Mother Love Bone

In the collective imagination, the apple symbolizes original sin, but not only that: it also universally represents, on every level, the act of giving and receiving love. Among the countless earthly temptations that, for a music lover, often take the shape of vinyl records and concert tickets, one day I found myself face to face with an American first pressing of "Apple" by Mother Love Bone. The thrill of being able to hold it in my hands, and then (sadly) having to put it back on one of the shelves at Transformer, a Bologna record store that, like so many others, no longer exists today, is something that still comes back to me.

The reason "Apple" is of such crucial importance to the musical history of Seattle, and to that dense cluster of bands that made up the varied grunge landscape, lies in the fact that it stands as a keystone suspended between past and future, centred on the charismatic figure of a young man named Andrew Patrick Wood, whose all-but-certain destiny as a rockstar was cut tragically short by a heroin overdose in March 1990.

To reconstruct the band's brief adventure, we need to take a small step back to 1988, the year Andy left Malfunkshun, the project he shared with his brother Kevin and friend Regan Hagar, to join bassist Jeff Ament and guitarists Stone Gossard and Bruce Fairweather, who came from the ranks of Green River, the band of Mark Arm; these two groups, together with Melvins, The U-Men, Skin Yard and Soundgarden (the so-called "Deep Six" acts, who appeared on the first compilation ever recognized as "grunge"), were unknowingly laying the groundwork for a new musical scene in Seattle. Completing the official Mother Love Bone lineup was drummer Greg Gilmore, formerly of 10 Minute Warning, where he had played alongside his friend Duff McKagan, who upon leaving the band instead chose the golden roads of California, finding his place in Guns N' Roses.

In the second half of the 1980s, Seattle was a city of roughly 600,000 people, large and populous, yet so provincial that the musicians pretty much all knew one another, and the musical ferment advanced almost undisturbed by outside factors. The escalation fuelled by Andy's brilliant live performances coincided with a flood of offers from labels eager to sign Mother Love Bone, the resulting deal with a Polydor Records subsidiary, Stardog, created specifically for their releases by Michael Goldstone, and the release of their debut EP "Shine" in March 1989. It was an unimpeded rise toward the consecration of a true stage animal, and together with the determination of Ament and Gossard, prepared, sharp-eyed and very precise in their choices, it formed what was essentially a perfect union.

Andy's death, just days before the scheduled arrival of "Apple" in stores, released posthumously four months later, would turn the whole record into a kind of tribute to what might have been. From this point on, 1990 acts as a watershed: on one side, the excesses of the Eighties in the California clubs along the Sunset Strip; on the other, pure and simple self-destruction, fuelled by a general contempt for society and by a silent monster that lured and dragged down Seattle's youth with it: heroin.

“But with my crystal-sheen guitar/ I’m another ego star”

The gritty hard rock guitar lines of "This Is Shangrila" usher the listener into Andy's world, where he portrays the stage as his own personal earthly paradise. Shangri-La is an imaginary, wondrous place described in James Hilton's novel "Lost Horizon", a kind of hidden Eden from which, by the shared conviction of those who dwell there, all human weaknesses are banished. The mind drifts back to when Andrew performed with Malfunkshun, transforming into his alter-ego Landrew The Love Child, caked in makeup as heavy as that worn by Kiss, a band he was obsessed with, alongside kaleidoscopic personalities such as Prince, David Bowie, Elton John and Marc Bolan. It's clear that behind the mask and those theatrical antics was a fragile person, whose troubles were skilfully concealed beneath a thick blanket of smiles and jokes, irresistible to everyone around him.

The name of the quintet, Mother Love Bone, comes from combining three words referring respectively to the figure of a mother, to a feeling such as love, and to a fundamental structure, namely the bone, a metaphor for something deep, ancient and strongly instinctive. It's no coincidence, in fact, that religious references crop up throughout "Apple", from the title, to the symbolism of the apple itself, down to details within the individual song lyrics. This peculiarity, together with the depth of certain subject matter, set the project's work apart from the strictly lightweight themes of the fashionable glam-metal of the day, even as it drew on sounds that pointed in a related direction. The lyrics were mostly Wood's domain, while the arrangements were often left to Gossard, a division that fuelled no small amount of competition between the band's members.

Described by Andy himself as a kind of fake patriotic rock anthem, the granite-solid "Stardog Champion" is an anthem dedicated to all survivors. Written at a moment of strength, when he felt he wanted to defeat his drug addiction once and for all, it's among the strongest tracks on the record, driven by powerful guitar riffs and basslines that veer into stoner territory (ante litteram) during the central instrumental passage, and featuring a choir from the San Francisco area made up of adopted children and victims of abuse.

