Andrew Wood

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Andrew Wood
Andrew Wood formerly of Mother Love Bone and Malfunkshun
Background information
Born	January 6, 1966
Origin	Washington, United States
Died	March 19, 1990
Genre(s)	Rock
Occupation(s)	Singer-songwriter, guitarist
Instrument(s)	Guitar Vocals
Years active	1985 - 1990
Label(s)	Stardog Records
Associated acts	Mother Love Bone Malfunkshun

Andrew Wood (January 6, 1966 – March 19, 1990) was the lead singer of the band Mother Love Bone, and earlier of Malfunkshun. He died of a heroin overdose coupled with a cerebral hemorrhage just before the release of Mother Love Bone's debut album Apple. He lived on Bainbridge Island in Washington state for the majority of his youth, forming Malfunkshun as a teenager. The only released material during Malfunkshun's existence was on the compilation, Deep Six (C/Z Records).

As a musician, his trademarks were his exuberant on-stage personality, glittery, outlandish clothes and whimsical, unabashedly dreamy lyrics which he sang in a tenor heavily reminiscent of Led Zeppelin frontman Robert Plant. In the 1996 movie Hype!, Seattle engineer Jack Endino called Wood "the only stand-up comedian frontman in Seattle", a reference to Wood's playful style of interacting with Mother Love Bone fans.

Fellow band members Stone Gossard and Jeff Ament of Mother Love Bone went on to form Pearl Jam, and Malfunkshun drummer Regan Hagar later appeared in Satchel and Brad with Shawn Smith. Stone Gossard is also a concurrent member of Brad. Shawn Smith has a guest appearance on the album "Your Ice Cream's Dirty" by Devilhead, featuring Wood's brothers Brian and Kevin Wood.

In the year following Andrew Wood's death his former companions Stone Gossard and Jeff Ament, together with Chris Cornell and Matt Cameron from Soundgarden formed the tribute-band Temple of the Dog. The name was taken from one of Wood's lyrics and the songs bore the street-rock flavor of Mother Love Bone's music. Ament and Gossard also included the other two members from their newly born band, Mookie Blaylock (to be Pearl Jam). These members were Mike McCready, who played solo guitar for Temple of the Dog, and Eddie Vedder who sang in the song "Hunger Strike" together with Cornell. The members later changed the name to Pearl Jam after NBA star Mookie Blaylock signed a shoe deal with Nike.

Jerry Cantrell of Seattle band Alice In Chains wrote the song "Would?" about Andrew Wood.^{[citation needed]} The song became one of Alice In Chains' biggest hits and appeared on their 1992 album Dirt.

The song "Mr Lovedog" by Los Angeles band Faster Pussycat (from their 1992 album "Whipped" is also a tribute to Andrew Wood. Faster Pussycat vocalist Taime Downe is a Seattle native.

In 1995, Gossard released Return to Olympus, a compilation of demos recorded by Wood and Malfunkshun.

The 1997 album The Cult by The Cult features a song titled "Sacred Life" that mentions the death of Andrew Wood.

In 2005, director Scot Barbour completed production on the documentary, Malfunkshun: The Andrew Wood Story (distributed by Sony), which premiered at the Seattle International Film Festival. Later that year, the film won the Judges' Choice for Best Documentary at the FAIF Film Festival in Hollywood, California. [1]