Though the group isn’t often spoken of in the same breath as Crosby, Stills and Nash or The Traveling Wilburys, Mad Season was a bona fide supergroup for the ’90s. The Seattle-based group of musicians – Layne Staley of Alice in Chains, guitarist Mike McCready of Pearl Jam, drummer Barrett Martin of Screaming Trees, and bassist John Baker Saunders of The Walkabouts and The Lamont Cranston Band – joined together in ’94 and released just one album, 1995’s Columbia Records release Above. Almost twenty years later, Legacy Recordings is revisiting that watershed album in a 2-CD Deluxe Edition.
It was, indeed, a mad season for the talented quartet of Staley, McCready, Martin and Saunders. Despite scoring a Top 10 single with River of Deceit and a Top 10 album with Above, the band’s time…
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…together was short, as group members struggled with substance abuse. (The name Mad Season refers to the time of year when “magic mushrooms” are in bloom.) Following the success of the debut album, a second Mad Season effort was mooted in 1996, with all members save Staley writing and recording tracks for roughly 15 new songs. Staley’s health precluded him from participating, however, and the sessions were eventually shelved. A hiatus was planned, but it became permanent. Mad Season never reunited; McCready returned to Pearl Jam and Martin to Screaming Trees. Saunders died of an overdose in 1999, with Staley also tragically losing his life to drugs just three years later. (Perhaps ironically, McCready first met Saunders in rehab.) Yet Mad Season left behind an abundance of riches on the dark, somber and bluesy Above. Produced by Brett Eliason, it remains the only complete album of Layne Staley’s evocative lyrics, and featured additional vocals from Screaming Trees’ Mark Lanegan and Seattle-based saxophonist/percussionist Skerik (a.k.a. Eric Walton).
On May 23, 2012, surviving band members McCready and Martin reunited in Seattle (where else?) for McCready’s annual benefit concert for those suffering from Crohn’s Disease. They also met with producer Eliason to revisit the tapes for the abandoned second Mad Season album. Mark Lanegan was enlisted to write lyrics and sing on three of the original songs, including one co-written with R.E.M.’s Peter Buck. These will be included on the Deluxe Edition reissue’s first CD, following the remastered original album. The band’s recording of John Lennon’s “I Don’t Wanna Be a Soldier,” originally aired on a tribute album, is also heard in a remix. The second CD premieres the complete audio to Mad Season’s Live at the Moore concert, recorded in Seattle on April 29, 1995.
CD1
01 – Wake Up
02 – X-Ray Mind
03 – River of Deceit
04 – I’m Above
05 – Artificial Red
06 – Lifeless Dead
07 – I Don’t Know Anything
08 – Long Gone Day
09 – November Hotel
10 – All Alone
Bonus Tracks:
11 – Interlude (previously unreleased)
12 – Locomotive (lyrics/vocals by Mark Lanegan)
13 – Black Book of Fear (lyrics/vocals by Mark Lanegan)
14 – Slip Away (lyrics/vocals by Mark Lanegan)
15 – I Don’t Wanna Be a Soldier (remix)
CD2: Live at The Moore
01 – Wake Up
02 – Lifeless Dead
03 – Artificial Red
04 – River of Deceit
05 – I Don’t Wanna Be a Soldier
06 – Long Gone Day
07 – I’m Above
08 – I Don’t Know Anything
09 – X-Ray Mind
10 – All Alone
11 – November Hotel