Blind Melon - Prisoners of a Song

Drowned out amid the flood of anniversaries that we invariably see celebrated in the pages of this or that magazine, especially online, this year marks a twentieth anniversary that's bound to pass largely unnoticed, yet it offers a valuable opportunity to rediscover a band that was among the most misunderstood and trivialized of the Nineties, still awaiting the proper reappraisal it deserves. If 1994, the year of "premature musical obituaries," belongs without question to Kurt Cobain, if 1996 is remembered for the violent death of Tupac Shakur, and 1997 for Jeff Buckley's fatal swim in the Wolf River, then the rock star who most defined this grim roll call in 1995 was, in all likelihood, the guitarist of the then-thrilling Manic Street Preachers, Richey Edwards, who vanished into a black hole on February 1 of that year and was never seen again. In those same months, other rockers who had, by then, earned at least a sliver of visibility died in equally tragic, if less mysterious, circumstances, circumstances that fate seemed intent on consigning to near-instant oblivion. In September, the singer and bassist of the promising alt-rock act For Squirrels were killed in a horrific van crash, while a month later, with rather less originality, the frontman of Blind Melon, Shannon Hoon, succumbed as well, a cocaine overdose according to the coroner's report. Yet when it comes to Hoon, it makes more sense to speak in the conditional than in the past tense. Letting oneself be seduced by the glossy surface of his story, the arc of the beautiful, doomed rock star whose ending was already written, is a satisfaction suited to fatalists but of dubious critical value. The complicated personality (suspected bipolar disorder) that inhabits his songs, and the unmistakable light tenor of his voice, demand a deeper look. The scant body of work he recorded with his bandmates speaks of a genuinely extraordinary talent, at least for the time, of a young man who, with a different head on his shoulders and a bit more discipline, might have become a small generational hero.

The misunderstanding

Shannon instead died foolishly, during a tour stop with his band in New Orleans, at perhaps the best moment of his career, with the added irony of missing by a scant month the deadline for induction into the exclusive club of rock celebrities who die at twenty-seven (Hendrix, Morrison, Joplin, Brian Jones, Cobain, and the aforementioned Edwards, albeit with his own big question mark). In his favor he had an already more than decent level of popularity, especially in the United States, a precious evolutionary opportunism, distancing himself from the now-dying grunge bandwagon and reinventing himself as an apostle of indie-rock avant la lettre, with the bonus of an unforced roots pedigree still waiting to be fully spent, and, at home, as if that weren't enough, a newborn daughter to return to once the amplifiers were switched off. Nico Blue, the baby girl, was instead left fatherless, and it's hard to imagine she ever felt in any way compensated for that loss by the fact that she had unwittingly lent her given name to her father's band's third album, actually a collection of outtakes and demos, released posthumously a few months after her father's death.

Blind Melon had emerged from the alternative underground almost by accident, swept up by a generous hand, thanks really to their honey-colored Johnson's Baby-style long hair and flannel checked shirts, onto one of the rear carriages of the Seattle express, even though they had all moved to Los Angeles, some from Mississippi, some from Pennsylvania, and one, the frontman, from Indiana. Their start had been shaky, with an EP ready for release that was then inexplicably scrapped, but things began to turn around thanks to Hoon and an old acquaintance of his from his hometown of Lafayette: Axl Rose. The leader of Guns N' Roses, then riding high with their multi-platinum hard rock, invited his younger colleague to lend his voice to the backing vocals on five tracks across the two volumes of the hugely successful "Use Your Illusion," including the massive hits "Don't Cry" and "November Rain". It proved an excellent publicity boost for the group, who were subsequently called on to open not only for the Californian superstars but also, on the "Badmotorfinger" tour, for one of the leading acts of the grunge scene, Soundgarden. The double endorsement would soon bear fruit, landing the quintet a deal with Capitol and the services of a young but already acclaimed producer, Rick Parashar, who had worked with Chris Cornell on the sole album credited to Temple Of The Dog, just two years before scoring a massive hit with "Ten" by Pearl Jam.

