58 Fun Facts About 90s Grunge

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

Olympia, home of Evergreen State College and K Records, was the scene's second hub; Kurt Cobain lived there from 1987 to 1991 and wrote much of Nevermind in his apartment.

Which Seattle indie label, founded 1986, released early Nirvana, Soundgarden and Mudhoney records?

Sub Pop, founded in Seattle in 1986 by Bruce Pavitt and Jonathan Poneman, grew out of Pavitt's Subterranean Pop fanzine; Warner Bros. bought a 49% stake in the label in 1995.

The 1986 Seattle-scene compilation Deep Six was the first release on which label?

Deep Six was C/Z Records' first release, in March 1986, pressed in a run of just 2,000 copies; it featured Green River, Soundgarden, Melvins, Malfunkshun, Skin Yard and the U-Men.

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

Green River, formed in Seattle in 1984, took its name from the Green River Killer then dominating Washington headlines; its 1987 split produced Mudhoney and Mother Love Bone.

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

Apple, Mother Love Bone's only full album, came out in July 1990, four months after Andrew Wood's heroin overdose at 24; his death led to Temple of the Dog and, indirectly, Pearl Jam.

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

Cornell had been Wood's roommate; he started writing the tribute songs while touring Europe days after the funeral.

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.

Pearl Jam's debut album Ten was released in August 1991 on which label?

Ten came out on Epic Records on August 27, 1991, a month before Nevermind, and took about a year to catch on, eventually producing the hits Alive, Even Flow and Jeremy.

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

Jeremy Wade Delle of Richardson, Texas, shot himself in front of his English class in January 1991; the video won four MTV VMAs in 1993.

Pearl Jam's second album Vs. set a record in 1993 by selling roughly how many copies in its first week?

It outsold the rest of the Billboard top ten combined that week, a record that stood until Garth Brooks' Double Live in 1998.

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

The band boycotted Ticketmaster venues for years afterward, even after the Justice Department dropped its case.

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

Irons later joined Pearl Jam himself as drummer in the mid-90s.

Nirvana formed in 1987 in which small Washington town?

Kurt Cobain and Krist Novoselic met at Aberdeen High School; the Melvins rehearsed nearby.

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

'Love Buzz', a cover of a 1969 song by Dutch band Shocking Blue, was Nirvana's first single, issued in November 1988 as the first Sub Pop Singles Club release mailed to subscribers.

The recording budget printed on the sleeve of Nirvana's debut album Bleach was how much?

The sleeve lists a recording cost of $606.17; Jason Everman paid the bill and got a guitar credit on the album even though he never played on it.

Which drummer played on most of Bleach before Dave Grohl joined Nirvana in 1990?

Chad Channing drummed on most of Bleach, with Dale Crover on the three tracks from the January 1988 demo; Channing left in 1990 and Dave Grohl arrived that autumn.

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

He joined Scream at 17, replacing Kent Stax.

Who produced Nevermind?

Butch Vig produced Nevermind at Sound City in Van Nuys in spring 1991 for about $65,000; Nirvana had first worked with him at his Smart Studios in Wisconsin, having liked his Killdozer records.

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

Nevermind knocked Michael Jackson's Dangerous off the top of the Billboard 200 on January 11, 1992; the album has since sold more than 30 million copies worldwide.

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

The baby, four-month-old Spencer Elden, swims toward a dollar bill on a fishhook; Kirk Weddle shot him at a Pasadena pool after a stock underwater-baby photo proved too expensive.

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

Hanna fronted Bikini Kill, the band at the heart of riot grrrl; she meant the Teen Spirit deodorant, and Cobain 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's 'Eighties' (1984) has a near-identical riff; Cobain wanted In Bloom as the second single instead, and Killing Joke's rumoured lawsuit never went anywhere.

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

Steve Albini recorded In Utero in about two weeks in February 1993; studio time cost around $24,000 plus Albini's $100,000 fee, and Scott Litt later remixed Heart-Shaped Box and All Apologies.

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

The set was taped on November 18, 1993 at Sony Music Studios in New York; Cobain asked for stargazer lilies, black candles and a chandelier, agreeing when producer Alex Coletti said it looked like a funeral.

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

MTV had wanted bigger names like Eddie Vedder or Tori Amos as guests.

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

Their daughter Frances Bean was born that August, with Michael Stipe as her godfather.

Kurt Cobain was found dead at his home on April 8, 1994, in which Seattle neighbourhood?

Cobain's house at 171 Lake Washington Boulevard East stood in Denny-Blaine, on the lake's western shore; weeks earlier Love had found him unconscious in a Rome hotel after an overdose.

Who played the one guitar part Dave Grohl didn't on the first Foo Fighters album?

Greg Dulli of the Afghan Whigs played guitar on 'X-Static'; Grohl cut the rest himself in about six days in October 1994, then recruited Sunny Day Real Estate's rhythm section and Pat Smear to tour it.

Soundgarden took its name from what?

The name comes from A Sound Garden, a wind-activated pipe sculpture on the NOAA campus beside Seattle's Magnuson Park; Cornell originally drummed and sang at the same time.

Soundgarden became the first grunge band to sign to a major label when it joined which company in 1988?

