This started out as research for one article, but there was so much interesting stuff all interlinked, that it has actually turned into a three parter.
If you want to catch up on the other two parts:
Part 1 - punk bands start to spring up across various parts of California.
Part 2 - distinctive sounds and styles develop - and we see it grow, change and start to move up the west coast.
Pat Smear started out as our focal point, as he was in one of the original L.A. punk bands, The Germs, and he crops up now and again right through this journey. In this final instalment, we are now well into the 1980s and can see how the west coast scene is shifting its centre from L.A. and finding itself way up the coast in Washington state - with a new look and a new name.
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Little Monsters
Mike Ness and his band, Social Distortion, were at the forefront of the Orange County punk scene. In 1983 they got to release their first record, Mommy's Little Monster, on 13th Floor Records, owned by their manager, Monk Rock. Trouser Press would later note that the album was, "cruising on a buzz of non-stop stun guitar and Ness's smoky deadpan vocals, this catchy-as-dermatophysis punk pop is a surprisingly sophisticated product of the L.A. underground."
Social Distortion: Mommy's Little Monster (Official music video)
But nothing is ever easy in the music world, and the band is soon thrown off course by Ness's major heroin addiction, which causes them to take an enforced hiatus through the mid-80s (during which time Ness spends time in rehab and jail). This early stuff would have an influence further down the line though - with a whole new generation of 90s California punks, like Offspring and Rancid, taking their musical cues from it.
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With Unicorn Records going bankrupt, Black Flag were now freed from their injunction, caused by a dispute that had arisen around the distribution of their album Damaged, which had prevented the band from recording under their own name for a lengthy period (although they had released a compilation in the meantime, Everything Went Black, credited to the individual performers, rather than the band).
They were still without a bass player, since Chuck Dukowski's departure, but they were keen to get on and record something, so guitarist Greg Ginn handled that duty too in the studio (using the name Dale Nixon) during the recording of My War. Recording done, they brought in Kira Roessler (whose brother Paul was also in bands on the scene) on bass, and would see them hit overdrive.
My War was in fact the first of three LPs Black Flag recorded and released in 1984 (with Family Man and Slip It In). It wasn't to everyone's liking though, as they had slowed things down a bit from their hardcore beginnings, and introduced a slower heavy rock sound. Ginn, the principle songwriter, was leaning heavily on cannabis, and was getting influenced by the psychedelic rock of people like Jimi Hendrix. This all became a pointer towards the grunge sound that would emerge later in the decade. Somehow they would also fit in something like 350 live shows across 1984 and 1985.
Black Flag: The Swinging Man (Audio only)
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Circle Jerks got one of their songs, Coup d'État, used in the 1984 film Repo Man (Harry Dean Stanton and Emilio Estevez). They even got to appear in it too, playing an acoustic version of another of their songs, When The Shit Hits The Fan - they were playing as a cheesy lounge band and the version in the film is almost unrecognisable from that on 1983s Golden Shower Of Hits (which also contains Coup d'État).
By the time they got their movie role, Lucky Lehrer had parted ways with them, in order to study a law degree. Lehrer's shoes would be hard ones to fill, with his drumming style once described - "[Lucky] essentially played jazz drums at Motorhead tempos." John Ingram had then come in on drums for the Golden Shower album, but he was soon gone too, and was replaced by Chuck Biscuits (Charles Montgomery), who had also briefly been a member of Black Flag.
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Nothing much had changed for the Gun Club, in that everything continually changed. Back from their almost calamitous tour of Australia in late 1983, where Jim Duckworth and Terry Graham had refused to board the plane. Now, back in the States, Graham returned to the line-up, as did Kid Congo Powers, who no longer with The Cramps, had flown out to Australia at the last minute to help his old band out.
This new line up - of Graham (drums), Powers (guitar), Patricia Morrison (bass) and band leader Jeffrey Lee Pierce - recorded their third album, The Las Vegas Story, in 1984. The record marked a shift away from their punk roots and more into alternative rock. It would as ever, not last long, and in 1985 the Gun Club split for the first time.
