TEMPLE OF THE DOG — the Seattle supergroup featuring
SOUNDGARDEN's
Chris Cornell,
PEARL JAM's
Jeff Ament,
Stone Gossard and
Mike McCready, and drummer
Matt Cameron (who plays drums with both
SOUNDGARDEN and
PEARL JAM) — has released a newly remixed version of the band's song
"Hunger Strike". Check it out below.
The new version of
"Hunger Strike" appears on the reissue of
TEMPLE OF THE DOG's self-titled debut album, which will be made available for its 25th anniversary on September 30 via
UMe. The collection, newly mixed by
Brendan O'Brien, will be available in four configurations, including a four disc Super Deluxe, a double LP, a two CD Deluxe, and a single CD.
Physical pre-orders are available along with a detailed list of the contents of each configuration
here.
As previously reported,
TEMPLE OF THE DOG has reunited and will tour for the first time ever since forming in 1990. The band will play five cities, Philadelphia, New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Seattle, in November.
TEMPLE OF THE DOG came together from the ashes of
MOTHER LOVE BONE following the death from a drug overdose of its frontman
Andrew Wood,
Cornell's close friend and roommate.
Cornell wrote future
TEMPLE OF THE DOG songs
"Say Hello 2 Heaven" and
"Reach Down" to help process his grief, "but the songs didn't have any destination," he says. "I was compelled to write them and there they were – written in a vacuum as a tribute to
Andy. My thought was that maybe I could record these songs with the remaining members of
MOTHER LOVE BONE and that maybe we could release them as a tribute."
MOTHER LOVE BONE's
Gossard and
Ament began playing with
McCready, and they brought in
SOUNDGARDEN's
Cameron to drum on demos. Because this was a collaboration, and a tribute, there was no commercial expectation for the
TEMPLE OF THE DOG album. It would be,
Gossard would later observe, "the easiest and most beautiful record that we've ever been involved with." Adds
Cornell: "
TEMPLE was about making an album simply for the joy of doing it. We weren't concerned what anyone outside of our group of friends would think of it. It was the first and maybe only stress-free album that we all made."
Gossard,
Ament and
McCready were also simultaneously forming a new band, which more than six months later would be known as
PEARL JAM. A singer from San Diego named
Eddie Vedder, who was vying to lead the project, came into the studio to sing background vocals on three of the
TEMPLE songs. When
Cornell thought another song,
"Hunger Strike", needed a duet,
Vedder was enlisted.
"Hunger Strike" became a hit single, peaking at No. 4 on Billboard's Mainstream Rock Tracks chart.
TEMPLE OF THE DOG performed live only a handful of times, most notably in Seattle, in November and December of 1990. Those shows have become some of the most legendary Seattle concerts of all-time. Their 2016 shows mark the first time the band has ever toured. (
Cornell joined
PEARL JAM in 2014 at the Bridge School show and for two nights at
PJ20 in Alpine Valley, WI, and the
TEMPLE lineup played
"Reach Down" and
"Call Me A Dog" at Seattle's Benaroya Hall in January 2015.)
"This is something no one has ever seen,"
Cornell says of the official reunion. "We wanted to stop and recognize that we did this and pay homage."