At that point, given those associations, comparisons to the Seattle scene were inevitable, forced as they may have been, but they amounted to something like a divine blessing for these promising small-town newcomers. The eponymous album that resulted fit the genre only loosely, favoring less abrasive sounds and a much stronger melodic streak, with nods to late-Sixties West Coast psychedelia and oddball funk impulses entirely foreign to the DNA of acts like Mudhoney, Nirvana or Alice In Chains, closer instead to a (tamer) late-adolescent version of Jane's Addiction.

Although Hoon's lyrics often dwelt on themes of ruin and unease, very much in vogue at the time, Blind Melon's music came across as far more carefree and effervescent than much of the period's other output: two fast, spicy, tightly interlocking guitars, a rhythm section that was earthy but never clumsy, recordings captured live with minimal post-production polish, and then Shannon's tart, incisive vocals, compared by many (not unreasonably) to Janis Joplin's, often amplified in the mix by his own backing harmonies, functioning almost as an extra instrument in the band's arsenal. For a few months sales remained modest, but the breakthrough came when MTV put the video for "No Rain," with its (thoroughly annoying) bee-girl, into heavy rotation. You might remember it too: in the spring of '93 that video caused a sensation and threw open the doors of success to the quintet, too soon, evidently, for their fragile frontman, even though he could still work wonders with that wonderfully genuine voice. With hindsight, that song would prove to be a prison, unfairly relegating them forever, in the public imagination, to the ranks of (mostly insipid) one-hit wonders of the era.

For younger listeners not especially captivated by tortured poses or maudit posturing, there were plenty of reasons, aesthetic as much as sonic, to be drawn in, to be swept away by the luminous appeal of this gang of (seemingly) neo-hippies and by their evident sense of unity, the same unity suggested in the liner notes' telling credit, "All songs written by Blind Melon as One," as if they were some budding version of R.E.M.. In hindsight, that approach paid off far more than it did for other similar acts of the time who, aside from the inevitable hit single, peddled filler in bulk. Beneath its crisp crust, Blind Melon actually had real substance too, a solid dozen fine songs, not exactly groundbreaking but full-blooded enough, performed by a handful of young musicians with the right motivations and the necessary sincerity. In the end, it amounted to a kind of concept record about the dark, painful sides of adolescence, made vibrant by the honesty of its intimate perspective, like a coming-of-age novel written in diary form by Hoon's sensitive pen.

Aside from the blatant populism of "No Rain," paradoxically perhaps the least inspired track on the record, several other small gems rank among the best of the band's output, holding their own against plenty of the era's Billboard hits in their category: the electro-acoustic gem "Change," the frenzied "Deserted," "Time" and "I Wonder" in particular, not to mention the psychedelic detour of "Sleepyhouse," featuring the sarangi of the great Ustad Sabri Khan. Not free of the naivety born of enthusiasm and bravado, the album stood out as a curious middle ground between the rule-breaking instincts of the Washington State scene and a more clearly traditionalist roots rock, a savvy college-rock sound with faint Southern inflections (the lead guitarist, bassist and drummer were, as mentioned, originally from Mississippi), occupying a stylistic niche that was at the time still relatively uncrowded (Soul Asylum aside) but would soon be besieged, in the States and elsewhere, by the likes of the more theatrical Live, Seven Mary Three, Collective Soul, Candlebox, the aforementioned For Squirrels, Lilys, and even Wannadies and the post-Cobain-infatuation Silverchair.

The dream

With over four million copies sold of their self-titled debut, Blind Melon had hit it big. What followed was a two-year stretch of relentless touring and consolidation, always in the shadow of far more established acts: an important formative experience, spent sharing the stage with the Lenny Kravitz of "Are You Gonna Go My Way", the Neil Young of "Sleep With Angels", the Rolling Stones of "Voodoo Lounge" and then, like brothers, with the Smashing Pumpkins of "Siamese Dream", Red Red Meat and Porno For Pyros.

The real trouble started around that time, with an arrest for indecent exposure (for urinating on a fan during a concert in Vancouver) and at least a couple of stints in drug rehab for the singer, who came out looking transformed even physically: gone were the long, straight blond locks, replaced by far more drastic haircuts, and inescapable live appearances marked by unsettling visual choices, above all the heavy panda-eye makeup ringing his eyes (a bit like Richey Edwards — him again! — around the same period). Rather unsettling, in that sense, was the band's appearance at the 25th-anniversary Woodstock festival in August 1994. Unsettling but memorable, precisely because of — and at the same time thanks to — a dazed Hoon, visibly tripping on acid, who showed up in front of the crowd with a shredded voice, in an absurd outfit (white tunic and sneakers, hair decked out with colorful clips), delivering a performance that was anything but lucid yet deeply moving for the visceral intensity and fragility it reflected: a clear warning sign, at least in hindsight, that evidently few picked up on at the time. The quintet's manager would try, urging Shannon to see a psychologist, who was however let go soon after, given his inability to resolve the frontman's chronic addiction issues.

