Grunge Is Dead

by Greg Prato

  Photographer Charles Peterson and Tad Doyle

  KIM THAYIL: Skin Yard was more into King Crimson and prog. They weren’t aware of the SST/Homestead scene — they weren’t listening to Sonic Youth, Black Flag, or the Meat Puppets. And Jack Endino knew very little about the punk rock underground — he pretty much learned a lot about that stuff from borrowing my records. I remember loaning a bunch of records to Daniel House — Big Boys, Butthole Surfers, the Minutemen.

  SCOTTY CRANE: I remember sneaking into shows at the Comet before I was twenty-one, just to see Jack Endino play and Ben McMillan sing. Those guys were amazing.

  NILS BERNSTEIN: In retrospect, there’s like five important bands. But at the time, everybody was equally important. We all thought that Tad was going to be the big band. They had it all.

  GARRETT SHAVLIK: Tad was trying to be so fucking heavy — but with a tongue firmly in cheek. He was so funny onstage, he’d be like, “Alright all you kids, come up and sit on my lap!” And “Come up here and shit on me!” They played super-low and super-tight — drop-D. He’s like, “I just want to get that note, where people shit their pants.”

  BRUCE PAVITT: Amazing presence, brilliant sense of humor, and an incredible musician — he could drum, play guitar. Super heavy — probably had the heaviest out of any of the groups.

  JONATHAN PONEMAN: He had a reputation as being a computer geek. He always looked very menacing. I remember him as being an unbelievable drummer.

  NILS BERNSTEIN: Tad was the butcher at QFC on Broadway. Once they found a finger in the meat section … but I think that was after Tad left.

  JIM BLANCHARD: The particular Kinko’s I worked at was like “Rock ’n’ Roll Kinko’s” — Mark Arm worked there for a while, Tad worked there. Tad was the guy that greeted you when you walked in, and took your order — this big, scary looking guy.

  TAD DOYLE: Worked at Muzak for a while. And during this time, I was meeting people in the music scene. Being a guy from out of the city, it took a long time to meet people and have them warm up to you. I grew up in a farming area, so I’m really outgoing, and pretty happy-go-lucky. There was this “big city attitude” people were giving us when we moved there. I figured out later that it was just Seattle, and it was dark there all the time. Music was very important to me — I went to see bands on any night of the week, and put together my own band after I was a drummer in H-Hour for a while. I just got tired of being the first guy in/the last guy out with playing drums. It’s like being in the Marine Corps — you have all this equipment to mess with. Tad started because I got sick of playing drums.

  KURT DANIELSON: About 1980, I was living in a small town in Seattle, about an hour north, and started my first band — playing bass — and eventually moved to Seattle, about ’83. The band that I started in the small town still was in existence [Bundle of Hiss]. It was kind of important, but I was also going to school at the University of Washington, to get my degree in English. There were various different members in the band — I was the constant member. The drummer we had was really great — Dan Peters — who ended up being the drummer for Mudhoney. About ’86–’87, that band did a lot of shows with Green River, Soundgarden, Skin Yard. Another band we played with was H-Hour. Tad was something to watch onstage. Amazing drummer — a big physical presence. Came to pass that Bundle of Hiss broke up.

  Prepare to binge: Tad’s Kurt Danielson and Steve Wied, plus Kurt Cobain

  TAD DOYLE: I bought a Fender Jazzmaster, and decided I was going to play guitar. All I did was go to work, come home, and play guitar in my room, on this little Fender Champ — my first amp. I had a drum machine that I’d play with. I decided that I was going to write some songs, and a few months later, I got my check back from taxes being taken out that year — I spent all the money on recording at Reciprocal with Jack Endino. I recorded the guitars, the drums, vocals, and bass all by myself — three songs. I took it to Muzak — we had this really pimped out, ridiculous stereo that we put together out of parts from different Muzak machinery. We used to crank it up and play all kinds of cool music. I brought it in and played it for people, and they’re like, “Who the hell is this?” I kept quiet — I was just beaming. I liked it, and they seemed to like it, and Bruce Pavitt came in, and said, “This is awesome. Who is this? Is this the new Butthole Surfers?” And then it was on. He says, “I want to put this out,” and I said, “Cool, this is always what I wanted to do, and do that only.”

