by Greg Prato
Eventually, I went by and jammed. And immediately everything clicked — the first day we jammed, we wrote two songs. Stylistically, it didn’t sound like anything any of us had heard — it wasn’t the heavy stuff we ended up doing. Everybody was interested in their contribution — everyone liked the material we came up with and how it supported their interest in their instrument. And Chris — at this time — we didn’t realize yet that he had lyrical ideas. So we had these songs that were entirely arranged instrumentally that were very interesting. So we said, “Let’s do it again tomorrow.” We were very happy, very satisfied — we were all smiling, it was so much fun. The next day, we wrote three songs. So in two days and a case of beer, we wrote five songs. They’re all songs that we ended up playing live and recorded, but none of them we released on vinyl. But that’s where it ended — those two days and those five songs. I still had to finish my last quarter at the University of Washington, I still had this new relationship, and I was still working full-time at this Native American Cultural Center. I was also working at the radio station, at the University of Washington.
Hiro and Chris started calling me over the next couple of weeks — “Dude, let’s go jam again next week.” “I can’t, I’ve got to work.” And they would call again the next day. It was weird, because they seemed really eager — Hiro was calling a lot, and even Chris called a couple of times. Then I started feeling pressured — “Well, man, I’ve got all this stuff going on. I think maybe in a couple of days I can come by.” And Hiro started getting mad — I guess he told Chris, “Y’know, fuck Kim. He’s kind of flakey, it’s hard to motivate him to do shit.” Eventually, he confronted me. I thought it was weird, he was acting like a jealous girlfriend — “Are you my boyfriend or not?” I was like, “Yeah, I liked what we did, I liked it a lot — I’m really fucking busy, man! I’ve got shit to do!” So I came by and jammed again, and this time, maybe came up with one song idea. They wanted me to commit. I was able to practice with them three nights a week eventually. I lost my fucking job because I was spread too thin. Now I had no money, but I was able to go rehearse with these jerks [laughs].
HIRO YAMAMOTO: It just started us three playing instrumentals mostly. And then we were like, “We got to start to write some lyrics.” We had about six or eight songs — half of them I sung and the other half Chris sang. Of course, I didn’t have much of a voice — Chris was a great singer. [Kim] would come over, we’d play for a while, and then we’d end up drinking beer for the rest of the night [laughs]. We lived in a great house where we could practice until two or three in the morning. We lived on a busy street corner, so nobody even cared that we played.
KIM THAYIL: By two months, we had four-tracked a cassette of fifteen songs — we called it The First 15. Our first gig was two and half, three months later — opening up for Three Teens Kill Four, a New York band.
MATT DENTINO: I saw their first show. [They opened] for some band, and I thought they blew them away. Their first show was upstairs … I don’t even know the place. There was Astroturf — it was like a club, but the rest of the building was for golfing or baseball. I played hooky that night from church.
KIM THAYIL: On the strength of that and throwing the tape around, we got our second gig, which was two months later, in February [1985] — opening for Hüsker Dü and the Melvins.
JEFF AMENT: I remember seeing them open up for Hüsker Dü at the Gorilla Gardens. They were a three-piece at the time. Chris was playing drums and singing. Kim’s amp was way louder than anybody else’s onstage — he played through a phaser the whole time, and a chorus pedal. That was their predominant sound. But I thought they were pretty frickin’ cool.
CHAD CHANNING: I went to their second show — I put a tape in the board and recorded it. Unfortunately, that recording is long since gone.
BEN SHEPHERD: The very first show I saw they blew some national act away. I have the set list from that show somewhere. They sounded huge, and their riffs weren’t stupid or anything — something more to them. Something disturbing and huge.
BRUCE PAVITT: One thing that I noticed about Soundgarden that I thought was interesting was the racial makeup of the group — it was very unusual. The bass player was Japanese, the guitar player was Indian. You have to reflect back on that time — a lot of the metal scene was very white, very homogenous. So to see any other cultures in there was interesting.
HIRO YAMAMOTO: Those were great times. We were more new wave–ish at that time. We weren’t a grunge band, necessarily. Those were just exciting shows. I was amazed that Chris could do that — he was playing his heart out on drums and screaming and singing.