Turbulence aside, it was a feverishly creative period for the band, who relocated to New Orleans to record, at Daniel Lanois's Kingsway Studio, a sophomore album that was inevitably much anticipated. Predictably, the Melons could have simply rehashed the formula of their successful predecessor without facing any backlash, and indeed could have further cemented their alliance with radio and TV networks (a telling case being their off-the-cuff cover of "Three Is A Magic Number", from the "Schoolhouse Rock!" series, later licensed for the soundtracks of a string of dumb rom-coms like "Never Been Kissed" and "You, Me and Dupree"). Instead they decided, with real courage, to go in an entirely different direction, even though the gamble wouldn't pay off. They brought in Andy Wallace, who had already produced Rollins Band, Bad Religion and Faith No More, and who had just come off working with Jeff Buckley on the unforgettable "Grace", and they rejected every directive from Capitol's emissaries, effectively alienating the label. Evidently stirred awake by Louisiana's cultural climate, the Southern roots of Roger Stevens, Brad Smith and Glen Graham gave the new songs an even more earthy, full-blooded flavor, while at the same time letting loose the frontman's unhinged verve. With Cobain dead and buried for a year or so, and the California punk-pop of Green Day, Offspring and Rancid being hyped as the new fake-alternative phenomenon in place of the overused grunge ghosts, Blind Melon chose to definitively disown that long-resented association and reinvent themselves through a radical expressive freedom and a particularly heartfelt revivalist streak.

Blazing hybrids of hard-rock and funk borrowed from their friend Perry Farrell ("2x4"), rough, aching acid-rock crowded with ghosts (like that of Jackie Onassis in "Dumptruck") or dressed up in easy-listening clothes not without its own undercurrent of unease ("Galaxie"), confessions of a dangerous mind (serial killer Ed Gein) penned with black humor and Appalachian folk ease ("Skinned"), bluesy guts ("Wilt"), radiant alt-country elegies ("Vernie", "Walk"), catatonic Zeppelin-esque tableaux ("The Duke"), introspective passages opening onto a chasm of anguish ("Toes Across The Floor") and frothing-at-the-mouth nonsense rants ("Lemonade"), all framed within a quirky dixieland setting courtesy of Kermit Ruffins and his Little Rascals Brass Band: Soup really was the hodgepodge its title promised, spiced with bold, jarring flavors, pungent enough not to go unnoticed. After all, what other alt-rock band of 1995 would have ever dreamed of letting harmonica, banjo (overused today, but back then...), kazoo, cello, double bass, accordion, trumpets, flutes and tuba ring out on one of their records? They did dare. A band that had come of age was now drawing on every last ounce of virtuosity and eccentricity, placing itself entirely at the service of a Shannon more inspired than ever.

There would be no more filters on the ugliness, on the inner monologues called upon to spew out, almost sadistically, stories of addiction and abuse, in spite of that damned, saccharine, obese child dressed as an insect; death would be the guest of honor, but seen from an adult perspective, a presence to be exorcised by diving back, head bowed, into one's own exhausting present without taking anything for granted anymore ("St. Andrew's Fall", which is sort of their own "A Day In The Life") and, where possible, embracing every new bud of life as a chance to get back on the right path (the lysergic "New Life", a tale of impending fatherhood and, in the end, of an opportunity that stayed only on paper). But at the same time there would be room for tenderness, for acoustic caresses, for tear-jerking memories of a generous grandmother, and for more than one blissful hook, from the spine-tingling duet with newcomer Jena Kraus on "Mouthful Of Cavities" to the sinuous arabesque and freeze-dried spoken word of the little gem "Car Seat", so ambitious that it elevates a sad, sordid little story — pure tabloid fodder — into something noble, even cannibalizing a poem written by the singer's ancestor, Blanche Bridge, over a century earlier.

