Meat Puppets

Meat Puppets
Meat Puppets performing in 2014
Background information
Origin	Phoenix, Arizona, United States
Genres	Alternative rock cowpunk hardcore punk (early)
Years active	1980–1996, 1999–2002, 2006–present
Labels	SST London Atlantic Rykodisc Anodyne Megaforce
Associated acts	Nirvana Eyes Adrift Volcano
Website	www.themeatpuppets.com
Members	Curt Kirkwood Cris Kirkwood Shandon Sahm Elmo Kirkwood (touring member)
Past members	Derrick Bostrom Kyle Ellison Ken Boucher (session bassist) Andrew Duplantis Troy Meiss (touring member) Ted Marcus

Meat Puppets is an American rock band formed in January 1980 in Phoenix, Arizona. The group's original lineup was Curt Kirkwood (guitar/vocals), his brother Cris Kirkwood (bass guitar), and Derrick Bostrom (drums). The Kirkwood brothers met Bostrom while attending Brophy Prep High School in Phoenix. The three then moved to Tempe, Arizona (a Phoenix suburb and home to Arizona State University) where the Kirkwood brothers purchased two adjacent homes, one of which had a shed in the back where they regularly practiced.

Meat Puppets started as a punk rock band, but like most of their labelmates on SST Records, they established their own unique style, blending punk with country and psychedelic rock, and featuring Curt's warbling vocals. Meat Puppets later gained significant exposure when the Kirkwood brothers served as guest musicians on Nirvana's MTV Unplugged performance in 1993. The band's 1994 album Too High to Die subsequently became their most successful release. The band broke up twice, in 1996 and 2002, but reunited again in 2006.

Meat Puppets has influenced a number of rock bands including Nirvana,Soundgarden,Dinosaur Jr,Sebadoh and Pavement.

In the late 1970s, drummer Derrick Bostrom played with guitarist Jack Knetzger in a band called Atomic Bomb Club, which began as a duo, but would come to include bassist Cris Kirkwood. The band played a few local shows and recorded some demos, but began to dissolve quickly thereafter. Derrick and Cris began rehearsing together with Cris' brother Curt Kirkwood by learning songs from Bostrom's collection of punk rock 45s. After briefly toying with the name The Bastions of Immaturity, they settled on the name Meat Puppets in June, 1980 after a song by Curt of the same name which appears on their first album. Their early works were made up of hardcore punk, and attracted the attention of Joe Carducci as he was starting to work with legendary punk label SST Records. Carducci suggested they sign with the label, and Meat Puppets released their first album Meat Puppets in 1982, which among several new originals and a pair of heavily skewed Doc Watson and Bob Nolan covers, featured the songs "The Gold Mine" and "Melons Rising", two tunes Derrick and Cris originally had written and performed as Atomic Bomb Club previously.