In 1990, Andrew Wood, lead singer of the grunge bands Malfunkshun and Mother Love Bone, died of an overdose. When his friend and roommate Chris Cornell learned about Wood’s death, he wrote two songs in tribute to him during a Soundgarden tour through Europe. Upon his return to Seattle, he decided to record them with Mother Love Bone’s guitarist Stone Gossard and bassist Jeff Ament. The group was completed by Soungarden drummer Matt Cameron and Gossard’s guitarist friend Mike McCready. They named the project Temple of the Dog after a line on Mother Love Bone’s “Man of Golden Words”.

Eventually they decided a two-song single wasn’t enough and opted to extend to an EP or a full-blown single. During the 15 day recording period, they were joined by Eddie Vedder, a singer who had flown from San Diego to audition for Gossard and Ament’s new band. Ament recalled that they requested to put a sticker on the Temple of the Dog album with the name said group would get, Pearl Jam, but the request was refused by label A&M.

Temple of the Dog was initially well-received by critics but barely sold. Then as grunge exploded and Pearl Jam’s Ten and Soundgarden’s Badmotorfinger were selling well, A&M decided to reissue the record with “Hunger Strike” as a single. Temple of the Dog then was among the 100 top-selling albums of 1992 and reached one million copies.

The supergroup would reunite on four occasions Soundgarden and Pearl Jam were around (helps that in 1998 Cameron became the drummer for both), and Cornell sung Temple of the Dog tracks both solo and with Audioslave.