VIA PRESS RELEASE | Don Giovanni Records to release the lost self-titled album from supergroup Volcano. A 2004 collaboration between Meat Puppets, Sublime, and The Ziggens will finally see the light of day on June 20th, 2025 on CD and vinyl, now streaming everywhere.
In a world where Google maps every surface and YouTube contains countless obscurities, it’s exciting to learn that anything can still get lost. Under a stone on a hill by the sea, an album by a short-lived underground supergroup named Volcano has managed to remain officially unreleased for 22 years. Now, on June 11, 2025, the independent label Don Giovanni Records will finally release Volcano and press it to vinyl.
When Meat Puppets singer-guitarist Curt Kirkwood, Sublime drummer Bud Gaugh, and Ziggens bassist Jon Poutney recorded these 13 songs in 2003, this trio was an extension of Curt and Bud’s previous trio, Eyes Adrift. That band included Nirvana bassist Chris Novoselic and had dissolved in 2002 after releasing one album. Fate would play Volcano a similar hand.
With Poutney on bass and Miguel playing guitar and harmonizing, Volcano played a handful of live shows, recorded one studio album, and disbanded after a year. Unlike Eyes Adrift, Volcano’s album never got released through traditional channels.
The band’s fourth member, credited as “Mike Stand,” was actually Michael “Miguel” Happoldt, who ran Skunk Records. Miguel sang backup, played a little guitar, mixed and produced the album. “The plan was to send the CD around to some people and see what kind of label interest there was,” said Miguel. So they pressed around 300 copies of Volcano to sell as a pre-release at shows and sell through Skunk’s website. One of Kirkwood’s striking iconic paintings graced the CD cover, but that little pre-release was as far as it went. The album fell into obscurity, because obscurity is where it was born, and that’s where it stayed.
On Volcano, each musician contributes their unique influences and sensibilities. Banjos mix with reggae baselines mix with amplified guitar riffage and buoyant beats—these 13 songs range from shambolic and jangly to darkly melancholic. Influenced more by The Specials and Selector than the alternative rock of its era, propulsive sing-alongs like “Blown Away” sit comfortably beside high-lonesome beauties like “Twisted Seed,” showcasing Kirkwood’s guitar virtuosity and left-field songwriting talents.
Many of the album’s off-kilter harmonies would sound right at home on a Meat Puppets album. Other songs could only have emerged from this unusual mix of musicians. An essential recording for Meat Puppets fans, thanks to Bud’s drumming and Jon’s roots in reggae and surf music, Volcano also has an upbeat energy.
