107 Fun Facts About 90s Grunge

Alongside Seattle, which Washington city was a hub of the early grunge scene?

Olympia. Kurt Cobain lived there and had the logo of the town's K Records label tattooed on his forearm.

Which band, already on Geffen's DGC label, advised Nirvana to sign there and toured Europe with them in 1991?

Sonic Youth. Nirvana signed with DGC on Kim Gordon's recommendation, and the two bands' 1991 European dates became the documentary 1991: The Year Punk Broke.

Which festival, begun in 1991 as a farewell tour for Jane's Addiction, carried Soundgarden and Pearl Jam across America in 1992?

Lollapalooza. Nirvana was offered the headline slot for 1994, reportedly for nearly $10 million, and turned it down.

Which 1984 Seattle band split into Mudhoney and Mother Love Bone, making it a precursor to Pearl Jam?

Green River broke up when the two members who later founded Pearl Jam left to chase mainstream rock success, a move the singer scorned as careerist; each side then started one of the two new bands.

What was Mother Love Bone's debut album, released shortly after frontman Andrew Wood died in 1990?

Apple was days from release when Andrew Wood died of an overdose at 24, so Mother Love Bone's only full album came out months later, after the band itself had ended.

Temple of the Dog was conceived by which singer as a tribute to Andrew Wood?

Chris Cornell had shared a home with Wood, and the two songs he wrote in his grief grew into a whole album made with Wood's former bandmates.

Which Temple of the Dog song became a duet between the band's frontman and a then-unknown Eddie Vedder?

On 'Hunger Strike' Vedder, in Seattle to audition for the band that became Pearl Jam, stepped in at a rehearsal to sing the low part, and the duet became the album's hit single.

Before settling on Pearl Jam, the band briefly went by the name of which NBA player?

The band played its first shows as Mookie Blaylock, after the New Jersey Nets guard; his jersey number, 10, became the title of their debut album Ten.

Which rock veteran, nicknamed the Godfather of Grunge, made his 1995 album Mirror Ball with Pearl Jam as his band?

Neil Young. They recorded it in four days of studio time, but for record-label reasons the name Pearl Jam appears nowhere on the sleeve.

Pearl Jam's Jeremy was inspired by a newspaper article about a 15-year-old boy in which state?

Texas. Eddie Vedder read a short newspaper report about Jeremy Delle of Richardson and wrote the song because he felt the story deserved more than a small article.

Which Pearl Jam album set a record in 1993 by selling about 950,000 copies in its first week?

Vs. set the record even though the band refused to make a music video for any of its songs.

Which company did Pearl Jam go to war with in 1994, testifying before a congressional subcommittee?

Ticketmaster. The band scrapped its 1994 summer tour in a fight over the company's service charges, then filed a Justice Department complaint accusing it of a monopoly.

Which ex-Chili Peppers drummer gave the Pearl Jam demo to his basketball buddy Eddie Vedder?

Jack Irons turned down the drummer's job himself but passed the demo to his friend Vedder, then joined Pearl Jam after all in late 1994.

Nirvana formed in 1987 in which small Washington town?

Aberdeen. Kurt Cobain and his future bassist became friends at the Melvins' practice space, and Cobain handed him a demo tape to talk him into starting a band.

Nirvana's debut single, the first Sub Pop Singles Club release in 1988, was a cover of which song?

Love Buzz came from Shocking Blue, the Dutch band behind 'Venus'; only 1,000 numbered copies of the single were pressed, so few fans could actually buy it.

The sleeve of which Nirvana album lists its recording cost as $606.17?

Bleach. Jason Everman paid the bill and was credited as a guitarist and pictured on the cover, though he never played on the album.

Which drummer played on most of Nirvana's debut album before Dave Grohl joined the band in 1990?

Chad Channing played on all but three tracks: the band tried re-recording Dale Crover's drum parts from an earlier demo with him, then kept the originals.

Dave Grohl was drumming for which Washington, D.C. punk band before it broke up and he joined Nirvana?

Scream took Grohl on at 17 after he lied about his age, and when the band broke up in 1990 the Melvins' Buzz Osborne put him in touch with Nirvana.

