Biography
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Born
8 January 1966
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Born In
Columbus, Lowndes County, Mississippi, United States
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Died
19 March 1990 (aged 24)
Andrew Wood was born in Columbus, Mississippi on January 8th, 1966. He was the lead singer of the band Mother Love Bone, and earlier the singer and bassist of Malfunkshun. He was 24 years old when he died of "a heroin overdose resulting in cerebral hypoxia" just a matter of days before the release of Mother Love Bone's debut album Apple, on March 19th, 1990. After moving from Dallas, Texas to Washington State, he lived on Bainbridge Island during his youth, and formed the band Malfunkshun with his brother Kevin. The only material Malfunkshun ever released was on the compilation, Deep Six (C/Z Records).
As a musician, he was known for a flamboyant on-stage personality, outlandish clothes and dreamy lyrics "which he would sing in a tenor heavily reminiscent of Led Zeppelin frontman Robert Plant." In the 1996 movie Hype!, Seattle engineer Jack Endino called Wood "the only stand-up comedian frontman in Seattle", a reference to Wood's playful style of interacting with Mother Love Bone fans.
Fellow band members Stone Gossard and Jeff Ament of Mother Love Bone went on to form Pearl Jam.
In the year following Andrew Wood's death, Gossard and Ament, as well as Chris Cornell and Matt Cameron from Soundgarden, formed the tribute supergroup Temple of the Dog. Their name was taken from lyrics from the song "Man of Golden Words" and the songs were very reminiscent of Mother Love Bone's music. Also included on Temple of the Dog's self-titled album were the other two members from Gossard and Ament's newly born band, Mookie Blaylock (later to become Pearl Jam). These members were Mike McCready, who played solo guitar for Temple of the Dog, and Eddie Vedder who sang on the song "Hunger Strike" together with Cornell.
Two of the songs on the album, both written by Cornell, are written to Wood according to the liner notes. These are "Reach Down" and the album's lead-in, "Say Hello 2 Heaven".
The Alice in Chains song "Would?," dedicated to Wood, became one of their biggest hits and appeared on their 1992 album Dirt. This song, as well as the Mother Love Bone song "Chloe Dancer/Crown of Thorns" were included in Cameron Crowe's movie Singles. "Chloe Dancer/Crown of Thorns" is also in 1989's Say Anything…, though it is not part of the movie's official soundtrack.
The song "Mr Lovedog" by Los Angeles band Faster Pussycat (from their 1992 album "Whipped!") is also a tribute to Andrew Wood. Faster Pussycat vocalist Taime Downe is a Seattle native.
In 1991, Andrew's brother Kevin Wood formed the Fire Ants with his other brother brother Brian Wood along with former Nirvana drummer Chad Channing and bassist Dan McDonald. Brian and Kevin later formed a band named Devilhead and signed with Stone Gossard's Loosegroove record label.
In 1995, Gossard released Return to Olympus, a compilation of demos recorded by Wood and Malfunkshun.
(Adapted from the Wikipedia article, "Andrew Wood (singer)).
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