Temple of the Dog came together from the ashes of Mother Love Bone following the death from a drug overdose of its frontman Andrew Wood, Chris Cornell's close friend and roommate. Cornell wrote future TOTD songs "Say Hello 2 Heaven" and "Reach Down" to help process his grief, but the songs didn't have any destination, he says. "I was compelled to write them and there they were – written in a vacuum as a tribute to Andy. My thought was that maybe I could record these songs with the remaining members of Mother Love Bone and that maybe we could release them as a tribute."