# The 1994 supergroup Mike McCready would never try again: “I wanted to help”

- URL: https://talkfuse.com/story/the-1994-supergroup-mike-mccready-would-never-try-again-i-wanted-to-help/
- Published: 2026-08-02T23:30:00+00:00
- Updated: 2026-08-03T00:13:17+00:00
- Original publisher: Far Out
- Original article: https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/the-supergroup-mike-mccready-would-never-try-again/
- Topics: Music

## Key points

- Mad Season aimed to combine music-making with mutual recovery support.
- McCready formed it partly to help Layne Staley.
- The group released one album before tragedy ended it.

## Summary

Mike McCready’s short-lived 1994 supergroup Mad Season was formed partly to support Alice in Chains singer Layne Staley’s recovery from addiction, an experience the Pearl Jam guitarist later suggested he would not attempt again. The article presents the project as a well-intentioned creative collaboration whose personal stakes made its legacy particularly poignant.

Mad Season united McCready with Staley, Screaming Trees drummer Barrett Martin and Walkabouts bassist John Baker Saunders after McCready’s own rehabilitation. The group released one album, *Above*, in 1995, including the single ‘River of Deceit’, but did not continue after Saunders’s death in 1999; Staley died in 2002.

---
Summarised by TalkFuse (https://talkfuse.com/). Quote the original publisher for the reporting and link this page for the summary and discussion.