Paradise: Land of the Meat PuppetsSpin Magazine, October 2000
BEHIND THE MEAT PUPPETS
Kurt Cobain's Favorite Band overcomes Death and Drugs and Returns With Golden Lies
Curt Kirkwood lives in Austin, Texas, atop a hill overlooking a 30-mile canyon, in a house that Nirvana built--or at least paid for. The Meat Puppets' early albums made Kurt Cobain want to play music, and when he invited the band to join him on three Puppets covers on Nirvana's 1994 MTV Unplugged, the multiplatinum record earned the now 41-year-old Kirkwood "shitloads of money--millions," he says.
Then, just as the psychedelic-country-punk band scored their first-ever radio hit--the high-lonesome 1994 rocker "Backwater"--Cobain committed suicide. His death marked the beginning of a six-year downward spiral for the Meat Puppets, what songwriter/guitarist/vocalist Kirkwood describes as a "raw fucking deal." Soon after, Cris Kirkwood, Curt's younger brother and the band's bass player, became seriously addicted to heroin (and still is). Cris' problems have kept the Meat Puppets--revered as part of the thriving '80s punk scene that included SST labelmates Husker Du and the Minutemen--from playing music. But the band recently released Golden Lies, their first album in five years. It's also the first record without Cris or drummer Derrick Bostrom.
The road to this point has been long, though not always so bumpy. Ever since their self-titled 1982 debut, the Phoenix-bred Meat Puppets have been considered, as Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist Flea puts it, "one of the most influential and important bands of the last 20 years." About an early L.A. show, Flea says, "I was so entranced that I left my body. By the end I was onstage smashing one of their guitars to shreds." Stone Temple Pilots guitarist Dean DeLeo, who toured with the Meat Puppets in 1994, says their music "can be fragile and tender, or hard and dirgelike. Curt is not afraid to express all those facets."
Despite the accolades from fellow musicians, Curt decided that the 1994 tour supporting their ninth album, No Joke!, would be their last. "It was like, 'Okay, Cris has to recover a bit, this is getting weird,' " he says. Things would get even weirder. The Kirkwoods' mother died in 1996. In 1998 the band's label, London Records, was absorbed by Universal's mega-takeover, which froze their deal. That same year, Cris' wife, Michelle Tardif, died of a morphine and cocaine overdose in the couple's Tempe, Arizona, home. (A 5'9" heroin addict, she weighed just 88 pounds.) The following spring, one of Curt's closest friends OD'd in Cris' house, a final shattering blow for Curt.
"I just don't understand [Cris' addiction]," he says angrily. "It seems flat-out demonic, and I've had my head beat in by it. I'm not a spiritualist, but fuck, are there forces of evil at work here?"
With Cris in and out of rehab and jail (for possession and probation violations) and Bostrom settled in Phoenix (on hiatus from the rock 'n' roll lifestyle), Kirkwood slowly returned to writing songs, first with Puppets' touring guitarist Kyle Ellison, who was dealing with the loss of Sims, his brother and bandmate in Pariah, who committed suicide in 1995. Moving to Austin, Ellison's home, Kirkwood hired drummer Shandon Sahm (son of Austin roots legend Doug Sahm) and bassist Andrew Duplantis to record the resultant Golden Lies. Still intact are the guitar-heavy riffs, wistful minor keys, jaunty jigs, and earthy lyrics. However, even talking about what should be a joyful return, Kirkwood is unable to let go of the guilt and grief over his brother's condition. At these times, only his dark sense of humor gets him through. "In pop music, there's dope on either end of the rainbow," he says. "But I just keep dog-paddling, and I stay aloft. I'm treading air."
--Suzanne McElfresh