JACK ENDINO: He was very into Neil Peart. He was a pretty good drummer.
DALE CROVER: Too bad he didn’t stick on drums as a front man, because I think there should be more drummer front men.
DYLAN CARLSON: Not quite as metal as they became. They were still heavy, but more that Keith Levene–ish type sound — a cleaner guitar sound. A lot of harmonics, and not necessarily real straightforward rhythms. A little more “post punk.”
MARK PICKEREL: There was this girl that worked at a record shop here in Seattle, who kept telling me about her friends [who] play in this band, Soundgarden. I think she described them as being Bauhaus meets Aerosmith.
SLIM MOON: We actually made fun of them, because of their obvious influences. We also made fun of their name — we thought their name was terrible — we called them “Noise Cabbage.” But then they really evolved.
SUSAN SILVER: It was in the area of town called Belltown, where there were a lot of old, one-story brick buildings. And there was an artist named Carl Smool, who was having a Halloween party. I went there with a friend of mine who was a performance artist and singer, Chuck Gerra, who went under the moniker Upchuck. He dressed in wild costumes — Kabuki outfits or military outfits. That Halloween, he dressed me up as him — in a long blond fright wig and platforms — and that was the first time I saw Soundgarden. They were a three-piece. It was mind-blowing — they were amazing.
JEFF AMENT: The pieces were already there. Hiro was a super-interesting bass player, Kim had that heavy psychedelic quality to his guitar playing, and Chris had the voice. Chris had an incredible voice. That was apparent even at that first show. I was like, “Wow, that’s a really different kind of a voice for a hardcore band.” It’s just different — whenever the drummer sings. It just isn’t heavy — if they’re not out front, it just doesn’t seem … the only thing I had to compare it to at that point was Don Henley. It just didn’t make sense to me. There weren’t too many rules in the hardcore world, but having a singer who acted crazy and ran around was probably one of most important things — in terms of getting the energy across. The energy changed a lot when Chris just had a mic.
KIM THAYIL: We had to make a decision — whether we wanted him to be our drummer or our singer, because it was taxing for him to do both. Believe it or not, Hiro and I actually thought he was more valuable to us as a drummer. Because of his songwriting ability, we would work out arrangements on the drums. Hiro had really established his musical relationship with Chris as a rhythm section. We didn’t want to lose that — the instrumental part was what we felt was strong. So we thought, “Let’s get a guy to sing,” some guy who has some dynamic personality and voice. Somebody with some theatrical skills, charisma … a monkey, y’know? [Laughs.] We knew he could sing, but I guess we didn’t actually think, “Well, here’s this great-looking, statuesque front man.” We just thought he was more reserved — he didn’t seem like “a presence.” But we knew he could sing. We did that for a good half-year to a year, before we got Scott [Sundquist] as our drummer. Scott worked with Chris at the restaurant, Ray’s Boathouse.
REGAN HAGAR: Andy always called him the Sun King.
JACK ENDINO: The first time I saw them live; they were introducing their new drummer, Scott Sundquist. They played half the set with Chris on drums, then he came out, and said, “We want to introduce our new drummer — I
’m just going to sing now.” Scott came out, finished the set, and Chris just stood there and sang. After that, they played for about a year and a half with Scott on drums — some amazing shows. Scott was an older guy; he had a Ginger Baker touch on the drums. A rolling, jazzy feel, that was really dynamic, and very fluid. It wasn’t so “conventional heavy rock” as they became later. It was a slightly psychedelic kind of vibe. And at times, pretty amazing.
Soundgarden spread the word early on
KEN STRINGFELLOW: When I first saw them, Chris Cornell dressed and acted like Jim Morrison. Leather pants, staying by the mic, writhing around it a little bit.
JIM TILLMAN: He was the first person in the scene who really had control over his voice. He knew what notes he wanted to hit and could hit them. Nobody else could.