  JONATHAN PONEMAN: Bruce had heard a demo he had done, which became “Ritual Device” and “Daisy,” the first single. He equated it to Killdozer and a little bit of a Foetus vibe. I was surprised how great this single was. I never thought in terms of, “We can’t market that.” I thought, if anything, Tad was probably going to be the easiest thing to get across — heavy dude/heavy music. Connect the dots.

  TAD DOYLE: I started writing more songs, and it quickly became evident that it was a lot of work to play alone — I was going to record drum tracks, bass, and guitar, and then play live with a guitar and sing vocals over the recorded material. I decided I needed a band. I got Kurt Danielson, and I knew this drummer from a band called Death and Taxes, Steve Wied, and Kurt knew this guitar player, Gary Thorstensen. We started jamming, writing songs, and it became Tad. Shortly thereafter, we had a single out, and we were offered to open for Pussy Galore.

  ART CHANTRY: Tad was this big fat musician — he was huge. His big guitars looked like toys on him. Bruce decided he was going to turn this guy into some kind of lumberjack thing, and the fact that he actually made a living as a butcher at one time was all part of the joke. So he was trying to create this persona that was, quite frankly, insulting to Tad. Tad hated that, but figured, “Bruce is my friend, and he’s putting my record out — I’ll let him do what he wants to do.” When he got onstage, here was this huge man, but he seemed weightless. He just floated around, making this huge, heavy music. Everybody thought they were going to be the next big thing.

  KURT DANIELSON: Went into the studio almost immediately. Recorded three songs — one of which came out on Sub Pop 200. We were also able to go in the studio with Pussy Galore and do a split single. We did “Damaged I” and they did [“Damaged II”] — that was part of the Sub Pop Singles Club. Then we had our first record, God’s Balls, in ’89. We toured the States for that.

  TAD DOYLE: The first Tad record we did at Reciprocal, again with Jack. I think there’s only one song that wasn’t in the same key, and that was something that Gary was worried about — “All these songs are in E, they all sound kinda similar.” We had fun doing stuff — we were using saws on metal, and bows on cymbals.

  BEN REW: I met Tad at the Vogue. There was a little spot in the back of the Vogue — they didn’t say you could smoke weed back there, but everyone smoked weed there. He would always get us pitchers, and I didn’t find out until about three years ago that those were all the “run-over-pitchers” — all the beer that ran out of the pitcher when they would pour them. I was like, “Ugh, you nasty bastard!” I saw the guy drink a pint of beer in one gulp — he was my idol immediately. I started hanging out with him, doing road stuff with him. I remember when Tad met his Canadian agent, James McLean, he’d just played a big show in Vancouver. I go, “This is James.” James goes, “I’m a huge fan.” Tad goes, “GET OUT OF THE WAY!” “But I’m a huge fan.” “MOVE!” He shoves him and just projectile vomits into the corner.

  CHAPTER 15

  “Dark, black, and blue”: Soundgarden, Alice in Chains

  Soundgarden got the nod as the first grunge band to sign with a major label. At the same time, another band, Alice in Chains, eschewed their early glam rock ways, and quickly followed Soundgarden up the ladder.

  NILS BERNSTEIN: I went over to Danny Peters’ house. He was like, “Oh, you got to hear this,” and put on a test pressing. It sounded just like Bundle of Hiss — one of the bands he was in at the time. It sounded incredible. Listened to it over and over again — both sides. “Oh my God, you guys have outdone y
ourselves!” And he’s like, “Oh, you think this is Bundle of Hiss? No — this is Soundgarden.” It was the first Soundgarden single — “Hunted Down” and “Nothing to Say.” Blue vinyl. It was one of the best things, if not the best thing I’d heard from one of those Seattle bands.

  JACK ENDINO: I had a little four-track recording studio in my basement, and Kim used to come over and mess around in the studio. I ended up recording some demos for them — actually took my four-track machine to Chris Cornell’s house at one point. By 1986, I wound up working at Reciprocal Recording, and they were about ready to record something. So I wound up doing their first EP and single which became one of the very first records on Sub Pop. I think we started recording some of [Screaming Life] in late ’86 — kept messing with it into early ’87.

