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Credit: Far Out \/ Chris Cornell \/ Carl Lender<\/p>\n
Tue 7 July 2026 20:00, UK <\/p>\n
Grunge is not a movement typically associated with Queen<\/a>\u2019s brand of theatrical rock bluster.<\/p>\n In fact, the Seattle underground was supposed to be its antithesis. No glossy artifice or arena showboating to be found among the likes of Nirvana, Soundgarden, Pearl Jam, or Alice in Chains; instead, such 1990s heavyweights were set to kick the buffoonery of hair metal into touch just like punk had pulled classic rock\u2019s rug from underneath them in their youth.<\/p>\n However, many of the city\u2019s alternative peers held a high regard for the rock canon, with Aerosmith and Kiss being essential parts of grunge\u2019s DNA when slowly gestating across the 1980s. An underground name in the Seattle music scene long before Nirvana would top the Billboard 200, Soundgarden frontman Chris Cornell easily bottled Led Zeppelin\u2019s heavy psychedelia, matching their creative scope with the spirit of Robert Plant\u2019s vocal bellows during their prime.<\/p>\n Alongside Soundgarden\u2019s early tenure was a much-loved band of the pre-Nevermind grunge era, fronted by the unabashedly flamboyant Andrew Wood and forging a unique link between Queen\u2019s glam and the raw punk garage, establishing the Seattle blueprint.<\/p>\n \u201cAndy was effervescent,\u201d Cornell reflected to Rolling Stone in 2016. \u201cHe was very charismatic and funny, sort of in a prankster way, but also self-deprecating while at the same time being this larger-than-life rockstar. He acted the way I imagine Freddie Mercury did when I see documentaries about Queen\u2019s early years. In a sense, he was making his own reality.\u201d <\/p>\n \u201cIn his mind, he was already a rockstar, and he was waiting for the rest of the world to figure it out.\u201d<\/p>\n Chris Cornell<\/p>\n Cornell knew him well. Sharing an apartment together in 1988, Wood stood as one of the city\u2019s rising rockstars, having nabbed former Green River members Jeff Ament, Stone Gossard and Bruce Fairweather<\/a> for his band Mother Love Band, routinely sharing live billing with Soundgarden during their brief run.<\/p>\n What set Mother Love Bone apart was the keen embrace of the arena peacocking, seemingly so pass\u00e9 in the emerging grunge soundtrack. Wood looked the part, decked out in androgynous glamour and exuding an air of colourful theatre wholly at odds with grunge\u2019s obsessions with authenticity. Such visual arrest was matched by their sound, a thumping riff attack dwelling in the same lysergic caverns as Jane\u2019s Addiction but packed with a gleaming optimism at its core.<\/p>\n Further reading: From The Vault<\/p>\n Cornell\u2019s comparison of Wood to Mercury was apt, both taking the persona of the rockstar to the nth degree and venerating its escapist energy. Mother Love Bone would cut 1990\u2019s Apple debut, yet, tragically, Wood would succumb to his ongoing drug problems, dying of a heroin overdose at 24 years old mere weeks before the LP\u2019s release. Less than 24 months later, the Queen frontman would die from HIV\/AIDS complications, to the mourning of the rock world.<\/p>\n Cornell would form the Temple of the Dog supergroup along with Ament and Gossard just before their Pearl Jam successor took off as a tribute to the late Wood, and Alice in Chains would pen the blistering \u2018Would?\u2019 in 1992<\/a>, the lead single to Dirt, which paid tribute to the Mother Love Bone captain while also condemning the criticism he received for his fatal dabbling with heroin.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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