Alice In Chains singer/guitarist Jerry Cantrell discussed Mother Love Bone’s dissolution leading to Pearl Jam’s formation, and how Grunge bands loaned each other money in a new Gibson Icons video, as transcribed by Ultimate-Guitar.
“It was a pretty small scene. It ended up with a lot of us under the same management, with Susan Silver and Kelly Curtis. Susan managed Soundgarden, and Kelly managed Mother Love Bone – that became Pearl Jam, and they managed us together; The Trees were in the office there for a while too. We had an office right downtown; all of the bands would be in there all the time, and we’d all share the same merch guys and loan each other the same van. We all kind of pooled our resources.
If somebody had a little dough and another band didn’t, we’d kick stuff back and forth to each other. So it was a really supportive thing. We made a demo tape and we started figuring out maybe we need to start talking about management and stuff like that. We started hearing that Soundgarden was talking to a major label, and started hearing that Mother Love Bone was talking to a major label, and so we ended up, I think we were with somebody that was representing us.
It was a nice guy, but he was a criminal, and I think he had some legal issues and had to do a little time, so thankfully we never signed a contract with him, and we met Susan and Kelly right about that time. You could feel something was happening, and you knew you were a part of it. We didn’t know it was gonna turn out the way it did, I think anyone who says that is full of shit, but you knew something was happening, and you knew you were in the right place at the right time.
And everybody from LA and New York started coming to Seattle, and then Soundgarden got signed to A&M, and then Love Bone got signed, and then we got signed to Columbia before it turned to Sony, and then Nirvana got signed, and the Trees got signed, it was kind of in rapid succession. It was kind of like critical mass sort of thing, it’s like you knew something was happening, but you didn’t know exactly what it was or how big it was going to impact, and it ended up being a pretty big splash.”
Alice In Chains wrapped up their Rainier Fog tour last year, and Jerry Cantrell is currently working on a new solo album, his first record in 18 years, following up 2002’s Degradation Trip albums.