Who produced Nevermind?

Butch Vig got the job because Nirvana liked the records he had made with the band Killdozer, and they first worked with him at his Smart Studios in Wisconsin in 1990.

Nevermind reached number one on the Billboard 200 in January 1992 by displacing which album?

Michael Jackson's Dangerous gave way in January 1992 to an album whose label had hoped it might sell 250,000 copies in all.

The baby on the cover of Nevermind is swimming toward what?

A dollar bill on a fishhook: Kirk Weddle photographed four-month-old Spencer Elden in a pool after the stock picture of a swimming baby that the label wanted proved too expensive.

Kathleen Hanna, who wrote the phrase 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' on Cobain's wall, sang for which riot grrrl band?

Bikini Kill. Hanna meant the deodorant Teen Spirit, used by Cobain's girlfriend Tobi Vail, but he took the line for a slogan and learned of the product only months after the single came out.

Nirvana feared Come as You Are's riff resembled Eighties, a 1984 song by which English band?

Killing Joke complained about the likeness, yet in 2003 Dave Grohl, a long-time fan, played the drums on the band's self-titled album.

Which engineer recorded Nirvana's In Utero in two weeks at Pachyderm Studio in Minnesota?

Steve Albini took a flat fee and refused on principle to accept royalties, as he did on every record he made.

Nirvana's MTV Unplugged set was taped in November 1993 at which studio?

Sony Music Studios. Cobain himself ordered the stage dressed like a funeral, with stargazer lilies and black candles.

Which band's Cris and Curt Kirkwood joined Nirvana on stage during the MTV Unplugged taping?

Meat Puppets. Cobain had been touring with the band and sang three of its songs with the Kirkwood brothers, though MTV had hoped for bigger-name guests.

Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love were married in February 1992 on a beach where?

Waikiki, Hawaii. Cobain got married in pajamas, and Love wore a satin and lace dress that had once belonged to the actress Frances Farmer.

Nirvana's MTV Unplugged set included 'The Man Who Sold the World', a 1970 song by which artist?

David Bowie. The song first reached the charts in 1974 through a cover by Lulu, which Bowie produced, before Nirvana's version carried it to a new generation.

Dave Grohl named Foo Fighters after a Second World War term for what?

UFOs. Grohl recorded the first album almost alone in about a week, and hoped the plural name would make listeners think a whole band had made it.

Soundgarden took its name from what?

A Seattle pipe sculpture: A Sound Garden's steel towers hold organ pipes that sound in the wind beside Lake Washington, and fans made it a memorial when the band's singer died in 2017.

Soundgarden's frontman later formed which supergroup with three members of Rage Against the Machine?

Audioslave. When Rage's singer quit in 2000, the producer Rick Rubin suggested that the three remaining members try playing with the Soundgarden vocalist.

Which 1994 Soundgarden album yielded the Grammy-winning singles Spoonman and Black Hole Sun?

Superunknown, released in March 1994, debuted at number one; Spoonman's video features Artis the Spoonman, a real Seattle street performer who also played spoons on the track.

Which Soundgarden drummer joined Pearl Jam in 1998 and stayed until 2025?

Matt Cameron joined Pearl Jam as a stand-in after Soundgarden split, stayed for 27 years and announced his departure in July 2025.

Soundgarden's singer died in a hotel in which city in May 2017, hours after a Fox Theatre show?

Detroit. He died at the MGM Grand hotel after the band's Fox Theatre show, and the surviving members did not play together again until a tribute concert for him in January 2019.

Which singer's earlier band, Alice N' Chains, gave its name to the group he joined with Jerry Cantrell?

Layne Staley met Cantrell at a party in 1987 and, hearing he had nowhere to stay, took him in at the rehearsal space where he lived; Cantrell's new band then adopted the old name.

Which single from the 1990 album Facelift broke Alice in Chains on MTV and mainstream rock radio?

Man in the Box got its talk-box hook after the producer Dave Jerden heard Bon Jovi's 'Livin' on a Prayer' on his car radio on the way to the studio.

Jerry Cantrell wrote Rooster about whom?