The Gun Club: Moonlight Motel (Live on The Tube, 1984)
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San Pedro's Minutemen brought the world Double Nickels On The Dime in 1984, a double album considered to be one of the most innovative records ever released in the American underground scene. The title was a cheeky swipe at Sammy Hagar's I Can't Drive 55, a moan about the then new 55 mph federal highway speed limit. They thought this was pretty lame and that writing crazy music was better than driving too fast. Double Nickels = 55, and the Dime being a nickname for Interstate 5, the freeway that runs close to San Pedro. The story also goes that the record only became a double when they found out that SST labelmates Hüsker Dü had recorded a double (Zen Arcade), so they furiously wrote more songs to compete.
Each of the three members compiled a side each, with the last one being a mixed bag of contributions by friends like Henry Rollins. It brought together all of the disparate styles that they had become noted for, fusing punk, funk and jazz into what Michael Azerrad called, "one of the greatest achievements of the indie era... Whitman's sampler of left-wing politics, moving autobiographical vignette's and twisted Beefheartian twang."
Minutemen: This Ain't No Picnic (Music video)
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Another of the original L.A. gang, X, had also started to veer away from those hardcore punk roots and develop their own style. By 1982 they had signed with Elektra, and their third album, Under The Big Black Sun they had added in some more country leanings.
But by 1985, the band was craving something more - commercial success! So they brought in pop-metal guru Michael Wagener, who had worked on hair rock bands like Warrant and Skid Row. Ain't Love Grand! was the result, a countrified hard rock record, that even included a cover of the Small Faces All Or Nothing. Soon after, guitarist Billy Zoom left - although he would rejoin them much later on.
X: Burning House Of Love (Official music video)
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The Seattle sound is developing:
Melvins had formed in Montesano, Washington, in 1983, and as noted in the last part, would turn out to be one of the key pivots as west coast punk started to morph into what would become known as grunge (with elements of sludge metal).
They had made their sound slow and heavy, and in 1986 put out the Six Songs EP on C/Z Records (a Seattle punk label), which had been recorded live to a 2-track machine. Then, in 1987, they followed this with their debut album Gluey Porch Treatments - one of the earliest of these sludge metal records, which Dave Grohl would later describe as being heavier and better than Black Sabbath.
Melvins: Heaviness Of The Load (Audio only - proper slow and heavy)
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The earliest version of Soundgarden was also up and running by 1984, with Chris Cornell starting out as drummer and singer, Hiro Yamamoto on bass and Kim Thayil on guitar. The following year, they recruited Scott Sundquist to drum, so that Cornell could focus on his singing. Sundquist wanted to spend time with his family and so was replaced by Matt Cameron in 1986, who came in from local scene rivals Skid Yard.
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Melvins drummer Dale Crover was enlisted, in January 1988, to sit in on a demo session for another local up and coming band. He would use the pseudonym Ted Ed Fred for the ten track recording, with many of these tracks ultimately ending up on the album Bleach. The band was, of course, Nirvana. Interestingly, it was also Melvins singer Buzz Osbourne who introduced Kurt Cobain and Krist Novoselic to their future drummer Dave Grohl (who would replace Chad Channing in time for Nevermind).
The Melvins decided to re-locate from Washington state down to San Francisco, but bassist Matt Lukin decided to stay put in Seattle. He would go on to form another vital cog in the grunge scene, Mudhoney, with Mark Arm, Steve Turner and Dan Peters. He was replaced in Melvins by Lori 'Lorax' Black, who somewhat incredibly is the daughter of Shirley Temple!
Mudhoney: Touch Me I'm Sick (Official music video)
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Meanwhile, Soundgarden put out Ultramega OK on SST Records (owned by members of Black Flag), described as the "Stooges / MC5 meets Zeppelin / Sabbath". Unfortunately, it seems that the SST production guys "didn't understand what was happening in Seattle." Although this meant that the band weren't all that happy with the end production, it is still regarded as one of the best documents of the pre-Nirvana grunge scene.
