I always liked the name "Soul Asylum". In fact, probably more than I liked the band itself if I'm being brutally honest. It sounded like it should have been the name of a band with a much harder sound.
Soul Asylum are one of those bands that I'm always vaguely surprised are still around. There was a moment when their star burnt very brightly - around 1992 they released "Runaway Train"
which was catchy song with a hummable chord progression (and easy enough to learn in your bedroom after school!) yet with a somewhat morbid subject. Coupled with a well done video that also worthily highlighted various missing teens (true fact: the video was altered for different markets to show locale appropriate runaways and ultimately helped reunite several families) and suddenly the band were big. As in "Play at Bill Clinton's inauguration" big. Which is, you know, pretty big.
Frontman Dave Pirner dated Winona Ryder, appearing briefly in "Reality Bites" with her, was part of the "allstar" group put together for Beatles bio-pic "Backbeat" and also became friendly with Kevin Smith (back when he was considered the indie auteur wunderkind) providing tracks for "Clerks" and "Chasing Amy".
And then ... nothing.
I have hazy recollections of the track "Misery"
but, unusually for me, I couldn't tell you what album it was on or even what year it came out.
Apparently they're still knocking around and are working on a new album.
So now you know.
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