MARK ARM: They were pretty cool, but Chris’s antics got a little annoying. I’m all for somebody flailing around onstage and engaging the audience — but he would wear a tearaway shirt. It’s one thing to take off your shirt, but it’s another thing to pre-rip the seams. He’d grab the front of his shirt and pull straight off in a forward motion. It was a preplanned part of the act designed to show off his good body. Y’know, maybe there was some jealousy there, because my body was not nearly as hot [laughs]. But it just seemed so contrived — it didn’t seem like a genuine reaction to the music. To be fair, I did some fairly contrived things in Green River. I played most of one show with a fish down my pants, the joke being that my huge bulge was actually a perch, which I pulled out and split open — spilling fish guts on the crowd. This was a punk rock gross-out act — not an act of narcissism.
KRISHA AUGEROT: I was fifteen and Chris Cornell was shirtless and twenty — it was an awesome band to watch. So full of energy and really raw. They were the ultimate garage, dirge, sexy, heavy rock.
CHARLES PETERSON: I met Chris [Cornell] at a party one night. God, he seemed just like a little boy at the time. We all started wrestling, we were all fucked-up. Wrestling and tripping down the street to another party. He looked younger than all of us, and I remember all the girls at the party just fawning all over him. Me and the other guys pretty much packed it in for the evening at that point.
ALICE WHEELER: They were the first local band that I ever saw that had groupies. They had a lot of these really sexy girls that would come sit in the front, and would throw themselves at Chris Cornell.
LIBBY KNUDSON: His throat, man, and being a girl too, I always thought [in] punk rock, the level of the playing field was all the same. And then to see him get there and take off his shirt, it was like, “Oh Lord — you’re not like my other friends!” I remember thinking this could fly with the other peeps, especially at that point in the ’80s, when Ratt and Mötley Crüe were going on there. I was like, “Those people should love this” — in theory.
MARK PICKEREL: It was hard to figure out at what point did they cross the line from rock ’n’ roll parody with actual inspired rock ’n’ roll.
SUSAN SILVER: One show at the Ditto, [Cornell] had written all over himself, and was just all over the club. I remember there was a fish involved and a lot of writhing around [laughs]. He’d go into a trance practically, in those early days. He covered every square inch of some of those places on some nights.
JACK ENDINO: I remember them playing the Ditto Tavern, and I think the only people in the audience were five people! I have a poster from those days, it says “Soundgarden/Skin Yard — $2” [laughs]. It’s from, like, a Tuesday. Those were the days.
GARRETT SHAVLIK: I never really got it. They were like a prog-metal band, and we were sloppy punks. Great fucking people — just a different walk of life.
KIM THAYIL: Besides our own four-tracking for practice, Stuart was the first guy to record us outside of the band, I believe.
STU HALLERMAN: Some good memories there. Just a basement recording in their house by Green Lake in Seattle. When it was time to get guitar sounds for Kim, I started by asking him, “How would you like it to sound?” He said, “Hmm … I want it to sound like Godzilla knocking over buildings!” So I thought about it, I moved the mic a little bit, dialed in a little bit, a couple of little knob turns, and there was that sound he was looking for.
I was coming from Olympia, that had some punk rock going on, but I was hanging out with hippies. I came home with this really cool cassette of my buddies playing this music that was really great. But I knew if I play this for my friends, they’ll shrug and go, “Eh, too aggressive for me — not Grateful Dead–like enough.” And everyone I played it for was like, “I didn’t think that was my cup of tea, but this is really good!” There was something just really musical and interesting — anyone could get in one listen.
HIRO YAMAMOTO: That’s basically the only [recording] that has Scott on drums. The thing about Scott — he was ten years older than me. Scott was really cohesive — he made sure we were all getting together. So those times with the band were really fun, because Scott was more of a fatherly figure — he made sure as a band we were a band. To me, those were the best days of Soundgarden. After Scott left, we were more of “individuals” that played in a band. When we played with Scott, we were all kind of a family. We wanted to go on tour, and Scott had a young kid. So he wasn’t up for it. It was the saddest times of Soundgarden.
