Name’s the Same; the Attitude’s New

They were the ‘80s indie heroes every newly signed ‘90s rock band wanted for an opening act. Nirvana, Blind Melon and Stone Temple Pilots each handpicked the Meat Puppets for tours in 1993 and ’94. That era would be the most prosperous of the Arizona trio’s tumbleweed-like career, but it would ultimately cost the band its livelihood.

“We blew it,” singer-guitarist Curt Kirkwood says, sitting in the kitchen of the hillside house where he has lived for the past three years while forming a new version of the Meat Puppets.

Kirkwood thinks for a moment and corrects himself. “Actually, Cris blew it.”

Cris Kirkwood, 40, is Curt’s younger brother and his sidekick in the original Meat Puppets, whose decade and a half of get-in-the-van touring finally paid off in 1994. That’s when the group landed its lone radio hit, “Backwater,” and made a three-song appearance in Nirvana’s “MTV Unplugged” special.

While touring with those headliners, Cris developed personal problems. After his wife died of a heroin overdose in 1998 at their Tempe, Ariz., home, he dropped out of sight.

All Curt really knows now is that Cris’ royalty checks are being cashed. The younger Kirkwood could not be contacted for this article.

In 1996, Curt left Arizona and briefly moved to L.A.’s Venice area before settling in Texas’ music-laden capital. He had friends here, including the backup guitarist on the original Pups’ final tour, Kyle Ellison, who became his main collaborator.

The two off-kilter musicians shared a liking for Texas psychedelic rock acts such as the 13th Floor Elevators and the Butthole Surfers, whose influence can be heard on “Hercules” and “Armed and Stupid,” two songs from the new Meat Puppets album, “Golden Lies.” The collection was released in September on Breaking Records, the Atlantic Records imprint started by Hootie & the Blowfish.

Kirkwood and Ellison shared something besides musical tastes--both also have dealt with troubled brothers. Ellison’s sibling Sims committed suicide not long after their hard-rock band, Pariah, was dropped from Geffen Records in 1994. He’s the namesake for an Austin-based mental-health counseling center for musicians, the SIMS Foundation.

“Kyle’s sort of a younger version of Curt--just another spiritual, good-natured guy,” said former Meat Puppets road manager Corey Moore, who introduced the pair. “They clicked personally as much as musically, but I think they both needed the musical connection the most. Music is life to them.”

At first, Kirkwood and Ellison recorded demos and gave a couple of performances as a duo. At the urging of the Meat Puppets’ label, London Records, Curt contemplated a solo record. When the rest of the lineup fell into place--with ex-Pariah drummer Shandon Sahm (son of Tex-Mex music legend Doug Sahm) and one-time Bob Mould bassist Andrew Duplantis joining--the group played a handful of gigs as the Royal Neanderthal Orchestra.

*

In the end, practicality ruled the choice of a name for the new band.

“Any record that has Curt singing and songwriting on it is going to sound like a Meat Puppets record and is going to be compared to a Meat Puppets record, so it’d be silly not to call it a Meat Puppets record,” said Breaking Records A&R; executive Max Burgos, who also represented the original Pups at London. (Kirkwood requested and received his release from London after the label merged with Sire Records.)

Ellison, foreseeing critics’ and old fans’ gripes about any new breed of Meat Puppets, said, “It was so not Curt’s fault things fell apart with the old lineup. So why should he have to give up his band? I kind of like what Curt says now, that there are six members of the Meat Puppets now.”

That also sounds good to original Meat Puppets drummer Derrick Bostrom, who still lives in the Phoenix area and counts himself as a band member even though he has decided not to participate in the new lineup. Bostrom runs their Web site, https://www.meatpuppets.com. He also oversaw last year’s Rykodisc reissues of the Pups’ seven albums on the seminal ‘80s punk label SST Records. Among that collection is 1984’s “II” record, a favorite of Kurt Cobain and most of the Meat Puppets’ fans.

“It’s perfectly ironic that when the old Meat Puppets were together and doing our best stuff, the music industry for the most part ignored us because they thought we were too chaotic or abstract,” Bostrom said. “And now that Curt’s playing with a relatively stable, well-greased lineup and some great players, people now say, ‘Yeah, but it’s not like the old days.’ ”

Kirkwood will readily note the differences between the two incarnations. For one, because of a dragged-out negotiation process over the record deal, he says, the new group has been able to put in more rehearsal time than the old Pups ever did. Also, the new players are all about 10 years his junior, and their youthful energy “really gave me a kick in the pants.”

In the end, though, the veteran frontman--who has strings of gray in his long, curly mane but otherwise looks unchanged--says people shouldn’t read too much into the issue of old Pups versus new Pups.

“None of this was planned out,” he says. “I’d never really done anything like audition someone to be in a band. Really, this is the first new thing I’ve done in 20 years.

“But, you know, it really wasn’t anything too complicated. It was how the old band or most bands get together. It was completely natural and normal.”

Well, “normal” might be overstating it. Although “Golden Lies” gems such as “You Love Me” and “I Quit” are more polished and straightforward than anything the old Pups ever did, there is still plenty of the hallucinogenic, anarchic vibe of old. Onstage, too, the new band occasionally goes off on the kind of improvised, chaotic instrumental tangents that the original lineup was renowned for.

Without mentioning his brother, Kirkwood uses a recent, high-profile “coming out” gig thrown by Atlantic at the Mercury Lounge in New York as an example of the new band’s advantages over the old.

“We nailed it,” he says. “And that’s something the old Meat Puppets would have blown in a second, no problem. A record label showcase with lots of press and radio people there? OK, time to pee our pants on stage.”

The new Meat Puppets, it seems, are going to play it straight--and, they hope, get it right this time.