The Kirkwood brothers Curt and Cris met Derrick Bostrom at a jam session held in a Unitarian Church in Phoenix, Arizona. Initially, the Kirkwoods were skeptical of punk rock, but eventually Derrick turned them onto bands such as The Damned and The Stooges. They first began playing as a 3 piece punk rock cover band named The Bastions of Immaturity.
Not long after the band began writing original material and adopted the name
Meat Puppets from the title of a song Curt wrote. Through Derrick's contacts in the L.A. punk rock circuit, they met a band named Monitor who eventually offered to bankroll an EP for them. The result was "
In A Car", released in the summer of 1981. Soon afterwards the band signed to SST Records and recorded their first album, "Meat Puppets" which came out in 1982. The bands insane hardcore thrash quickly gave them some notoriety in the hardcore circuit, while a few country covers hinted of other things to come.
Their next effort, 1983's "Meat Puppets II", has gone down in rock history as a classic album due to its revolutionary fusing of mellow country, folk and psychedelia with the edge of hardcore thrash. The album was also well received at the time of its release with good reviews in such major music publications as Rolling Stone. Encouraged by their success, the band continued to develop their own unique sound on "Up On the Sun" in 1985. Recorded in only 4 days the album featured a more clean and cohesive sound, but still contained an edge that set it apart from anything done before and has like its predecessor become a classic record. During these years the Meat Puppets also cemented their reputation as a great live act, and although occasionally criticised for never being able to recreate the "magic" of their albums, they won people over by their solid yet outlandish performances. They especially became notorious for their habit of playing bizarre and obscure covers. In 1986 the band took time in between tours to release the EP "Out My Way", which demonstrated that they were fully capable of writing and playing more traditional rock material.
1987 turned out to be a productive year with 2 consecutive releases. "Mirage", with its heavy overdubbing and meticulous recording process, was a fully realized dive into the psychedelic vibes that the band had always played around with. Also, for the first time they began to incorporate some synthesizer textures into their mix. "Huevos" on the other hand was a pure, raw power trio blast, which many nowadays see as the bands' homage to ZZ Top. "Get On Down" from that album also became the bands' first "proper" music video. For the next couple years the band hit the road and toured Europe for the first time as well as extensive US criss-crossing.
In 1989 the underground "DIY" scene that the Meat Puppets had helped establish was changing drastically with many of their peers such as Hüsker Dü and The Replacements being swooped up by major-labels. It was clear that if the Meat Puppets wanted to continue making music, as well as making a living out of doing it, they would have to make a stab at joining the "major league" too. The band recorded a demo reel of songs and passed it around to several major labels, sparking interest from several of them. However, because of the necessity of making ends meet until they had secured a proper deal, they decided to release "Monsters" on SST. Arguably the heaviest album the band had recorded at this point, it also featured electronic drums, yet was still hailed as one of the more lively sounding albums the band had done. In 1990 the band appeared on the pilot of Beverly Hills 90210 and secured a major label deal.
"Forbidden Places" came out in 1991 as the Meat Puppets' first release on London Records. Although reviews were favourable as usual, the albums' country rock experimentation got totally lost in the Seattle explosion that occurred at the time. Following extensive touring the band went into the studio with their old pal Paul Leary, from Butthole Surfers, producing. While waiting for the album to be released the band toured with Nirvana. Cris and Curt also made an appearance on Nirvana's MTV Unplugged show where they helped them cover "Oh Me", "Plateau" and "Lake of Fire" all from "Meat Puppets II". In 1994 "Too High to Die" was released and it became the band's biggest commercial hit as it eventually went gold. The success of the album rests both on the strength of the single "Backwater", but also on the fact that after Kurt Cobain had committed suicide the Unplugged show was being aired constantly, thus giving the band considerable exposure. 1994 continued to be the Meat Puppets' most commercially successful year as they went on arena tours with bands such as Blind Melon and Stone Temple Pilots as well as performing on talk shows. Unfortunately, it was also during this time that Cris became seriously addicted to heroin. The following year in 1995 "No Joke!" was released once again recorded with Paul Leary producing. The band toured a final time with Primus before Cris' addiction became too much to cope with, and although they never officially disbanded, the original members went separate ways.
Derrick Bostrom has since released a single under the name of Today's Sounds on Amarillo Records. Derrick was in charge of Rykodisc's re-issue of all the Meat Puppets albums previously released on SST, which all feature bonus tracks, essays and recording notes. He has also been responsible for releasing new classic line-up Meat Puppets material such as Live in Montana from 1999 and the DVD "Alive In The Nineties". Furthermore, he has been maintaining the bands' official website since 1995.
Curt Kirkwood has been keeping himself busy with first assembling a new group which started off as Royal Neanderthal Orchestra in 1998, but which later took the Meat Puppets brand for "Golden Lies" from 2000 and "Meat Puppets Live" from 2002. He eventually moved on to play with the alternative super-group Eyes Adrift, which released a critically well received yet poorly selling self-titled "Eyes Adrift" from 2002 before splitting up. Along the way he has also maintained a solo career and pursued his other creative passion, painting (many of his works have graced the Meat Puppets albums throughout the years).
Cris Kirkwood's drug addiction worsened considerably and he isolated himself with his wife who had also become a junkie. Eventually, Cris' wife died of an overdose and following some more rough years it appeared as if he was making an attempt to finally beat the drugs. Unfortunately, in 2003 he got into a fight with a security officer outside a post office, which ended with Cris being shot and jailed. In August 2004 he was sentenced to 21 months imprisonment.
