Temple of the Dog formed 25 years ago in tribute to Andrew Wood, the late singer of Mother Love Bone and roommate of Chris Cornell. After Wood died of a heroin overdose in March 1990, the Soundgarden frontman began writing songs in honor of his friend. He then invited Wood’s former bandmates — Stone Gossard and Jeff Ament — to join him in the studio. With a lineup rounded out by Mike McCready and Matt Cameron, they recorded a full-length album in just 15 days.
To mark the 25th anniversary of their lone LP, Temple of the Dog recently embarked on their first-ever tour. Not everyone is excited about the reunion, however. In a new blog posting to Xanaland, Wood’s longtime girlfriend, Xana La Fuente, ripped the reunion as nothing more than a cash grab. More than anything, though, La Fuente unleashed 25 years worth of rage squarely on Cornell.
Throughout her post, La Fuente referred to Cornell as “The Mustache” and a “chode.” She accused him of failing to give her writing credit for the song “Times of Trouble”, for giving away Wood’s possessions without her permission, and for reneging on a promise to donate Temple of the Dog profits to charity. After watching video of Cornell’s performance of “Stargazer”, she described it as a “shitty lame rendition” and a “slap in the face to Andy.”
Read La Fuente’s list of gripes in full below:
This morning I woke up to a message with a link to the first or one of the first Temple of the Dog shows, you know-the ones that many people can’t get tickets to because somehow all the little people were once again FORGOTTEN.
I thought to myself ” Oh great, here we go ” Every day lately I get messages regarding this tour. People asking if I have extra tickets. Asking to interview me and ” talk about my feelings ” . Well I am sick to death of all of it and just want it and The Mustache with his shitty lame rendition of a song about ME to GO AWAY. It’s bad enough he never gave me credit for partial lyrics I wrote in the chorus to Times of Trouble. I have literal proof of this in copyrighted poems I was sent and that were sent to me by a friend in prison. He’s now a very successful writer and magazine owner.
Let’s think about why the Temple of the Dog songs were written. Were they not written to console me and others over the loss of Andy? Chris gave me a cassette of songs and told me ” These are for you about Andy ” . Then Jeff and Soney heard them when I played them at Kelly and Peggy’s home where Jerry Cantrell and I were living. They asked Chris about the songs and went on to record them, with the ( broken ) promise that all the money would go to charity. That of course, never happened.
And people wonder why I call him a chode. It’s bad enough he took all MY BELONGINGS ( the law says possession is 9/10th’s of the law ) Andy’s lyric books, and all his stuff were in an apt. that only I paid the rent and all the other bills on, he had not worked for years. I was the one working for years to make sure he could stay home and write. I was the one who didn’t drink with him, didn’t smoke pot with him and certainly did not shoot heroin with him and in fact tried to get all of these guys including Chris, Stone, Jeff, the ” management ” and his ” family ” to LISTEN TO ME and they did not. I was the one who had to come home and find him overdosed. That stuff was my property and yes, we should have made copies of all the music and the lyrics and so on but the originals were mine. Everything he wore, including his Laker’s Jersey I paid for.
Chris had no right to give all this stuff to his family. All they did was turn around and sell it. Don’t get me started on all the lies and promises about money and royalties. And if you are one of those people reading this from Idaho who is obsessed with Chris, has never been to Seattle and wants to tell me how you think I’m a b*tch for calling Pearl Jam out or tell me ” They don’t owe you anything Xana ” then fuck you and don’t even think of leaving any shitty comments here they will be deleted immediately. YOU don’t know what really happened, but I do.
Temple of the Dog’s reunion tour continues Monday night at Madison Square Garden in New York City.