And the children

They used to sing of love

With the grace

From the Lord above

I said the children, they used to sing out loud

Sing it loud and proud

The fizzy, driving sleaze-metal of "Holy Roller" draws inspiration from "Let Me Roll It" by Paul McCartney's Wings: Wood turns into a kind of preacher in the spoken-word section, building a sense of anticipation that further charges up the final chorus. Heroin addiction, meanwhile, is the theme of the pseudo-ballad "Bone China", in which lyrical references surface to the Beatles and to the much-loved Kiss, alongside the Zeppelin-esque influences that recur throughout the band's slim output. The effects of the drug, rendered metaphorically through the movements of a butterfly, weave together with acoustic and electric guitar lines, in that typically Gossard-built framework found across several tracks by the future Pearl Jam.

"My future was in my hands/ 'till I washed it all away"

One of the most personally significant songs for Andrew is, as he stated in the last interview he gave before his death, "Come Bite The Apple". Carried by the celebrated Gossard-Fairweather partnership and enriched by engaging choruses and the classic glam swagger, the track speaks of the temptation of drugs and the rehab the singer struggled through in 1989 in an attempt to reclaim his future, and is regarded by many as almost a premonition of the tragedy to come. The following ballad, "Stargazer", dedicated to the lovely Xana La Fuente, Wood's girlfriend at the time, draws from the melodic territory of Aerosmith, while the urgent, frenetic pace set by Gilmore and Ament within the choral, explosive "Heartshine" is addressed to Andy's brothers, Kevin and Brian, marking the album's midpoint with what the band called their own "Achilles Last Stand".

“Words and music, my only tools/ Communication”

The energetic "Captain Hi Top" rolls once more toward the celebration of rock, much like the solemn, stripped-back ballad "Man Of Golden Words". From the latter emerge other key elements for understanding Wood's complex character, such as his love for the piano, an instrument he played since childhood and which takes centre stage here alongside an acoustic guitar and faint touches of strings, but above all the importance he placed on lyrics, through which the artist could truly express himself and all the torments he felt inside.

Wanna show you something like the joy inside my heart

Seems I’ve been living in the temple of the dog

Where would I live if I were a man of golden words?

And would I live at all?

"Capricorn Sister" flaunts echoes of Guns N' Roses and funky vibes, name-checking in one of its verses Freddie Mercury, whose voice on the sumptuous "A Night At The Opera" would serve as a final, heartfelt farewell to Wood, by then lifeless in his hospital bed, from his loved ones.

“You ever heard the story/ Of Mr. Faded Glory?”

Another high point is the poignant, melancholy "Gentle Groove", a ballad in which the piano returns, joined by light guitar phrasing in the background, followed by the funk-rock spirit of "Mr. Danny Boy", inspired by comic actor Danny Thomas. The closing word goes to the wonderful, longer "Crown Of Thorns", whose epic momentum builds gradually thanks to the emotional charge of Wood's vocals and the instrumental textures, and which, of course, can only be about love. A kind of love that, within the song, is directed at a woman, but should probably be understood more broadly as extending to everyone around Andy, exalted, suffered and painful like a crown of thorns.

This is my kind of love

It’s the kind that moves on

It’s the kind that leaves me alone

"Apple" represents the link between the era dominated by glitter and unrestrained fun at the heart of glam-metal's City of Angels, and the alternative-rock nineties, which shifted the focus toward a scene steeped in the raw reality of Seattle. Mother Love Bone were the first project of that period to thrust the grey city of Washington State into the headlines, remembered perhaps more for a tragic event than for their actual significance. From that breaking point (an absolute point of no return) would in fact rise Temple Of The Dog, with their sole, self-titled album as a tribute to Andy, written by his friend and former roommate Chris Cornell, and composed together with fellow musician Matt Cameron, who would be joined by Ament, Gossard and their new bandmates Mike McCready and Eddie Vedder, with whom they would shortly after achieve global success under the name Pearl Jam. Further tributes to Wood would come from Alice In Chains, with their debut "Facelift" and the bleak "Would?", the closing track of the milestone album "Dirt".

Throughout all this, the presence of the destructive demon of mal de vivre that creeps in, tempting those nearby with every weapon at its disposal, until it finally seizes them and carries them away, becomes ever more evident and looming, and after Andrew's face it would take on those of Kurt Cobain, Shannon Hoon, John Baker Saunders, Layne Staley, Mike Starr, Scott Weiland, Chris Cornell himself, and so many, too many, others, famous and not.

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06/08/2023