Soul Asylum - Late 80's and Early 90's

Late 80's and Early 90's

The group signed with A&M Records in 1988. Their first offering there was Clam Dip & Other Delights (1989), a parody of A&M Records co-founder Herb Alpert's Whipped Cream & Other Delights. Hang Time was released in 1988, followed by And the Horse They Rode in On in 1990 (produced by X-pensive Winos drummer Steve Jordan). Due to poor sales and Pirner's hearing problems, the group considered disbanding.

After playing a series of acoustic shows in the early 1990s they were picked up by Columbia Records. In 1992 they released Grave Dancers Union, which became their most popular album. On January 20, 1993, the group performed at the first inauguration of United States President Bill Clinton. Additionally, in 1993, the band performed "Sexual Healing" for the AIDS-Benefit Album No Alternative produced by the Red Hot Organization. The band added keyboard player Joey Huffman in the summer of 1993. Huffman toured with the band until joining Matchbox Twenty in 1998. Huffman played on records Let Your Dim Light Shine, After the Flood: Live from the Grand Forks Prom, June 28, 1997 and The Silver Lining. In 1994, Soul Asylum received a nomination for the Grammy Award for Best Rock Song for "Runaway Train." The music video for "Runaway Train" featured photographs and names of missing children in a public service video style. At the end of the video, Pirner appeared and said "If you've seen one of these kids, or you are one of them, please call this number" before a missing children telephone helpline number appeared. For use outside the U.S., the video was edited to include photos and names of missing children from the area the video would be used. The video was instrumental in reuniting several children with their families.

Before their next studio album, drummer Grant Young was fired, and was replaced by Sterling Campbell. Campbell had been listed as providing "percussion" on Grave Dancers Union (although it turned out he had actually done at least half of the drumming on that album). The next release, Let Your Dim Light Shine saw the track "Misery" reach the Top 20, but the album was not as successful as the band's previous one. In 1997 Soul Asylum performed a benefit concert for North Dakota students whose proms were cancelled due to the Red River Flood of 1997. Some of the songs that were played during the prom were later released on After the Flood: Live from the Grand Forks Prom, June 28, 1997 in 2004. The group released Candy from a Stranger the following year. The album was unsuccessful and the band was dropped from Columbia Records' roster. Pirner said, "It's sort of sad to say, but you could see the whole grunge-rock-band thing getting totally over-saturated and people were looking for something new." The band took a step back; Pirner explained, "We needed to reassess how far we've gone and how much further we're going to go and which way we want to go and what we do right and what we do wrong. It was kind of time to take inventory."