What do you get when you cross country music, punk and metal? The genre-bending music of the Meat Puppets, that’s what.
The trio—brothers Curt and Cris Kirkwood and bandmate (and relatively speaking, youngin’) Shandon Sahm—are perhaps best known for the rise to stardom that followed them after Nirvana covered three of their tunes on their epic acoustic MTV Unplugged setlist.
The inclusion by Nirvana made the band mainstream, at least for a hot minute, but the reality is that the Kirkwood brothers had been making music before that for long enough that Nirvana—and other core bands of that era, Soundgarden, Dinosaur Jr. and Pavement—named them as influences. In fact, they’ve been making music since the ’80s and still are—with a few small breaks, of course. After all, they are a rock & roll band.
For a while during a breakup, brother Cris focused on drug use (and a prison stint), while brother Curt started a band with Nirvana’s Krist Novoselic and a member of Sublime. But Cris is cleaned up. They replaced original drummer Derrick Bostrom with Shandon Sahm. And added Curt’s son Elmo to the band.
Suffice it to say, Kirkwood brothers are back. And the rock & roll/country/punk/ keeps going.
Meat Puppets play The State Room Thursday night. Tickets available here.
