ALT (band)

Lore & Background

ALT was formed in 1994, bringing together Tim Finn, Andy White, and Liam Ó Maonlaí. The band's name was created from the first letters of their first names. They recorded their studio album, Altitude, at Periscope Studios in Melbourne, Australia. The album contained thirteen tracks and included references and influences from the musical and cultural traditions in which the participants grew up. A live album, Bootleg, was recorded at The Continental in Sydney, Australia. Both albums were recorded and released in 1994–1995.

Reader's Guide

ALT represents a brief but notable collaboration among three prominent musicians from different backgrounds. Their studio album, Altitude, drew on the diverse cultural and musical traditions of its members. The band's legacy includes later reworkings: Tim Finn re-recorded an ALT song as the title track for his 2001 EP What You've Done, and included that version on his album Feeding the Gods the same year. In 2004, Liam Ó Maonlaí joined Finn on stage in Dublin during a Finn Brothers concert to perform one of the ALT songs. The three have occasionally worked together on each other's solo projects. The studio album was re-released in 2022 with five bonus tracks, indicating continued interest in the project.

Did You Know?

• The band's name was created from the first letters of the members' first names: Tim, Andy, and Liam.
• ALT released two albums: the studio album Altitude and the live album Bootleg.
• Tim Finn re-recorded an ALT song as the title track for his 2001 EP What You've Done.
• The studio album was re-released in 2022 with five bonus tracks.

Formation in the Shadow of Recovery

McCready's path to Mad Season began not in a studio but in a Minnesota rehabilitation clinic. While Pearl Jam was producing Vitalogy in 1994, the guitarist checked into the Hazelden Clinic for drug and alcohol treatment, where he crossed paths with bassist John Baker Saunders. Back in Seattle, the two immediately began writing with drummer Barrett Martin, who had played with Skin Yard and the Screaming Trees. The trio locked in rehearsal time and sketched out what would become "Wake Up" and "River of Deceit." McCready then invited his friend Layne Staley from Alice in Chains to handle lead vocals, partly hoping that surrounding the singer with sober musicians might nudge him toward a cleaner life. With no finished songs and no band name, McCready booked an unannounced set at the Crocodile Cafe on October 12, 1994. The show was a hit, and the track "Artificial Red" actually crystallized during that very performance. Two follow-up dates in November saw the group billing themselves as The Gacy Bunch, a tongue-in-cheek nod to a notorious Chicago killer and a 1970s sitcom. By January 1995, the quartet had performed on Pearl Jam's Self-Pollution pirate satellite broadcast, playing "Lifeless Dead" and "I Don't Know Anything" for a wider audience.

Above: A Seven-Day Masterpiece

The band's name itself carried a double meaning. "Mad Season" is an English term for the period when psilocybin mushrooms reach full bloom, but McCready also connected it to "the seasons of drinking and drug abuse" that had shadowed the group's formation. The album of that name was recorded in Seattle at Bad Animals Studio, a facility co-owned by Ann and Nancy Wilson of Heart, and co-produced by the band alongside Pearl Jam engineer Brett Eliason. The result was a ten-track record that included guest vocals and additional lyrics from Screaming Trees frontman Mark Lanegan. According to McCready, the entire musical foundation was laid in roughly seven days, with Staley completing his vocal parts just a few days later—an intense pace given that the group had only rehearsed twice and played four shows total. Released on March 14, 1995, through Columbia Records, Above became both a critical and commercial triumph. It climbed the Billboard 200 to a peak of number 24 and spawned two charting singles: "River of Deceit," which reached number two on Mainstream Rock Tracks and number nine on Modern Rock Tracks, and "I Don't Know Anything," which hit number twenty on Mainstream Rock. The RIAA certified the album gold on June 14, 1995, just three months after its release.

The Slow Unraveling

Mad Season's brief run was ultimately undone by the very forces that had drawn its members together. After a spring of 1995 live shows—including a performance captured on the Live at the Moore concert film at Seattle's Moore Theatre and a cover of John Lennon's "I Don't Wanna Be a Soldier" for the Working Class Hero tribute album—the band entered a semi-permanent hiatus in 1996 as members returned to their primary projects. Staley's substance abuse had deepened, and he never performed again after a July 1996 Alice in Chains show. In 1997, McCready, Saunders, and Martin attempted a revival, recruiting Mark Lanegan—who had already guested on Above—as a permanent replacement vocalist. The group adopted the new name Disinformation in late 1997, and work on a debut album reportedly began in 1998. Yet conflicting schedules made studio sessions increasingly difficult, and the quartet gradually drifted apart. The final blow came in January 1999, when Saunders died of a heroin overdose. Staley confirmed the group's disbandment in a July 1999 interview, and he himself would succumb to an overdose three years later.

Echoes and Reunions

Though Mad Season never released a second album, its footprint has persisted in ways both musical and memorial. In March 2013, a special edition box set arrived containing a remastered edition of Above alongside various unreleased material, giving longtime fans access to previously unheard recordings. The surviving members have also allowed the project to resurface in limited live settings: McCready and Martin shared the stage for a brief partial reunion in 2012, and a second, slightly longer reunion stretched from 2014 into 2015. Beyond those gatherings, the members have continued their individual careers—McCready went on to form the side project The Rockfords while remaining active with Pearl Jam, and Martin briefly reconnected with the Screaming Trees. The band's story remains one of extraordinary creative intensity compressed into a single year, a gold-certified debut, and a dissolution sealed by the deaths of two of its four members. In the broader narrative of Seattle's grunge era, Mad Season occupies a singular place: a supergroup that delivered one perfect album before the machinery of addiction and competing commitments ground it to a halt.

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