His father, a Vietnam veteran: Rooster was Jerry Cantrell Sr.'s nickname, and he sat for an interview about the war that opens the song's video.

Alice in Chains' Jar of Flies (1994) was the first what to debut at number one on the Billboard 200?

EP: Jar of Flies was written and recorded in a single week, and the band's singer said they never planned to release it until the record label heard it.

Alice in Chains' singer joined Mike McCready in which supergroup?

Mad Season. McCready started the band with a bassist he had befriended in rehab, then brought in the singer; Above was the only album they made.

Stone Temple Pilots formed in 1989 in which city, far from Seattle?

San Diego. The band played as Mighty Joe Young before picking a new name to fit the initials of STP motor oil, whose stickers its members had loved as kids.

Stone Temple Pilots won their only Grammy, in 1994, for which song?

Plush won Best Hard Rock Performance at the 1994 Grammys, yet Robert DeLeo built it on ragtime chords from his guitar exercises.

Mudhoney, formed on New Year's Day 1988, is named after a film by which director?

Russ Meyer's 1965 film Mudhoney gave the band its name; the band's 1988 debut single, 'Touch Me I'm Sick', grew from a line the singer just found funny to say.

Which 1992 Cameron Crowe film cast members of Pearl Jam as Matt Dillon's bandmates in Citizen Dick?

Singles. Pearl Jam's Jeff Ament lent Matt Dillon most of his character's wardrobe and drew up the fake band's list of song titles.

Which band from Ellensburg, Washington, had the 1992 hit 'Nearly Lost You'?

Screaming Trees. The band had been playing since 1984, and its career took off only when a film soundtrack carried 'Nearly Lost You' to radio and MTV.

Which Hole album came out days after Kurt Cobain's death in April 1994?

Live Through This was finished and named before Cobain died: its first single had come out that March, and the album went on sale on schedule.

Bush, whose 1994 debut Sixteen Stone went six-times platinum in the US, formed in which city?

London. In Canada the band had to appear as Bush X, after a naming clash with a 1970s Canadian band, until a 1997 deal let it drop the X in return for a charity donation.

Which Australian band's members were all 15 when their debut album Frogstomp came out in 1995?

Silverchair. The three schoolboys had won a national demo contest run by a TV show and the radio station Triple J the year before, entering as Innocent Criminals.

Seattle's Candlebox released their 1993 debut on which label, co-founded by Madonna a year earlier?

Maverick. Candlebox's debut went quadruple platinum and gave the young label its first hit, before it signed Alanis Morissette.

Which future Mudhoney frontman wrote the 1981 fanzine letter often cited as the first Seattle use of 'grunge'?

Mark Arm wrote to the fanzine Desperate Times as a joke, running down his own band, Mr. Epp and the Calculations, as 'Pure grunge! Pure noise!'

What is Doug Pray's 1996 documentary about the Pacific Northwest grunge scene called?

Hype! pokes fun at the media frenzy over Seattle while admitting that the same frenzy made its obscure bands famous, and includes Nirvana's first live 'Smells Like Teen Spirit'.

In which format did Pearl Jam release Vitalogy first, two weeks ahead of the others?

Vinyl. The head start fit an album whose first single, 'Spin the Black Circle', is a love song to records, and the LP alone sold 34,000 copies in its first week.

Which newspaper printed a fake list of grunge slang in the 'grunge speak hoax'?

The New York Times printed the 'Lexicon of Grunge' in November 1992, terms like 'swingin' on the flippity-flop' invented on the spot by Megan Jasper, a former Sub Pop receptionist, to prank the reporter.

At which English festival did Kurt Cobain arrive on stage in a wheelchair and hospital gown in 1992?

Reading. The entrance mocked rumours about his health: wheeled on by the journalist Everett True, he pretended to struggle to his feet before what proved to be the band's last British show.

Mudhoney's 1988 debut EP Superfuzz Bigmuff is named after what?

Two guitar pedals: the Univox Super-Fuzz and the Electro-Harmonix Big Muff, the fuzz boxes the band relied on for its dirty sound.

