In 1990, Nelson were on top of the world. Twin brothers Gunnar and Matthew had monster hits with “(Can’t Live Without Your) Love and Affection,” and “After the Rain,” and the duo were performing to capacity crowds every night.

By the time they’d completed an extensive world tour, however, grunge had taken over the music industry, and Nelson didn’t have a seat at the table.

While Gunnar and Matthew were no longer all over radio, they were still creating music and performing. After launching their own label, Stone Canyon Records, they’ve seen success each of the past two Decembers with Christmas singles that have reached the Top 10 of the holiday chart.

With ‘90s nostalgia at an all-time high, the twosome recently completed a holiday tour with Wendy and Carnie Wilson, and Gunnar couldn’t be happier. “Bottom line is I’m really fucking glad I didn’t quit.” 

Myspace caught up with Gunnar to learn more about the twins’ journey, what it was like coming home to a changed industry, and the incredible impact the video for “After the Rain” had on one young fan.

You had a heck of a ride to the top in 1990. What moment do you feel best represents the pinnacle of your fame in that era?

You don’t really realize what’s going on when you’re in the middle of it.

Looking back, it’s remarkable that we were able to do what we were able to do WHEN we were able to do it, and I’m glad we did it at that age, because when you have that kind of New Kids On The Block level of success with the chicks, and all that kind of stuff, honestly, that’s something you really should be doing at 21, 22. So for me that’s really great, and things have changed over the years, obviously, in a bunch of different ways, but that was sure a cool way to spend your youth.

So while you may not have realized what was going on, you were still enjoying the moment.

I was.

We had to spend a year promoting the After the Rain record, because we released our record a year after the Milli Vanilli scandal happened. You see the Nelsons come along, and there were a lot of people who saw the strong image and thought we were “Milli Vanilla,” so we had to go out to radio stations for a full year with just acoustic guitars, and our voices.

Matt and I also filled in for Daisy Fuentes (at MTV) for two weeks, and that’s what really broke the record. Going on Dial MTV, with our acoustics, and VJing, and playing ourselves in and out of the commercial breaks, people realized, Oh shit, these guys actually really play, and really sing.

For us, uniquely, we really needed to do that. It was kind of doing the damage control, because for the nepotism, and for the image, we were really considered guilty until proven innocent.

I suppose it was that same kind of decadence that was part of the backlash when Nirvana came to the forefront, and we experienced the single largest paradigm shift in music industry history, and that shit happened on my label, it was on DGC.

We were in the throws of this major world tour, we’d sold millions of records, and then basically the industry execs got together and said, “Things have gotten bloated, we’re not making as much money as we could be making, so we’re gonna sign bands from Sub Pop for ten grand a pop,” and the rest is history.