Soundgarden signed with A&M Records in 1988, the first of the Seattle bands to go major; their SST debut Ultramega OK still earned a 1990 Grammy nomination for Best Metal Performance.

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?

Cameron had earlier played in Skin Yard, one of the bands on the Deep Six compilation.

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

Cornell was found dead at the MGM Grand Detroit on May 18, 2017, after playing the city's Fox Theatre; he had also fronted Audioslave and co-wrote You Know My Name, the Casino Royale theme.

What was the local glam metal band that gave Layne Staley his first gig as vocalist called?

Sleze, a Seattle-area glam metal band, was Staley's first outfit; it renamed itself Alice N' Chains in 1986, a name Staley revived after he joined Jerry Cantrell's group.

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

Man in the Box, with its talk-box riff, got heavy MTV rotation in 1991 and pushed Facelift to number 42 on the Billboard 200; it earned a Grammy nomination for Best Hard Rock Performance.

Jerry Cantrell wrote Rooster about whom?

Rooster was Jerry Cantrell Sr.'s childhood nickname; the song appeared on 1992's Dirt.

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

Jar of Flies was the first EP ever to debut at number one on the Billboard 200, selling about 141,000 copies in its first week; it was recorded in roughly seven days.

Layne Staley died in April 2002 at what age?

Staley was 34: born in August 1967, he died on April 5, 2002, two weeks before his body was found, having largely withdrawn from public life after 1998 and also sung with Mad Season.

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

Stone Temple Pilots formed in San Diego in 1989; they played as Mighty Joe Young until a bluesman's prior claim forced a change, and the initials STP came from motor oil stickers.

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

Plush won Best Hard Rock Performance at the 1994 Grammys; the track came from the 1992 debut Core and was Stone Temple Pilots' only Grammy win.

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

The band took its name from Russ Meyer's 1965 sexploitation film Mudhoney; its debut single Touch Me I'm Sick (1988) and the Superfuzz Bigmuff EP put Sub Pop on the map.

Which real band's members play Matt Dillon's bandmates in fictional Seattle group Citizen Dick in Singles (1992)?

Pearl Jam's Jeff Ament, Stone Gossard and Eddie Vedder played Dillon's bandmates; most of Dillon's wardrobe belonged to Ament, and Citizen Dick's Touch Me I'm Dick parodies a Mudhoney single.

Screaming Trees, of 'Nearly Lost You' fame, formed in which small Washington town?

Ellensburg, a college town in central Washington, was home to the Conner brothers, whose parents' video rental store doubled as the band's rehearsal space; singer Mark Lanegan died in 2022.

Hole's Live Through This came out on April 12, 1994, how long after Kurt Cobain's death?

The album came out on April 12, 1994, one week after Cobain's April 5 death; it went platinum within a year, and bassist Kristen Pfaff died of an overdose that June.

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

Bush formed in London in 1992 around Gavin Rossdale and guitarist Nigel Pulsford; Sixteen Stone was released by Trauma Records through Interscope in December 1994.

Silverchair's members were how old when their debut album Frogstomp was released in March 1995?

All three members were 15, born in 1979; they had formed as Innocent Criminals in Newcastle, New South Wales, and Frogstomp went to number one in Australia.

Seattle's Candlebox, of Far Behind fame, released their 1993 debut on which label?

Candlebox signed with Maverick, the label Madonna co-founded in 1992; their self-titled 1993 debut went quadruple platinum, though purists filed them under post-grunge.

Marc Jacobs was dismissed from which fashion house after his 1992 'grunge' collection?

Perry Ellis let Jacobs go in 1993 after his spring-1993 grunge collection of flannel shirts and floral slip dresses; Courtney Love said she and Cobain burned the pieces he sent them.

Who wrote the 1981 fanzine letter usually cited as the first Seattle use of 'grunge'?

Mark Arm, later of Green River and Mudhoney, wrote to the Seattle fanzine Desperate Times in 1981 calling his band Mr. Epp and the Calculations 'pure grunge! pure noise! pure shit!'

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

Hype!, Doug Pray's documentary, premiered at Sundance in January 1996 and mixed interviews with live footage, including Nirvana's first performance of Smells Like Teen Spirit; Sub Pop released the soundtrack.

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

The vinyl LP came out on November 22, 1994, two weeks before the CD and cassette, and sold 34,000 copies in its first week, a SoundScan-era vinyl record that stood until Jack White's Lazaretto in 2014.

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.

Which magazine nicknamed Seattle 'the new Liverpool' after grunge broke through?

Rolling Stone dubbed Seattle 'the new Liverpool' at the height of the boom; major labels then signed most prominent Seattle bands while a second wave of acts moved to the city hoping to be discovered.

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

The Univox Super-Fuzz and the Big Muff; Bruce Pavitt called the record the one that put Sub Pop on the map.

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, the music magazine David Carson art-directed from its 1992 launch, became the showcase for 'grunge typography': distressed, overlapping and sometimes unreadable type.

Which Green River EP did a Sub Pop catalog famously describe as 'ultra-loose GRUNGE'?

Sub Pop's catalog sold Dry As a Bone (1987) as 'gritty vocals, roaring Marshall amps, ultra-loose GRUNGE that destroyed the morals of a generation', an early use of the word for Seattle music.