Which Boss pedal was key to Kurt Cobain's quiet-loud-quiet songwriting approach?

Cobain's go-to pedal was the Boss DS-1 distortion, stomped on for the loud choruses of Nevermind's quiet-loud songs; he used an Electro-Harmonix Small Clone chorus for the watery Come As You Are riff.

Which magazine, art directed by David Carson, is a famous example of 'grunge typography'?

Ray Gun gave David Carson free rein: judging an interview with Bryan Ferry too boring to read, he set the whole piece in Zapf Dingbats, a font made only of symbols.

Which Stone Temple Pilots frontman went on to sing with Velvet Revolver alongside three former members of Guns N' Roses?

Scott Weiland. He returned to Stone Temple Pilots in 2008, but the band fired him in 2013 and brought in Linkin Park's Chester Bennington.

Nirvana's Smells Like Teen Spirit is named after Teen Spirit, a brand of what that friends found in a grocery store?

Deodorant was all the phrase meant, but Kurt Cobain read the graffiti as a revolutionary slogan and only learned of the brand months after the single came out.

Which country legend covered Soundgarden's Rusty Cage on Unchained, the 1996 album that won him a Grammy?

Johnny Cash earned a Grammy nomination for his version, and Soundgarden's singer dedicated the original to him at several concerts.

Soundgarden's frontman co-wrote and sang You Know My Name, the theme of which James Bond film starring Daniel Craig?

Casino Royale left its own theme off the soundtrack album; the song surfaced on the singer's solo record Carry On instead.

Which singer, who idolised Stone Temple Pilots as a boy, became the band's frontman from 2013 to 2015?

Chester Bennington recorded the High Rise release with his boyhood heroes, then left in 2015 to give his full attention to Linkin Park.

Sean Penn handpicked Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder to provide the music for which 2007 film about Christopher McCandless?

Into the Wild became Vedder's first solo album, and its song Guaranteed won him a Golden Globe.

Weird Al Yankovic's parody Smells Like Nirvana, approved by Kurt Cobain himself, pokes fun at what about the original?

The unintelligible lyrics were the target, and Cobain gave his permission by phone from the set of Saturday Night Live almost as soon as he was asked.

Kurt Cobain admitted Smells Like Teen Spirit was his attempt to copy the soft-and-loud dynamics of which Boston band?

Pixies were a band he admired so much that he said he was basically trying to rip them off while chasing what he called the ultimate pop song.

Which Seattle-born guitarist died at 27 in 1970, the same age at which Kurt Cobain died in 1994?

Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and Jim Morrison all died at 27 within a couple of years, but the idea of a '27 Club' only took hold after Cobain's death.

Which Nirvana member threw his bass in the air at the 1992 MTV Video Music Awards and failed to catch it?

Krist Novoselic misjudged the height of the throw, and he later admitted he had faked being knocked out afterwards.

Nirvana's Smells Like Teen Spirit video, the first Samuel Bayer directed, shows which school event ending in chaos?

A pep rally in a school gym was the setting, with apathetic students on the bleachers and cheerleaders whose black dresses carried anarchist symbols.

Which Bush frontman met No Doubt's Gwen Stefani at a radio holiday concert in 1995 and married her in 2002?

Gavin Rossdale met her when Bush and No Doubt played the same KROQ show, and the couple had three sons before she filed for divorce in 2015.

Which band led by Billy Corgan rode the grunge-era alternative boom to fame with the 1993 album Siamese Dream?

Smashing Pumpkins nearly fell apart making it, and Corgan often recorded over his bandmates' guitar and bass parts with his own playing.

Which singer, godfather to Kurt Cobain's daughter, inducted Nirvana into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2014?

Michael Stipe was a friend of Cobain, and his band R.E.M. recorded the song Let Me In as a tribute after Cobain died.

Nirvana ended their MTV Unplugged set with a traditional song, modelled on a 1944 recording by which blues musician?

Lead Belly was the performer Cobain called his favourite, and he refused the producers an encore because he felt he could not top that final song.

Which mid-1990s movement, led by Blur and Oasis, emerged in part as a reaction against the dominance of grunge?

