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, after 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.”
The Kirkwoods’ 2006 reunion began with a phone call from Curt to Cris. The
slightly older Kirkwood wanted to make a new Meat Puppets record.
“I don’t think Cris was really expecting it,” he said. “I do think he was
just glad to be off drugs and out of prison. So that put him in a good place in
general. He still had his chops, so he was ready to do it. He didn’t lose any of
that, which is kind of astounding. He didn’t lose his spirit and come back a
rehab-zombie.”
Songs for the Meat Puppets’ resulting album, 2007’s Rise To Your Knees, fell
easily into place. And now this year’s album, Sewn Together, has been
accompanied by the most Meat Puppets touring since 1994, including a stint with
the Kirkwoods’ old friends in Stone Temple Pilots (which had its own drug
problems with singer Scott Weiland).
“A lot of similarities there,” Kirkwood said. “We both just really love
playing and are thankful to be able to have our bands still around.”
The Meat Puppets aren’t merely still around, they’re far from forgotten.
“The new record’s gotten a good response and, once again, enough that we can
keep doing it, but not too much that it gets strange,” Kirkwood said. “Success
is good but it also comes with responsibilities and its own little set of
problems. But I’m real satisfied with the amount of attention and stuff. It’s
handle-able.”