It always gives me great pleasure to write about grunge. Grunge was the first genre that got me into music, the first that made me realise I’m gonna be one of those ‘music people’. One unique aspect about the tight-knit Seattle community, home to bands like Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Alice in Chains, Mudhoney, Screaming Trees and The Melvins, was their particularly frequent collaborations, joint side projects and so on. There aren’t many other genres where band members just hop about like that, and there are some real gems – my personal favourites are Temple of the Dog and Mad Season.
Many of these bands aren’t around anymore, but not all. Of course Pearl Jam have gone on to become one of the world’s largest rock bands (admittedly I haven’t really been able to get into anything since 2002’s Riot Act), Soundgarden are still milling about, Melvins blew my away at The Annandale a couple years ago, and I can confirm first hand that Alice in Chains are still one of the best live acts around, more than 20 years since the tragic death of Layne Staley <3 RIP.
Back in June, a new grunge supergroup was announced. It got me giddy.
Ten Commandos is comprised of: Matt Cameron, drummer of Pearl Jam AND Soundgarden, Soundgarden bassist Ben Shepherd, QOTSA, Them Crooked Vultures and Arctic Monkeys collaborator Alain Johannes, and Dimitri Coats, OFF! guitarist.
The announcement comes with a glorious first single, Staring Down the Dust. On vocals is my Mark Lanegan, one of my favourite voices in the history of rock music. In an interview with Rolling Stone, Cameron said of the single, “This was the first song we recorded and we finished the rhythm track very quickly. We all liked the sound and feel of the song, but once we heard Mark Lanegan’s vocals on it, he took it to another level completely.”
“So much music that influenced me came from Seattle,” adds Coats. “The riffs Ben came up with for this one are heavy and twisted; not an obvious pocket for a singer to jump into.”
This is a song that I cannot flaw. It’s grunge, but refined grunge with a modern twist (specifically, that reverb on the vocals and the slightly tinny distortion). In a nutshell, grunge was awesome for 15-year-olds. This is awesome for those same 15-year-olds as we are now.
Apparently, the project actually dates back to 2008, following a memorial concert in tribute to Johannes’ wife Natasha Shneider. However, they didn’t actually make it to the studio until 2014. The four core members wrote the album, while Mark Lanegan takes the vocals (he also wrote the lyrics to the above single), Peter Frampton plays guitar on one track, and Nikki Costa sings on Come.
As Rolling Stone points out, all members of the band have worked together in previous bands and collaborations, running through Soundgarden, QOTSA, Eleven and more.
Ten Commandos are set to release their album next month, via Monkeywrench Records, a Universal imprint founded by Pearl Jam in 2009.