MATT CAMERON: I was playing [in] Feedback, and we eventually became Skin Yard. Kim came to some of our shows — we started talking. We figured out that we lived pretty close to each other. Then he told me to check out his band at the Rainbow Tavern — I did, and I was completely blown away. I loved it instantly — they were my favorite band in Seattle. I heard that Scott left, and I called Kim. I said, “I’d like to try out.” I knew a few of their songs — “Heretic,” “Incessant Mace,” and a few of their other earlier songs. I remember Chris really liked the way I played. They had a gig in a week’s time at the Central Tavern — it was baptism by fire. I just threw myself in there and never looked back. We strictly kept to [playing] the Northwest when I first joined — around ’87.
KIM THAYIL: It got a lot crisper, tighter. We were looking for something in terms of more minimalism — trying to hold down a beat, and a strong repetitiveness in the beat. But at the same time, Matt was obviously a great improv drummer. We certainly jammed a lot, and a number of songs had an extended solo section — not necessarily guitar solos, it might be drums, bass, or just feedback. And Matt had that ability — Matt could play a minimal, tight jazz kit. He was also available to tour, as well as contributing to the songwriting.
SCOTT VANDERPOOL: The early Soundgarden stuff … eh. They were pretty spotty. They had some great songs early on, but they got better. A big reason for that was when they got Matt Cameron. I’m a drummer, and I’m not worthy to stand in the same room with that guy. He’s phenomenal.
JACK ENDINO: After they got Matt in the band, they became more focused, and narrowed down to, “We’re just going to play these big rock riffs.” They zeroed in on the sound they became known for later. When he joined Soundgarden, they became something to be reckoned with.
KIM THAYIL: It took a few years for it to evolve into this “Sabbath-influenced punk” that it became. It was more of a “punk-influenced Sabbath.” The roots of everything we were listening to really were things like the Birthday Party, Killing Joke, Wire, and Joy Division, as well as the Meat Puppets, Black Flag, Minor Threat, and the Butthole Surfers. The people that fit into that scene were definitely the U-Men, Malfunkshun, Green River, Soundgarden, and the Melvins. It all kind of came together — we all liked each other. We were all influencing each other, and listening to each other’s record collections.
JEFF GILBERT: Kim’s mind works very mathematically, so when you listen to their time signatures, you have all these polyrhythms going on. That’s because that guy is a goddamn human calculator. Him and Matt together — Matt will be playing in one time signature and Kim in another, and it will create this weird push-pull thing, that gives it that tension. In fact, some people tried t
o mimic Soundgarden, and couldn’t. When Kim did solos, they weren’t really solos as much as going back to that garage thing — playing as fast as you can for however how many beats you have to fill up.
I walked out of [the Vogue] pretty much changed. It took all of my preconceived notions about heavy music and turned them inside out. There were all these chords that didn’t seem to make sense together, and these riffs that were in the weirdest time signatures. Very dissonant-sounding chords. But man, Matt Cameron would come in, and the whole thing would just detonate. I’ve seen Soundgarden fifty, sixty times, and there are those nights where it’s not just a show — it’s a biblical experience. Where you come out and your whole body’s buzzing. That’s what it was the first time I saw them. I thought, “Oh dear God, how do these four guys make this sound?” It was like a newer version of Led Zeppelin. Just this insanely powerful sound, but they were doing something so different and dark — but not evil [laughs].
STU HALLERMAN: Kim did not like bands like Led Zeppelin, and Hiro didn’t like rock ’n’ roll at all as a teenager. So everyone at the time was like, “Oh, obviously these guys are a Led Zeppelin rip-off,” when whatever resemblance they had was really natural — that’s just the way they hit their guitars and screamed. It was a coincidence more than anything. I think we all came to like Led Zeppelin at some point in our lives, but it was not a direct influence for them.
ROD MOODY: I saw one of Soundgarden’s early shows at a place called Scoundrel’s Lair. Chris Cornell later claimed that Led Zeppelin had no effect on him, but they played at least three Zep songs back to back.
JOHN LEIGHTON BEEZER: They came out with a song, “Incessant Mace,” which was flat-out stolen from “Dazed and Confused” by Led Zeppelin. Not even a little bit. But it was twelve minutes long, heavier than shit — Led Zeppelin didn’t play small clubs [laughs]. It was like, “God, this is a rip, but … y’know, they’re really good!”