Soundgarden: Flower (Official video, from their debut)
A lot of their early work was released through the Sub Pop label, and in fact are the main reason for its existence, as it was the DJ Jonathan Poneman who put up up money to release some of the Soundgarden stuff, creating the label in doing so. They would become the label most associated with the scene, and with Kurt Cobain being a fan of Soundgarden, that was key to getting Nirvana to sign with them. They were also, per guitarist Jerry Cantrell, a massive influence on another big future band, Alice In Chains.
In 1990, they moved from SST to major label A&M, something that didn't necessarily go down well with their fans - not a punk thing to do. They then put out Louder Than Love, which saw them move more towards the metal end of the spectrum.
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Grunge?
The term grunge, to represent the music that came out of the Seattle area from the late 1980s into the mid-90s, has become an everyday phrase to describe the music, the bands, the fans and the scene in general. But where did it come from, and more importantly, did the bands involved like the term?
While the everyday meaning of the word is for something somewhat dirty and disgusting, it seems it was first coined in the musical context back in 1987. Bruce Pavitt of Sub Pop Records (the label synonymous with the scene) described the Dry As A Bone EP by Green River in a catalogue as containing "ultra-loose grunge that destroyed the morals of a generation." Kurt Cobain though, would later cite Sub Pop boss Jonathan Poneman as being the originator.
Whatever its origins, the word soon became more of a marketing ploy for the scene, and to quickly answer part two of the question - the bands for the most part hated it, and at best, were indifferent!
Cobain despised its use and felt it was a way to bring in bands from outside and label them as something they weren't. Bands like Soundgarden, Pearl Jam and Alice In Chains have all distanced themselves from the word, preferring to be just rock n roll bands, or similar. Aside from anything else, whilst there might have been a lot of plaid shirts, most of the music being produced had very little in common with each other, sound-wise, beyond originating from similar roots - Pearl Jam sounded very little like Nirvana.
Whatever happened to...?
There has been a lot of musical water under the bridge since the decadent days of 1978 Los Angeles. So what happened to these key players we have been talking about, since then?
Germs:
As we know, the Germs pretty much died with Darby Crash in 1980.
Germs: The Other Newest One (Live and predictably messy)
However, bassist Lorna Doom did play when they briefly reformed with actor Shane West, who played Crash in the movie What We Do Is Secret.
Drummer for two weeks, Dottie Danger, reverted back to plain old Belinda Carlisle and formed pop-punk band the Go Go's, had several massive hits with them, before a very successful solo career.
Don Bolles played with several other local punk bands, perhaps most notably 45 Grave.
We'll talk more on Pat Smear later.
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X:
X came back in 1993 with Hey Zeus! which was less rootsy and more akin to the alt-rock sound of the day. They went back on hiatus from 1997 to 2004, when they returned to frequent touring of the US. Another album, Alphabetland came in 2020 and then in August 2024 came Smoke & Fiction, revealed to be their final LP.
X: Big Black X (Official music video - nice bit of rock n roll from their last album)
John Doe also formed a folk-rockabilly band called The Knitters, with fellow X'ers Exene Cervenka and DJ Bonebrake, along with Dave Alvin of The Blasters and Jonny Ray Bartel of The Red Devils. He has recorded solo and collaborated with people like Aimee Mann, Eddie Vedder and Dan Auerbach. He has also acted a lot, including on film as Jerry Lee Lewis's cousin / father-in-law JW Brown in Great Balls Of Fire! and on tv in shows like Law & Order and Roswell. He was married to Cervenka from 1980 to 1985, but remarried in 1987.
Exene Cervenka released a series of books with Lydia Lunch in the 80s, and co-owned a kitsch novelty store in L.A. in the late 90s. She has also worked as an artist in mixed media, with shows around the country. As well as being married to Doe, she was also married to actor Viggo Mortenson (with whom she has a child) and musician Jason Edge. She was also diagnosed with MS in 2009, but several times since it has been claimed that she had been mis-diagnosed.
As well as X and the Knitters, DJ Bonebrake was also briefly in the Germs and the Flesh Eaters. He joined Devil's Brigade in 2010, a side project of Rancid's bassist Matt Freeman. He also runs two jazz bands - the Bonebrake Syncopators, who play a swing style, and Orchestra Superstring who play Afro-Cuban and Latin jazz.
