The Bands That Quietly Started the Grunge Rock Movement
The story of grunge doesn’t start with Nirvana. Let’s get into a handful of bands that quietly started the movement. – Author: Anne Erickson, Photo from Chris Cassela
It’s easy to think that one knows everything about the grunge movement just by listening to Nirvana’s Nevermind album. The set, which arrived in 1991, is largely credited as the catalyst for getting the genre off the ground and to the masses. It’s true that without Nevermind, it’s possible the grunge movement would have never gotten to the massive level that it did, and bands such as Soundgarden, Pearl Jam and Alice in Chains could have been just underground sensations.
But, the story of grunge doesn’t start with Nirvana. It really started with some other bands in the 1980s, so the decade before the genre really took hold. Let’s get into a handful of bands that quietly started the grunge rock movement.
Bands That Started Grunge
Green River
Green River is the band that supposedly helped coin the term “grunge,” so it’s a bit ironic that it never became one of the famous bands in the genre. Mark Arm pioneered Green River in 1984 with Steve Turner, Alex Vincent and Jeff Ament and Stone Gossard, the latter two who became members of Pearl Jam. They had a super unique sound at the time. Remember, this was years before Nevermind, and hair metal was really taking off at the time, so Green River’s novel mix of punk, hardcore and metal was fresh and new. It was also very grunge.
Melvins
One of the bands that gets mentioned most when it comes to early bands that influenced grunge is Melvins. They formed around 1983 and became huge in the underground scene. Of course, Kurt Cobain of Nirvana often cited Melvins as one of his favorite bands. Buzz Osborne and company are known for their lightning-fast, post-punk anthems, and they also work in hard rock, metal and blues. They influenced the movement even if they weren’t a pure grunge band.
Mother Love Bone
Before Pearl Jam, there was Mother Love Bone. It’s possible this band could have been huge, if it hadn’t been for singer Andrew Wood sadly passing away of a drug overdose in 1990. Wood had the vocal chops and style of a hair metal singer, but the other band members in Mother Love Bone had a total grunge sound. Those members, by the way, would eventually make up Pearl Jam.
Mudhoney
After Green River parted ways, Mark Arm decided to form Mudhoney in 1988, and that turned out to be his long-standing band. The band developed a very raw, loud and distorted sound, and that became one of the main characteristics of not only Mudhoney but the grunge sound, in general. Their single “Touch Me I’m Sick” from the EP “Superfuzz Bigmuff” got a lot of attention on Sub Pop, and the band enjoyed some success. They peaked more in the early days of grunge, though, and never broke out like Nirvana did.
TAD
TAD is another band that doesn’t get its due. The group got together in 1988 and was one of Sub Pop Records’ earliest bands. Spearheaded by Thomas Andrew Doyle, TAD’s music stood out in the grunge world because it wasn’t super serious, unlike many of the other sounds out there at the time.
For more grunge excitement, check out Audio Ink Radio’s feature on the best grunge bands of all time.
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