there they were – written in a vacuum as a tribute to Andy”, says Cornell of the songs that sparked the project. “My thought was that maybe I could record these songs with the remaining members of Mother Love Bone and that maybe we could release them as a tribute”.

And so that is what he did. For the ‘Temple Of The Dog’ album, Cornell was joined by MLB members Jeff Ament and Stone Gossard, plus a friend of theirs, guitarist Mike McCready. They then went on to form Pearl Jam with vocalist Eddie Vedder, who also contributed to the album. Drums were handled by Soundgarden’s Matt Cameron, who later went on to join Pearl Jam also.

“Temple was about making an album simply for the joy of doing it”, continues Cornell. “We weren’t concerned what anyone outside of our group of friends would think of it. It was the first and maybe only stress-free album that we all made”.

After the album was recorded, Pearl Jam formed and began recording their debut LP, and Soundgarden started work on their third, ‘Badmotorfinger’. As a result, by the time ‘Temple Of The Dog’ was released in April 1991, the band was no longer a going concern.

“We wanted to do the one thing we never got to do – play shows and see what it feels like to be the band that we walked away from 25 years ago”, says Cornell of the reunion. “This is something no one has ever seen. We wanted to stop and recognise that we did this and pay homage”.

The repackaged album, newly mixed by Pearl Jam producer Brendan O’Brien, will be released on 30 Sep in various formats. The band will then play five shows – in Philadelphia, New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Seattle – in November. $3 from each ticket sale will be split between the Chris and Vicky Cornell Foundation and Pearl Jam’s Vitalogy Foundation.