Britpop bands dismissed grunge as irrelevant, with nothing to say about their own lives, and traded its gloom for youthful exuberance.

Which Stone Temple Pilots album debuted at number one in 1994 with the hits Vasoline and Interstate Love Song?

Purple spent three weeks on top of the Billboard 200, yet its cover never spells the title out: it appears only as a single Chinese character.

Pearl Jam's highest-charting Hot 100 hit, a number two in 1999, was a cover of which 1960s teen tragedy song?

Last Kiss was recorded for a charity album for Kosovar refugees after Eddie Vedder found an old record of the song in an antique mall.

Which Scottish band, covered three times by Nirvana, had the two songwriters Kurt Cobain called his favourites?

The Vaselines had already split when Nirvana's covers found them a new audience, and they briefly reunited in 1990 to open for the band in Edinburgh.

At which European festival did nine fans die in a crowd crush during Pearl Jam's set in 2000?

Roskilde, in Denmark, unveiled a memorial to the nine before the next year's festival opened, and Pearl Jam later wrote a song that mourns them.

Which 2015 documentary about Kurt Cobain takes its title from a tape he made on a four-track recorder around 1988?

Montage of Heck counted his daughter, Frances Bean Cobain, among its executive producers, though she later said she regretted not being more involved.

Which Pearl Jam debut album is named for the jersey number of the basketball player whose name the band first used?

Ten honours the shirt number of the NBA player whose name the band gave up after signing to Epic Records, whose executives worried about naming rights.

Which late-night talk show host inducted Pearl Jam into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2017?

David Letterman gave the speech in Brooklyn two years after ending his own 33-year run on late-night television, in the band's first year of eligibility.

Which 1991 Soundgarden album, their third, sent the songs Outshined and Rusty Cage to rock radio and MTV?

Badmotorfinger earned a Grammy nomination for Best Metal Performance, and its song Outshined is partly written in an unusual 7/4 time.

Which Soundgarden lead guitarist, a philosophy graduate of the University of Washington, co-founded the band in 1984?

Kim Thayil was born in Seattle but grew up in a Chicago suburb, and he worked as a DJ for the college radio outlet KCMU while he studied.

Stone Temple Pilots' guitarist Dean and bassist Robert, members since the band formed, are brothers with which surname?

DeLeo is the name: the band's future singer and his friends first saw Robert playing live gigs and tracked him down to start a group together.

Which punk guitarist joined Nirvana as a second guitarist in 1993 and later spent many years in Foo Fighters?

Pat Smear, co-founder of the Los Angeles punk band Germs, at first thought the phone call from Kurt Cobain inviting him to join was a friend's prank.

Which guitar maker built the Jag-Stang, a hybrid of two of its own models that Kurt Cobain designed?

Fender built two left-handed prototypes blending its Jaguar and Mustang, but Cobain himself played only one of them.

Which comic book artist co-directed the animated video for Pearl Jam's Do the Evolution, their first video in years?

Todd McFarlane got the job after Eddie Vedder sent him a tape with the song laid over scenes from the animated series of his comic Spawn.

Which 1988 debut single by Mudhoney, issued by Sub Pop, has been hailed as the ultimate grunge anthem?

Touch Me I'm Sick grew out of a talk with a Sub Pop owner about the band's subject matter, and its noisy sound has been likened to an amplified comb scraping paper.

Nirvana's In Bloom video, with the band performing in suits, parodies which kind of early-1960s television programme?

A variety show in the mould of The Ed Sullivan Show was the target, and the familiar cut mixes in shots of the band wearing dresses.

Which Florida band, a leading name in post-grunge, earned a diamond certification for the 1999 album Human Clay?

Creed formed in Tallahassee in 1994, and the album's biggest single topped the Hot 100 and won a Grammy for Best Rock Song.

Which kind of person, befriended by Eddie Vedder during Pearl Jam's first album sessions, is described in Even Flow?

A homeless man is the subject, and Vedder revealed at a 2018 hometown concert that the one who inspired the song happened to share his first name.

Nirvana recorded Nevermind in 1991 at which Van Nuys studio, later the subject of a documentary directed by Dave Grohl?

