Meat Puppets reunited, pulling its own strings

• By JOHN WIRT
• Music writer
• Published: Oct 30, 2009

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Spawned from the early ’80s pre-alternative music scene in Phoenix, Ariz., the Meat Puppets were the ultimate musicians’ musicians. Featuring brothers Curt and Cris Kirkwood and drummer Derrick Bostrom, the maverick trio and its country-punk-rock songs avoided major-label interest while simultaneously influencing such future stars as Kurt Cobain and Dave Pirner.

“I owe so much to them,” Nirvana’s Cobain said.

“They’re my favorite band,” Soul Asylum’s Pirner said.

Chris Cornell from Soundgarden and Paul Leary were fans, too.

Following 11 years of indie records, making their gigs and just holding on, the Meat Puppets finally signed a major-label deal. London Records issued 1991’s Forbidden Places, ’94’s Too High To Die and ’95’s No Joke!

Between the release of the band’s first and second London albums, the Meat Puppets got a boost from some famous fans when Nirvana picked them to be opening act for the In Utero tour. The Puppets also made a guest appearance during Nirvana’s MTV Unplugged appearance, setting the stage for the Too High To Die album and hit single, “Backwater.”

“I guess we just were lucky enough to remain a cult band for a long time,” Curt Kirkwood said in 1994 prior to a show at the UNO Lakefront Arena with Stone Temple Pilots.

“And being on a major label, it’s a tool, not a gift. You have to use it wisely, as is evidenced by the flaky tenure of most rockers.”

Indeed, the Meat Puppets’ days were numbered. No Joke!, the band’s Too High To Die follow-up, failed to build on the band’s momentum. Much worse, Cris Kirkwood’s drug problems spiraled.

Curt Kirkwood carried on while his brother was in prison and rehab. He stayed busy with a Meat Puppets record that featured neither of the band’s other two original members, 2000’s Golden Lies; a solo record in 2005, Snow; and solo touring. 

“I didn’t discount what wasn’t around for a long time, but I didn’t dwell on it either,” the soft-spoken Kirkwood said recently from his home in Austin, Texas. “I just worked with the circumstances I had. Yeah, yesterday can get in the way.”

A singer-guitarist, Kirkwood didn’t always believe that he and his bass-playing brother had a special musical connection. Maybe the separation that preceded the Kirkwoods’ 2006 reunion led him to modify that view.

“Cris and I have a sort of language of playing,” he said. “We still haven’t figured it out ourselves, so I can’t really get that with anybody else. Just a familiarity there.”