Temple Of The Dog

Temple of the Dog originated in 1990 as a single-album endeavor meant to honor Andrew Wood, Mother Love Bone’s late frontman, who succumbed to a heroin overdose that same year. After the tragedy, Mother Love Bone disbanded, yet bassist Jeff Ament and guitarist Stone Gossard, both formerly of that group, resolved to keep collaborating. Prior to forming their next band, the pair put together Temple of the Dog, drawing in Soundgarden’s Chris Cornell on vocals and Matt Cameron on drums to establish the project’s foundation, while also enlisting then-unknown singer Eddie Vedder and guitarist Mike McCready for additional contributions.

The resulting self-titled album was tracked in 1990 and issued late that year through A&M Records. Although it earned favorable notices at the time, the record remained commercially quiet until the summer of 1992, when Pearl Jam—the band Ament, Gossard, Vedder, McCready, and drummer Dave Krusen had launched in late 1990 following completion of the Temple of the Dog sessions—achieved Top Ten success with its debut album, Ten. Capitalizing on that breakthrough, A&M reissued the Vedder-Cornell duet “Hunger Strike” as both a single and video, propelling the album onto the Top Ten and to platinum certification before year’s end.

Across the subsequent twenty years, Temple of the Dog stayed a one-time affair, save for sporadic guest appearances by Cornell performing “Hunger Strike” with Pearl Jam. Marking the album’s 25th anniversary in 2016, the group issued a double-disc deluxe reissue and mounted its inaugural tour.