The album held nothing back for the sake of radio appeal, which was necessarily sacrificed, and had no fear of presenting itself under a dark atmospheric haze and with a sound that, going directly against the era's obsession with technical polish, embraced reverb and impurity as genuine blessings. Few noticed it at the time, but the album had everything it needed to stand among the cornerstones of Nineties roots-rock. Obliquely devoted to revivalism as if it were a deliberate mission, it even allowed itself the luxury of resurrecting the by-then-obsolete tradition of the "delayed title track" (already honored in the distant past by heavyweights like the Doors and Led Zeppelin): and so it was that a superb song bearing the same title skipped its turn, only to resurface posthumously, on the next record.

With sheer ineptitude and not a trace of embarrassment, the Rolling Stone critic on duty trashed Soup because it "betrayed the band of 'No Rain'". Wanting to evolve beyond the template of their mascot hit became a sin rather than a virtue. No mention of the five musicians' growth as players and songwriters, after more than three hundred shows played down to the last drop of sweat, night after night, in pursuit of self-improvement. The problem was that Capitol felt exactly the same way, and the album went almost entirely unpromoted. The American band's final live appearances (this one for a TV program, barely a month before the end, is particularly telling) showed a Hoon who was furious, intense and devilish, his voice like sandpaper and his mascara melting under his eyes, amplifying the ominous signs already scattered abundantly across the grooves of the two LPs released so far. The path was perhaps already laid out, long before, for a fragile, bipolar artist, but it's plausible that disappointment and disillusionment played a part in sending events hurtling toward their conclusion.

After a final show apparently played in a state of utter confusion, on the morning of October 21, 1995, the frontman was found dead inside the tour bus. Death, as everyone knows, always sells extremely well in the gilded world of show business. With Shannon Hoon, curiously, it made an exception. No one exploited the tragedy: not his bandmates, who as loyal friends chose to keep a low profile, preferring a resigned fade-out to the cynicism of opportunists; not Capitol, which from that moment let silence fall over Blind Melon and was careful not to promote an album that had, after all, come out just a couple of months earlier; and not, finally, MTV and the other networks, who passed up from the start on the — from their point of view — juicy opportunity to promote, across every channel, a new Kurt Cobain, evidently already too busy squeezing every last bit of value out of that miraculous, still-warm corpse.

And so Hoon was spared the inevitable process of deification, a bit like what would later happen to the late Layne Staley, only because he passed away much later than everyone expected (and some had hoped).

Soup quickly fell into obscurity, just like its talented, extraordinary vocalist. The remaining Melons released one last collection, Nico, dedicated to the memory of their friend and to his daughter, for whom a charity fund was also set up. A handful of demos, outtakes and bare-bones recordings, released without any production tampering out of respect for the singer. Valuable in revealing his more domestic, relaxed and genuine side, and useful, in hindsight, mostly for multiplying the regrets surrounding him: solid covers of Steppenwolf ("The Pusher") and John Lennon ("John Sinclair"), sketches of a more intimate Hoon ("Life Ain't So Shitty" and "All That I Need"), even a little rhyme Shannon left on an answering machine ("Letters From The Porcupine"), plus the very first song he ever wrote ("Soul One"), which the label considered a potential knockout hit and which they, masochistically, always made sure never to release before then.

Everything that concerned the American band after 1996 can be set aside without regret. The breakup, the surviving members' re-employment as session musicians or in new, sometimes worthwhile projects (Unified Theory — featuring ex-Pearl Jam drummer Dave Krusen — and Abandon Jalopy being the least obscure), but above all the reunion with vocal clone Travis Warren as the new frontman, which came about roughly a decade later, and the resulting comeback album, the far more watered-down For My Friends (2008): however much it stands as proof of the considerable talent of these unlucky musicians, it's really a whole other story. What lingers at the margins is that enormous What If... that carries a certain sadness with it. What would have become of this band with a different ending? What kind of artist might Shannon have grown into at thirty or forty? Maybe Blind Melon would have slowly faded off the radar, one misstep after another. Or maybe not — who knows — maybe they would have stuck with the longer road they'd taken for their difficult second album, and in the end, they would have arrived.

It's nice to think that's exactly how it would have gone: after all, that's precisely what they were doing when the curtain fell.

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