Soul Asylum - Biography
There is ultimately something tragic about Soul Asylum. After laboring for a decade and developing a reputation as one of alternative rock’s most powerful bands, the Twin Cities quartet finally attained national success – and they never really recovered from the experience. Their look, sound, and style made them a perfect fit for the post-Nevermind commercial landscape, and they scored one of the biggest rock hits of their era with the inescapable top five single “Runaway Train.” But their loss of credibility and their inability to maintain a chart profile doomed the group in the long run.
The band began life in 1981 as the Minneapolis high school trio Loud Fast Rules, comprising guitarist Dan Murphy, bassist Karl Mueller and drummer Dave Pirner. Over the course of the next two years, Pirner – who became the band’s principal songwriter – shifted to guitar, and Pat Morley joined as drummer.
The group came up in a post-punk Twin Cities rock scene that was growing increasingly fertile. Pioneers like The Suicide Commandos, The Suburbs and Curtiss A gave way to Hüsker Dü and The Replacements. Soul Asylum -- as Loud Fast Rules came to be known – went head-to-head in the clubs with the latter two acts; less fervently punkish than the former, and more predictable and less melodic than the latter, they ranked a distant third on the scene. The band favored a bigger, more metallic sound than their hometown brethren – and that sound would stand them in good stead through their early-‘90s breakthrough.
In 1984, Soul Asylum signed a deal with Twin/Tone Records, the savvy independent label that was also home to The Replacements. They cut three impressive albums for the label – Say What You Will…Everything Can Happen (1984), producer by Hüsker Dü singer-guitarist Bob Mould; the puissant Made to Be Broken (1986), which saw the debut of new drummer Grant Young; and While You Were Out (1986). In the alt-rock manner of the day, they logged thousands of van miles as a touring unit, and developed a rep as underground darlings.
Via a short-lived distribution deal with A&M Records, the band’s next Twin/Tone album Hang Time (1988) received a major-label release; the set, helmed by The Ramones’ longtime producer Ed Stasium and The Patti Smith Group’s guitarist Lenny Kaye, is probably Soul Asylum’s most effective overall effort. It was succeeded by an EP’s worth of kooky covers, Clam Dip and Other Delights (1989) -- which bore a cover mocking the jacket of A&M co-founder Herb Alpert’s album Whipped Cream and Other Delights – and …And the Horse They Rode In On (1990), another strong, sometimes funk-flecked entry produced by Steve Jordan, drummer of Keith Richards’ Xpensive Winos. However, absent a hit, these records all failed to make a dent.
Everything changed, dramatically, for Soul Asylum after they were signed to Columbia Records and released their label debut Grave Dancers Union in 1992. Produced by Michael Beinhorn, who had previously worked with jazzman Herbie Hancock and L.A. funk-rockers The Red Hot Chili Peppers, the album was a chunk of ear candy with radio-friendly acoustic touches and requisite power balladry. Its irresistible “Runaway Train” became a modern rock radio fixture and a No. 5 pop single, and earned its writer Pirner a Grammy Award for best rock song in 1994. The song propelled the album to No. 11 on the U.S. charts; a fixture there for 76 weeks, the set sold more than 2 million copies. By the end of its run, Pirner had attained the ultimate rock star accessory: girlfriend Winona Ryder, actress and groupie.
It took Soul Asylum three years to craft a follow-up to Grave Dancers Union; in the interim, drummer Young was replaced by session man Sterling Campbell. The video for “Misery,” the first track off Let Your Dim Light Shine (1995), depicted the band as product rolling off a CD assembly line, and the analogy seemed apt to many. Though it sold a million copies and peaked at No. 6, the album sounded strained and somehow lifeless. The backlash that began with “Runaway Train” peaked with the release of the group’s third Columbia album Candy From a Stranger (1998), which spent just two weeks on the national charts, peaking at No. 121.
Following the failure of Candy, Soul Asylum went on a protracted hiatus. Pirner cut one indifferently received solo album for a label operated by talent agency William Morris, while Murphy joined the alt-rock semi-supergroup Golden Smog.
The band released their most recent album, The Silver Lining, in 2006. Though he began the sessions for the collection, founding bassist Mueller would not live to see its release: He succumbed to throat cancer at the age of 41 in 2005. Though the album failed to chart, Pirner and Murphy announced plans to release another Soul Asylum record in 2010.