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Adolescents:
Having first split in 1981, the Adolescents reformed in 1986, although first Frank Agnew and then Casey Royer left soon after. With that last departure, their sound changed as Royer had played a distinctive surf beat when drumming. There were two albums in the late 80s - Brats In Battalions and Balboa Fun*Zone, before another break in 1990. They reunited in 2001 and have played with various line-ups ever since.
Adolescents: Brats In Battalions (Audio only)
Founding bassist, Steve Soto, died in 2018. They have released eleven studio albums over the years, the most recent being Caesar Salad Days in 2023.
Alternative Press magazine talked of how the Adolescents "created a brutal, turbo-charged pop attack with a generous helping of metal's Marshall bombast."
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Social Distortion:
1988 LP Prison Bound, saw Social Distortion add some country flavour to their hardcore punk, making them at the forefront of what is known as Cow-Punk (kind of rockabilly meets punk). They then got a major label deal with Epic, and the self-titled 1990 album saw them break into the US Top200 for the first time.
Founder, guitarist and singer-songwriter, Mike Ness, remains the only ever-present member and they are still touring the world (see you in April guys!).
Social Distortion: Ball And Chain (Official music video)
Alternative Press summed up the reason for the success, and perhaps longevity - "As hardcore raged around them.... Social Distortion held fast to 1977 punk basics, rooted in 50s rock n roll, old-school country and glam of the Dolls / Bowie variety."
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Dead Kennedys:
Their sound continued to get more furious and the lyrics even more pointedly socio-political, as they moved towards the mid-80s. Then more controversy struck them when they got in trouble for their 1985 album Frankenchrist. It wasn't for the name, or even any of the music, but for the abstract work of art they included as an insert - Landscape # XX (a.k.a. Penis Landscape) by noted Swiss artist H.R. Giger, which was considered vulgar. The band were accused of distributing harmful matter to minors, and although they were acquitted, their label (which they ran) Alternative Tentacles was almost driven to bankruptcy - only saved by their fans contributions.
The band had become increasingly disillusioned with the scene and split in 1986, going onto solo projects. Then in the 1990s, East Bay Ray, Klaus Fluoride and D.H. Peligro sued Alternative Tentacles and singer Jello Biafra for underpaying them royalties. Biafra lost and the others also gained the rights to the back catalogue. The tension has never gone away, a hoped for reunion was spurned by Biafra, and the rest of them hired a new singer (Brandon Cruz, followed by Jeff Penalty and now Ron Greer) and went back out on the road.
Dead Kennedys: MTV Get Off The Air (Live in San Francisco, 1984)
Jello Biafra went on to do spoken word tours, with the same mix of politics and twisted humour. He has continued to record music too, generally in collaboration with a wide range of other artists - there was Lard, which he formed with Al Jourgensen and Paul Barker of Ministry, work with Canadian punks Nomeansno, a union as Jello Biafra and the Melvins and the ongoing project, Jello Biafra and the Guantanamo School Of Medicine.
D.H. Peligro died in 2022 after a fall at his house.
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Minutemen:
The Minutemen seemed to be ending 1985 on a high. They finished an east coast tour on 13 December, supporting R.E.M., and decided to take a break. On 22 December, singer and guitarist D. Boon was driving through Arizona on I-10 with girlfriend Linda Kite. Kite was driving while Boon, who was pretty sick, lay on the back seat unrestrained. The van suffered a broken rear axle and veered off the road, ejecting Boon and killing him instantly.
Pitchfork, in their 9.5 review of Double Nickels, got to the essence of what made Minutemen so interesting and different to the pack, and so great - "Yet as compact as they were, Minutemen songs sounded nothing like hardcore punk. Boon’s guitar was scratchy and wiry; Watt’s bass was busy and melodic; Hurley’s drumming was polyrhythmic and syncopated. Some tracks were like fractured jazz, some like moody folk, some like off-speed funk. They weren’t interested in pure volume or aggression; what drew the trio to punk was the chance to play anything they wanted."