Sound City sold off equipment in 2011, and Grohl bought its rare Neve mixing console, which was then reinstalled at his own studio.

Which Melvins frontman, a childhood friend of Kurt Cobain, introduced Dave Grohl to Nirvana's two founders?

Buzz Osborne was the person Grohl approached for advice when his previous band broke up, and that introduction gave Nirvana its final drummer.

Which Pearl Jam bassist, the son of the town barber and mayor, grew up in Big Sandy, Montana?

Jeff Ament played basketball, football and track at Big Sandy High School, then studied art at the University of Montana before leaving for Seattle.

Which photographer, famed for his work with U2 and Depeche Mode, directed Nirvana's Heart-Shaped Box video?

Anton Corbijn's video, the last the band released, won MTV awards for Best Alternative Video and Best Art Direction in 1994.

Which working title for Nevermind did Kurt Cobain invent to tease the people he expected to buy the album?

Sheep even earned a fake advertisement in Cobain's journal, aimed at buyers who would want the record only because everyone else did.

Which Comes with the Fall frontman joined Alice in Chains in 2006 and shares lead vocals with Jerry Cantrell?

William DuVall has earned three Grammy nominations with the band, and his first album with them was 2009's Black Gives Way to Blue.

Which producer made Stone Temple Pilots' debut album Core and joined Pearl Jam on keyboards for a 1995 European tour?

Brendan O'Brien had engineered the Red Hot Chili Peppers' Blood Sugar Sex Magik a year earlier, and the two records made him an in-demand producer.

Which Skin Yard guitarist co-founded Reciprocal Recording in 1986 and recorded Nirvana's first album in about 30 hours?

Jack Endino's skill and low fees made him the engineer of choice for rising Seattle bands, and his raw, unpolished recordings came to define the grunge sound.

Which soft fabric, used for the checked outdoor shirts of the Pacific Northwest, became the signature of grunge fashion?

Flannel shirts were everyday lumberjack wear that filled the thrift stores near Seattle at prices struggling musicians could afford.

Which boot brand became a grunge staple partly because a Seattle shoe store run by Soundgarden's manager sold it?

Dr. Martens were stocked at the John Fluevog store managed by Susan Silver, where musicians from several future grunge bands used to hang out.

Which brand's canvas basketball sneakers later became closely associated with Kurt Cobain and Andy Warhol?

Converse redesigned the shoe in 1922 at the request of its salesman Chuck Taylor, a semi-professional player whose signature was later added to the ankle patch.

Which piece of clothing worn by Kurt Cobain at Nirvana's MTV Unplugged taping sold for $334,000 at a 2019 auction?

A cardigan in olive green, it came from a thrift store, had never been washed since the concert and still carried all its original stains.

Marc Jacobs, who put grunge on the catwalk in 1992, became the first creative director of which French house in 1997?

Louis Vuitton had no ready-to-wear clothing line until Jacobs created its first, and he later left the house to focus on his own label.

What did Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love reportedly do with the grunge collection designer Marc Jacobs sent them?

Burned it, apparently, and Love later said the designer never got the look right, praising a 2013 Saint Laurent revival as the accurate one.

Which fashion magazine ran the 1992 spread Grunge & Glory, shot by Steven Meisel with models in a savanna landscape?

Vogue's shoot starred Naomi Campbell and Nadja Auermann and made their fellow model Kristen McMenamy the face of grunge.

Which shoes completed Courtney Love's 1990s look of tiaras, slips, barrettes, ripped tights and Peter Pan collars?

Mary Janes suited a deliberately childlike look, and Love has named Divinyls singer Chrissy Amphlett as one inspiration for it.

Which designer's 1992 show, with model Kristen McMenamy's eyebrows shaved off, helped usher grunge into fashion?

Anna Sui was among the few designers of the period who kept her distance from the traditional fashion houses and explored the grunge scene instead.

Which fashion critic dismissed the designer grunge collections of the early 1990s by declaring that grunge was ghastly?

Suzy Menkes was not alone: New York magazine printed a mock epitaph for the trend, giving grunge fashion a lifespan of a single year.