Green River were formed in Seattle in 1984, taking their name from the area's notorious, then-recent serial killer (who wasn't brought to justice until around two decades later). Lead vocalist/guitarist Mark Arm and guitarist Steve Turner had previously played together in two local bands, the geek punk Mr. Epp and the more hardcore oriented Limp Richerds. Before joining those bands, Steve had played for a while with drummer Alex Vincent (aka Alex Shumway) in a band called Spluii Numa. When all of the aforementioned bands broke up, Mark, Steve and Alex started looking around for a bass player and found one in Jeff Ament from Deranged Diction. Late in the year, second guitarist Stone Gossard -- Turner's onetime bandmate in yet another band from the early '80s, the Ducky Boys -- came onboard, allowing Arm to concentrate exclusively on singing. Green River started playing local clubs, and in 1985 they recorded two tracks for the compilation album Deep Six, the inaugural release on local indie C/Z Records (it also featured early tracks by Soundgarden, the Melvins, Malfunkshun, and Skin Yard). Later in 1985, Green River went to New York to record their debut EP, Come On Down, for the Homestead label. As soon as the recording sessions were over, Steve Turner had alread left the band (reportedly over his distaste for its metal influences) and was replaced by Bruce Fairweather, who had played with Ament in Deranged Diction. In order to promote the album, the band put together a tour with shows all across the USA which proved to be short of disastrous: the release date for their record was pushed back so by the time they hit the road virtually noone knew them, and while on some nights things would go fine, on various occasions they found themselves playing in empty venues or facing rowdy crowds. In the summer of 1986, the group recorded another EP, Dry as a Bone, in Seattle with producer Jack Endino; it was issued by Bruce Pavitt's fledgling Sub Pop label in July 1987. Green River subsequently began work on an eight-song mini-album for Sub Pop, which was released in early 1988 under the title Rehab Doll. By the time it appeared, though, intra-band tensions were tearing Green River apart. The central issue was commercialism: Gossard and Ament wanted to pursue a major-label deal, while Arm preferred to remain independent and record for Sub Pop. The final straw apparently stemmed from a gig in Los Angeles; Arm wanted to give his friends backstage passes, but found that Ament had reserved them all for A&R reps who never showed up. Not long after Rehab Doll appeared, Green River officially disbanded. Arm reunited with Turner to form the punkier Mudhoney, while Gossard, Ament, and Fairweather joined up with ex-Malfunkshun singer Andrew Wood in the glammier Mother Love Bone. Following Wood's death from a heroin overdose, Gossard and Ament moved on to found the hugely successful Pearl Jam with vocalist Eddie Vedder. Fairweather, meanwhile, moved on to Love Battery. In late 1993, during a Pearl Jam encore in Las Vegas, Arm and Turner joined Gossard and Ament on-stage for a one-time-only Green River reunion.
Bio written by: Newfie |
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