  MATT CAMERON: We only had three or four days to get the rhythm tracks done — me and Hiro — because we had day jobs. I remember that being a very quick recording session — we recorded everything live, other than the vocals. At the time, we were a pretty ferocious live act — that record really captures our live sound at the time. It’s holding up wonderfully. I remember listening back to the mix of “Nothing to Say,” and I just couldn’t believe that I was playing in a band so good — at such an early stage of development.

  KIM THAYIL: “Tears to Forget” was a very popular song — that was the one song on the album that was a regular part of our set. All the other songs we back-burnered, to hear what these new ones sounded like. It was not entirely representative of what we were doing live then. “Entering” was a song we had been playing for a few years — “Entering” and “Tears to Forget” were certainly part of our live thing. And then we’d come up with “Nothing to Say,” “Hunted Down,” and “Little Joe.”

  BEN SHEPHERD: Screaming Life is still my favorite record of theirs. That’s what Soundgarden sounds like to me — dark, black, and blue. Like the over-cast days of Seattle.

  KIM THAYIL: I think it was — up until Ben joined the band — [the recording] that captured our spirit and sound best. Even though the music is somewhat dark, it seems sunshiny to me.

  MATT VAUGHAN: I was crashed out at my friend’s house on Capitol Hill, and he was playing Screaming Life. I was laying there for thirty minutes thinking for sure this was the greatest Zeppelin bootleg I’d ever heard — I had no idea it was a band from Seattle. Then we all went and saw them — it was frenetic, it was mayhem. They were easily the heaviest band, and came across as pretty serious. It was pummeling.

  JEFF GILBERT: Usually, when the Melvins or Soundgarden would play these small clubs, you couldn’t do anything. You couldn’t jump around. That’s why on the Screaming Life back picture, you see Chris Cornell on the ground. That’s how I saw him mostly at the Vogue. You couldn’t really move. Well — hit the floor then. I remember thinking, “I can hear him, but I can’t see him.” And then you’d see Kim, and he’d be looking down for his cue from Chris [laughs].

  STEVE FISK: It was Bruce Pavitt’s idea [for Fisk to produce Soundgarden’s 1988 EP, Fopp]. They played in Ellensburg — Faith No More played an under-attended show, and they opened. They closed with “Iron Man,” and Faith No More opened with “War Pigs.” This is before anybody knew who the fuck they were. Cornell had the best sense of humor — it was really wicked. Kind of vicious but also funny at the same time.

  SUSAN SILVER: Soundgarden always has had a sense of humor and a sense of irony that I think was lost on a lot of people.

  MATT CAMERON: We were playing in this big empty theater — it was kind of cool to me, but I didn’t really understand how we were going to get a record out of it. But lo and behold, we did. That was like a one day session, and Steve did a remix at his studio.

  STEVE FISK: At one point, a jackhammer crew went to work on pavement, and we couldn’t hear anything in the truck. We got the crew to come back later in the day — they knew Seattle bands were starting to get some attention. So they did it to be cool [laughs].

  SUSAN SILVER: Things were moving really fast and furiously for [Sub Pop] and for Soundgarden. Jonathan and I had become really good friends. Then when Soundgarden got together with Jon and Bruce and decided to put a record out, the friendship just deepened. There was a really exciting memory — standing on the corner of First and Pine downtown with Jonathan. Screaming Life had already come out, Fopp was about to come out. The guys — even though lots of major labels had called by that time and we’d gone to L.A. and had meetings — still wanted to be on SST, that was the goal. I remember standing on the corner, with Jonathan saying, “Soundgarden should stay on Sub Pop.” They hadn’t really formalized their business enough to where they had an office yet or people helping them. I remember looking at Jonathan and saying, “Soundgarden is a juggernaut, and it’s taking off. It’s got to go — I’ve got to move as fast as I can to keep up with it.”

  JEFF GILBERT: Certainly, the Melvins had all the elements in place. Soundgarden were the ones that brought it into more of a focus.

