Whereas most up-and-coming alternative bands of the early '90s borrowed from the leaders of the pack (
Nirvana,
Soundgarden,
Nine Inch Nails, etc.),
Blind Melon were an exception to the rule -- their roots lay in classic rock (
Lynyrd Skynyrd,
Grateful Dead,
Led Zeppelin).
And while a promising career lay ahead of them, tragedy would
ultimately end the band abruptly. The group came together in 1989 in Los
Angeles, although all their respective members had migrated there from
other U.S. locales (singer
Shannon Hoon from Indiana; guitarist
Christopher Thorn from Pennsylvania; and guitarist
Rogers Stevens, bassist
Brad Smith, and drummer
Glenn Graham
all hailed from Mississippi). The complete opposite of all the
glossed-up glam metal that was permeating the Sunset Strip at the time,
the quintet used a refreshing back-to-basics approach, both musically
and visually (giving off a heavy retro vibe early on). The band
considered several names -- Brown Cow, Mud Bird, Naked Pilgrims, and
Head Train -- before agreeing on
Blind Melon, a phrase that
Smith's father would use to describe a couple of hippie neighbors from back home in Mississippi.
With the band's lineup and name solidified, Capitol
Records became interested solely on the strength of a four-song demo,
titled
The Goodfoot Workshop. Although
Blind Melon
only had a limited repertoire of songs at the time, they managed to
convince Capitol that they had a healthy backlog of compositions, and
were signed in 1991. The band set out shortly thereafter to work on an
EP, produced by longtime
Neil Young producer
David Briggs and titled
The Sippin' Time Sessions. But when the end results came out surprisingly slick and doctored, the project was shelved.
Hoon, in the meantime, became reacquainted with an old friend of his sister's from back home in Indiana,
Guns N' Roses' frontman
Axl Rose, who invited
Hoon to sing backup on several tracks for
Guns N' Roses'
Use Your Illusion I set.
Hoon lent his vocal talents to several tracks, the best-known being the ballad "Don't Cry," even appearing along with
GNR in the song's epic video. Doubled with a high-profile appearance on MTV's 120 Minutes Tour in the spring of 1992 (along with
Live,
Big Audio Dynamite, and
Public Image Ltd.), a buzz began to emerge regarding
Blind Melon. The only problem was, they still didn't have an album in the racks.
