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Mad Season was a grunge supergroup formed in late 1994 by members of three popular Seattle based bands, as well as a friend of one of the members. Mad Season only released one album, Above, and is best known for the single "River of Deceit."

• Layne Staley - Vocals, Guitar - Alice in Chains
• Mike McCready - Guitar - Pearl Jam
• John Baker Saunders - Bass - The Walkabouts
• Barrett Martin - Drums - Screaming Trees
• Special guests:
  • Mark Lanegan - Vocals on "Long Gone Day" and "I'm Above" - Screaming Trees
  • Skerik - Saxophone on "Long Gone Day" and "I Don't Want to Be a Soldier"

The group began when McCready, Barrett and Baker set up some informal jam sessions. Baker had performed with blues talents such as Little Pat Rushing, Hubert Sumlin, Sammy Fender, and the Lamont Cranston Band.

Immediately the trio wrote two songs, 'Wake Up' and 'River of Deceit', which would later appear on their album Above. McCready called Staley and proposed that he join as the lead singer; Staley accepted.

Despite not having a single song completely prepared (only beginnings of songs, according to Martin) and not even having a name for the band, McCready scheduled an unannounced show at the Crocodile Cafe in October 1994, which turned out to be a big success. In fact, the song 'Artificial Red', which was also to appear on the album, actually came together during the show itself.

Two more gigs were scheduled at the same venue, with the band calling themselves the Gacy Bunch, after both the notorious serial killer John Wayne Gacy of Chicago and a sitcom from the 1970s called The Brady Bunch.

On January 8 of 1995, the band made an appearance on Pearl Jam's Self-Pollution Radio worldwide broadcast, performing "Lifeless Dead" and "I Don't Know Anything".

After gaining more popularity, the band recorded their only album and changed their name to Mad Season, which is an English term for the time of the year when psilocybin mushrooms are in full bloom.

The album, Above, which was recorded in Seattle at Bad Animals Studio (co-owned by Ann and Nancy Wilson of Heart) and co-produced by the band and Pearl Jam sound engineer Brett Eliason, featured 10 songs. The album was released on March 15, 1995 on Columbia Records to critical acclaim.

Vocalist Staley mentions "pink cloud has turned to grey" in the lyrics of the Alice in Chains song "Angry Chair" and again on Mad Season's Artificial Red as "on a cloud of pink has turned to grey."

Mad Season also appears on the John Lennon Tribute CD, Working Class Hero, performing the song "I Don't Want to Be a Soldier."

Baker died of a heroin overdose in January of 1999.

Staley died on April 5, 2002 in his condominium from an apparent overdose of cocaine and heroin, exactly 8 years after Nirvana's Kurt Cobain's death. Lanegan has gone on to have a successful solo career as well as working with Queens of the Stone Age among others. McCready continues to play with his band Pearl Jam.

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