Matthew and Gunnar Nelson Reflect on Family, Fame & Rock History | Talkin' Rock with Meltdown

Throughout my 35-year career, I've never met or spoken with Matthew of Gunnar Nelson. That streak ended this week when the guys told me about their latest book, friends in the world of rock, their career, and more. Why now? Matthew answered that. "Well, you know, we just got that question. Why not? It's because honestly, we really just didn't feel it was time yet. And we hadn't lived enough life, really, to say we're going to write our book. You know, we're not getting any younger. We have a lot of stories to tell. And it was just that there were so many people at our concerts. We had a lot of our shows, we'll tell a story behind a song, or we'll talk about an anecdote that led up to something or somebody we met along the way. And we just had too many people saying, you guys need to write a book." A fellow Slaughter rock star really jump-started the project. "I think that the real driver for this, if I'm going to be 100 percent honest, Dana Strum. Dana Strum is a friend of ours. And he was the guy that said, Listen, I'm going to tell you the obvious. But I keep hearing you guys telling stories about...you guys need to write a damn book. Write a book. And so then it came down to what kind of a book are we going to write? Because there are two of us, which is a very interesting concept of how to do it. So we split up stories and chapters." The Grunge Era And Nelson I was curious how the Grunge era hit them. They had dropped their first album in 1990 and had great success, then bands like theirs weren't wanted anymore by record labels. "We have an amazing story about what it was like being at DGC Records, which was Nirvana's label. We were the first band that actually broke through on David Geffen Company, was the offshoot of the main Geffen label. And we were out on the road playing arenas. And then we showed up at the office and everybody was 20 years old and wearing flannel. And we were relics and at the ripe old age of 23. So that's just how it was. But it made it into the book in a lot of different ways." Matthew went on, "I've got multiple chapters on what it was like for the rise and then the immediate fall off the cliff at the label and how MTV changed everything overnight. And it was definitely not an organic thing, not to take anything away from Nirvana. They were just the right band to kind of break open. I think there was a big glut of mediocre bands, and it just needed a reset." I asked them what the biggest misconception about them is. "There's a lot of stuff, you know? Yeah, I think, you know, when you meet people that you hang out with them and stuff. And at the end of that, they go, wow, you're really nice guy. It's like, thanks. Did you get it? What does that mean? I was like, well, I thought you guys were going to be dicks. You know, honestly, I think we know what it's like to kind of feel as guilty until proven innocent." MTV Matthew and Gunnar recalled many days at MTV, and being played on the station, making them famous. "People used to pick up their phone and call in and vote for videos. Our first single, the first video, debuted that Friday. And it debuted at number one. So it just came out of the pipe huge. And we just went from... We thought we were ready for it. But having that kind of... It was like the world's longest overnight success. Because we've been working at this for years." Grab the book What Happened To Your Hair on December 16th. Thank you to Matthew and Gunnar for the fun conversation. 0:00 Intro 0:35 The Ricky Nelson Remembered Tour 2:00 Honoring Ricky Nelson’s Music and Story 4:15 Lessons from Growing Up Nelson 6:05 Why Family Legacy Still Matters 8:12 How the Nelson Brothers Approach Songwriting Today 10:18 Life on the Road and the Fans Who Never Left 12:22 Reflections on the 1990s & “After the Rain” 14:46 What’s Next for Nelson 16:10 Outro --- 🎙 Talkin’ Rock with Meltdown 🌐 Full Episodes & Info: https://wrif.com/podcasts/talkin-rock... 🎧 Listen On: • Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast... • Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/37cGC4j... • Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/817... 📘 Facebook:   / wrifrocks   📸 Instagram:   / 101wrif