Their influence is long-lasting, even though themselves are not on many people's radars. Red Hot Chili Peppers dedicated their album Blood Sugar Sex Magik to Mike Watt, indie legends Pavement took their name from a line in the song Fake Contest. Meanwhile, Unwound and Sebadoh have both recorded Minutemen covers, and Jeff Tweedy wrote the song D. Boon for Uncle Tupelo's debut album, No Depression. And if nothing else, many will know them without knowing it - as the instrumental track of Corona was the theme tune to MTV show Jackass.
Minutemen: King Of The Hill (Official music video)
Neither Mike Watt nor George Hurley particularly wanted to continue with music after that. But, first Thurston Moore got Watt to hang out with Sonic Youth and provide some bass for their Evol album. Then Minutemen fan Ed Crawford drove to California and persuaded Watt and Hurley to start a band - this became Firehose.
Hurley has produced records for several others and occasionally still plays gigs with Watt.
Watt is permanently active. He formed the unusual all bass guitar duo Dos, with his then wife Kira Roessler (Black Flag), which continued even after they split up. His solo album Ball-Hog Or Tugboat? contained a veritable who's who of guest personnel - Dave Grohl, Eddie Vedder, Mark Lanegan, Thurston Moore, Lee Ranaldo and Evan Dando, to name a few. There was also a guest spot with The Stooges and umpteen collaborations, including the ongoing mssv, with guitarist Mike Bagetta and top session drummer Jim Keltner.
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Black Flag:
The standard mixture of tension, constant touring and frequent line-up changes, saw 1986s In My Head become the sixth, and final, Black Flag record. Not long after a gig in Detroit, Greg Ginn called Henry Rollins and said he'd had enough, and since it was his band - that was the end of it.
Black Flag: Armageddon Man (Audio only)
And that was it, for 25 years at least, except for a few partial reunions with various line-ups, such as for a benefit for a cat charity in 2003, and for Ron Reyes 50th birthday in 2010.
Then in 2013, the band officially reformed, with Ginn, Reyes, Gregory Moore on drums - and then after seventh album What If... was released, they were joined by Dave Klein for touring (Ginn handled bass again on the record). They have toured and recorded sporadically since then, with several line-up changes along the way.
Chuck Dukowski had quit in 1983, but continued as the bands manager. He later reformed his old band, Wurm, and later created the Chuck Dukwoski Sextet, which included his wife Lora and son Milo.
Dez Cadena has sung with Guns n Roses' Duff McKagen's solo band and then joined the Misfits for their 25th anniversary tour (2001). He stayed with them until 2015, and in that same year revealed that he was battling cancer. Since 2017, he has been with Jon Caspi & The First Gun.
Henry Rollins formed the Henry Rollins Band that recorded and toured between 1987 and 2003, and again in 2006. He has also done numerous spoken word tours, worked on radio and also acted in tv shows like season two of Sons Of Anarchy and films like The Chase (with Charlie Sheen).
Alternative Press magazine would sum up their contribution - "these Hermosa Beach intellectual bruisers welded the heaviest metal to avant-jazz noisy atonality." They were a big key to the development of stoner-rock (like Kyuss, featuring a young Josh Homme) and sludge metal.
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Circle Jerks:
Circle Jerks first broke up in 1987 following their fifth album (amusingly called VI), allowing Greg Hetson to focus on his work with Bad Religion. They reformed in 1994, releasing another record before splitting again. There was another decade of sporadic touring from 2001, and after another hiatus, a reunion in late 2019 to prepare for celebrations of 40 years since debut album, Group Sex (1980). They have toured since the Covid pandemic, largely with the Descendents.
Circle Jerks: Coup d'Etat (Audio only)
Keith Morris had joined Circle Jerks from Black Flag, and after the former's first split, formed the band Off!, and has also had spells with Bug Lamp and Midget Handjob. After many years of drug and alcohol addiction, Morris has been sober since 1988.
Greg Hetson had joined from Redd Kross, and also played simultaneously in Bad Religion until Circle Jerks split in 1987. He continued with them through to 2014. He plays with the reformed Jerks and also plays in the punk all-star band, Punk Rock Karaoke, which includes a rotating cast of members including Steve Soto of the Adolescents and Stan Lee of the Dickies.