  JERRY CANTRELL: Soundgarden is like “the granddaddy.” There’s a lot of other bands, but when I think about Seattle and what was going on, I think it pretty much begins with Soundgarden. Those early eps, and going to see them, the way that Chris sounded, and the way that the band sounded together was an amazing thing. It was very inspiring.

  ROBERT ROTH: The first time I saw them was in ’88, and they blew me away. I don’t think I heard a major scale that whole night. And at that point as a musician, a lot of the music I liked was based on major scales — a lot of punk rock, a lot of post-punk. This was just really dark, and really different.

  BEN SHEPHERD: They were playing a show down in Olympia — one of those daylight shows. Seattle was totally cool back then — the music scene was happening, people were fun, life was cool as fuck, and there they were. Chris was just singing, and Hiro and Kim — that was the true Soundgarden.

  STU HALLERMAN: Slim Moon was eventually a proprietor of the Kill Rock Stars label, but at first, he was just a guy in a band — and he liked punk rock. This little thing he did every summer — he would hire me and my pa system, get some guys to bring out a flatbed truck, and get three or four punk rock bands to play free — in the park. Slim sponsored it, he also got the Olympia Parks Department and the police department under their dare unit to cosponsor this thing, and help pay the bills for this free show. He asked me if I knew any bands. I was like, “Well, I know some guys up in Seattle, maybe they can play the show.” “Who is it?” “Oh, these guys called Soundgarden.” And he got all excited — “Soundgarden? You know these guys? What’s their phone number?!” It was like, “Come on, it’s just these dopes in their basement.” I called them up, and since they never played in Olympia, they did agree to play. So two weeks later, we did do the show. The lineup was My Eye, Nirvana, and Soundgarden.

  Towards the end of [Soundgarden’s] set, I stepped away from the mixing board to hear what’s it like for the audience. I happened to find myself between the Park Department guy and the DARE Olympia Police Representative. The police officer is like, “There’s no cussing coming off stage; it’s really good music!” They were playing “Fopp,” their encore. We all wistfully look up at the stage into the sunset there, and Chris is bending over, yelling, “SUCK MY COCK! SUCK MY COCK!” into the microphone. We looked at each and shrugged, like, “Eh — so much for being nice.”

  After the show, the band pointed out that they were about to hit the road for a West Coast tour and Europe in the spring. They’re like, “Hey Stuart, you’ve got a pa, and you got your old Dodge van. You sounded good tonight — do you want to come on the road with us?” I’m thinking, drag my pa to all these beer-soaked, smoky, nasty punk rock clubs? Sure, I’ll go! [Laughs.] Hiro I’d known for almost my whole life by that point, and Kim I’d known for nine years or something. Chris I’d known for about three or four years. I was struck by how much of a kid he was at that point — he had these little rubber birds and GI Joe–ish kind of things that he would fly around the
van. He’d be the cassette jockey — playing Aerosmith, Butthole Surfers, and Fugazi. [And] weird mainstream things I’d never think he’d be into.

  MARK PICKEREL: I was instrumental in getting Soundgarden signed to SST. They came out and played a show in Ellensburg in about 1987, and the Screaming Trees’ soundman, Rob Doak, recorded the show on his sound-board and made me a tape of it. I was so impressed that I sent it to Greg Ginn. A couple of months later, SST signed them.

  MATT CAMERON: We were tickled pink, because at that stage, we were being courted by major labels quite extensively. But instead of going down that route right away, we decided that we wanted to do one more record on an independent label. We chose the coolest independent label of the ’80s to be on, so we saw that as a real honor. We had a little more money to record with. We went down to record in this kind of homemade studio that was pretty good. It was in Newberg, Oregon. Again, we didn’t have a lot of time — I think we had two weeks to do it all. We recorded some up here in Seattle, in an abandoned warehouse; we got a mobile truck. Recorded some drums there, then we finished the rest in Newberg.

  JACK ENDINO: There’s eight-track demos of most of the stuff on [1988’s] Ultramega OK that sound better than the record — that sound more like Screaming Life. In fact, probably better than Screaming Life, because we did it much later. A lot more lively.