The supergroup is certainly one of the most elusive and powerful things in all of music. If done correctly it can provide one of the most transcendent feelings in the medium as bands like Cream, Led Zeppelin, and even more modern examples such as Them Crooked Vultures and Velvet Revolver have ranged from extremely popular to downright classic over the years and decades.
Another shining example is Temple of the Dog, the supergroup that featured Soundgarden and Pearl Jam members, Eddie Vedder, Chris Cornell, Matt Cameron, Stone Gossard, and Mike McCready. During a recent interview with former MTV personality Matt Pinfield on Pinfield’s ‘New and Approved’ show. Stone Gossard would discuss the Hunger Strike rehearsals before making a big statement – that he would have dropped everything to do more work with Temple of the Dog and further elaborated that he felt Temple of the Dog could have been one of the biggest bands in rock history. This bandmate of Gossard also recently broke their silence on Chris Cornell’s death. Alternative Nation transcribed the following comments.
Pinfield: With making the Temple of the Dog album, Eddie had a few rehearsals before with Hunger Strike. This is where he and Chris [Cornell] sang together and that situation. You rehearsed a few times. Tell me about that magical moment because it was unreal how there’s that story about Eddie [Vedder] in a non-egotistical way walking up to Chris [Cornell] after he saw him struggling to finish that vocal and with Hunger Strike. What was the feeling like that day?
Stone: You know, I don’t know the story about what the conversations were before Eddie [Vedder] being in that song. I had assumed that Chris [Cornell] had invited Eddie [Vedder] to come up and sing and they might have had some conversations before in terms of Chris [Cornell] not being able to finish it. So that’s news to me, but it was a blur. I mean, honestly, we made that record so fast. I came in one day and I think Ed [Vedder] had sang on it and we listened to it and went ‘wow that’s so f***ing great. Let’s do more of that, whatever that is.’ I would have dropped it all right then and just been in Temple of the Dog. Why not? Ed [Vedder] and Chris [Cornell] together could have been the greatest band of all times.
Temple of the Dog continuing to replace Pearl Jam essentially would have been Pearl Jam plus Chris Cornell, and it could have changed rock history.