Lucky Lehrer drummed with Circle Jerks and a number of other L.A. punk bands in the early 80s. He has also taught drums, with several students going onto work professionally, such as Pete Finestone of Bad Religion.
Chuck Biscuits drummed with D.O.A. and briefly with Black Flag, before his stint with Circle Jerks. He then put in seven years with Danzig (1987-1994), and then had a three year spell in the late 90s with Social Distortion. in 2009, a blogger falsely claimed that Biscuits had died of throat cancer, but as far as we know, he's still with us today.
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The Gun Club:
After we left them earlier, things continued much the same, frequent line-up changes and an increasingly erratic Jeffrey Lee Pierce. There were three more albums - Mother Juno (1987), Pastoral Hide & Seek (1990) and Lucky Jim (1993). Things were falling apart and Pierce was getting sicker. He managed a few shows in 1995, the last being in Hollywood the week before Christmas. In March 1996, Pierce was found unconscious at his father's Salt Lake City home. He was in a coma following a brain haemorrhage for six days before dying.
Despite the constant upheaval and turmoil that engulfed the band on a seemingly daily basis, and the ultimately sad ending, they were fronted by a true enigma, who never quite got the recognition (outside the music world) he possibly deserved. Alternative Press (again) - "Centred around the drunken shaman power of singer Jeffrey Lee Pierce... they heeded the call of the blues, turning it into a razor-sharp weapon you could dance to." They added, "[Pierce] was one of the songwriters recreating punk as a wounded, literate bohemian screech."
The Gun Club: A House Is Not A Home (Audio only - from the last LP, Lucky Jim)
You can tell why the Gun Club quickly moved away from their hardcore roots, as Far Out notes, "In his early adulthood, Pierce travelled a lot, including to Jamaica, and it was here that he developed a strong love for reggae. In addition, Pierce played Americana and roots music and had an affinity for delta and Chicago blues artists." Although he was never commercially successful, they note that his part in the establishment of blues-punk was crucial for the likes of the White Stripes, The Black Keys and Black Rebel Motorcycle Club.
Kid Congo Powers had a spell with The Cramps, and then a long stint with Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds. After Pierce's death, he had a cabaret-rock band called Congo Norvell with Sally Norvell, before forming his own rockabilly band, The Pink Monkey Birds. (If you have enjoyed reading all about this scene, his book, Some New Kind Of Kick, is an excellent insight into the sights, sounds and smells).
Rob Graves had played with the Bags, 45 Grave and Thelonius Monster amongst others, but he died of a heroin overdose in 1990. Courtney Love dedicated Hole's Pretty On The Inside to him.
Patricia Morrison had been with the Bags in the early 80s, marrying Rob Morrison of Catholic Discipline (where she gained her last name). She played with the Gun Club from 1982 to late 1984. Finding herself in London the following year, she hooked up with Powers in the short-lived Fur Bible, before accepting an offer to join the Sisters Of Mercy. She left in 1989 stating that she was owed money. In 1994, she replaced Paul Gray in one of her favourite bands, The Damned. She also married lead singer, Dave Vanian. In 2005, with a young child in the picture, she retired from the band.
Nick Sanderson was born in Sheffield and played on the local post-punk scene before getting the gig with the Gun Club. After that he had periods with World Of Twist and Earl Brutus, and also a brief spell with the Jesus & Mary Chain. He had married Remi Mori, who he had met while in the Gun Club (and who had been in a relationship with Pierce prior to her leaving), and they had a son together. When none of his music ventures panned out, he ended up as a train driver in Sussex, before succumbing to lung cancer in 2008.
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Melvins:
They relocated to California from Seattle, recording Ozma (1989) and then the slower, drone-like Bullhead (1990), including Lori Black on bass. They got a major label three album deal with Atlantic Records, Lorax was replaced by Joe Preston and then Mark Deutrom. After Atlantic, they got increasingly experimental with their output, including adding a second drummer.
Over the years they have collaborated with other artists including Jello Biafra (Dead Kennedys) and Adam Jones (Tool). They continue to this day with Buzz Osborne and Dale Crover, and have released 27 albums, most recently Tarantula Heart in February 2024.
Over the years, they have added many influences to the original hardcore sound, including at the experimental end of electro avant-garde and ambient metal, making them at the leading edge of what became known as Sludge Metal. They are an undeniable key pivot between that hardcore punk and the scene that would grow in the Pacific Northwest (which we won't call grunge), paving the way for the likes of Nirvana and Soundgarden.
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Soundgarden:
Soundgarden started the 1990s with a new bass player, Ben Shepherd, which seemed to give them a big push forward. They entered their successful phase, with Badmotorfinger (1991), leading to support slots with both Guns n Roses and Skid Row. Then they really hit the big time with 1994s Superunknown, which included Black Hole Sun and Spoonman. But the grind eventually wore them down and they split in 1997.
Soundgarden: Fell On Black Days (Official music video)
Initially lead singer Chris Cornell went solo, and then joined mini-super group Audioslave with Tom Morello, Tim Commerford and Brad Wilk from Rage Against The Machine. They had three albums between 2001 and 2007, before breaking up - and Cornell went back to solo life.
Kim Thayil contributed to other people's records, including stuff by Dave Grohl and Steve Fisk.
Matt Cameron started a side project called Wellwater Conspiracy, also including Shepherd. Did some work on the 1998 Smashing Pumpkins album Adore before joining Pearl Jam on their Yield tour - and has been with them ever since.
Hiro Yamamoto, having left in 1989, formed Truly with Mark Pickerel of Screaming Trees and Robert Roth, and then the surf rock band Stereo Donkey.
In 2010, Soundgarden returned. They toured a lot and then finally released a new album, King Animal, at the end of 2012. There was work on a new album, with a number of songs written. Cameron was recording with them but not touring, owing to his Pearl Jam commitments. But Cornell's suicide in a Detroit hotel room in May 2017, ended the band.
In December 2024, Soundgarden performed at a benefit for Seattle Children's Hospital using the anagram Nudedragons, and featuring Shaina Shepherd on vocals.
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Pat Smear:
Well he started this whole three part exercise off, so we couldn't finish it off without catching up with the main man.
We had seen him in the Germs, the short-lived spin-off Darby Crash Band, and briefly in the Adolescents. In 1981, he was also in Twisted Roots with ex-Screamers Paul and Kira Roessler. He then went solo, putting out the album Ruthensmear (a mash up of his real name Ruthenberg and his adopted stage name) in 1987, which included a contribution from Paul Roessler. This included a song, Golden Boys, originally written by his old friend and bandmate, the late Darby Crash. This was followed five years later by So You Fell In Love With A Musician (1992), which Trouser Press would charmingly describe as having, "a crummy, ass-backwards sort of charm."
He also had a number of bit-part acting jobs, including parts in CHiPs and Quincy MD, and films like Blade Runner and Howard The Duck.
In 1992, he guested with Hole on their cover of Circle One, a song originally by his old band, the Germs. The next year he was asked to join Nirvana as their touring second guitarist. Following the death of Kurt Cobain, he played and toured with Mike Watt for his solo record Ball-Hog or Tugboat? (some of the dates also included Dave Grohl and Eddie Vedder in the backing band). He was then invited to join Grohl's fledgling band, the Foo Fighters, who he stayed with until 1997.
He was creative consultant on the film version of the Germs story, What We Do Is Secret, in 2007, before doing some shows as the Germs, with Darby Crash actor Shane West filling in the lead vocal duties. He has been back with the Foo Fighters since 2005.
(Nirvana) - Smear was asked to join for their In Utero tour in the fall of 1993, with his first appearance being on Saturday Night Live that September. When Grohl found out that Smear was joining he apparently remarked, "That guy's still alive?" But Smear had been friends with Cobain's partner Courtney Love since the mid-80s, so he was always on Cobain's radar.
Grohl would later recount to Rolling Stone, "I expected him to be this bitter old junkie from the crazy SST scene. But it was 180 degree the other direction. I felt like he saved the band when he started playing with Nirvana. He walked into the room and it just lit up, and Nirvana practices never lit up like that."
We finish with Nirvana from late 1993, live in Seattle - including Pat Smear!
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