Did Soundgarden Just Rip President Trump?

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Soundgarden released a graphic on social media yesterday to promote their Spring 2017 North American tour, with the photo showing the statue of liberty fading away. While the band didn’t explain the meaning of the photo, it appears to be a commentary on President Donald Trump.

The photo is somewhat similar to The Smashing Pumpkins’ cover for their 2007 album Zeitgeist, which was a critique of the state of America under the Bush administration. More recently, Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan called Hillary Clinton an ‘open globalist’ and complimented Donald Trump’s campaign. Corgan told Infowars last year, “Look at it from a very simple equation. You have a nationalist populist [Donald Trump] who is saying: ‘Everything is broken, and it needs to be fixed.’ Many many people feel that way, and that idea can only resonate if many many people feel that something needs to be broken before it can be fixed. Then on the other hand you have basically an open globalist [Hillary Clinton] saying: ‘Everything is fine, nothing to see here, let’s just march forward and we’re going to make it better.’”

He also discussed Trump protesters, “When I watch some of the clips that you guys have been been putting up at some of these protests, I have no respect for what these people are doing. They’re shutting down free speech.” He added, “It’s antithetical to the society I believe in.”

Chris Cornell has tweeted anti-Trump memes and articles in the past, and he performed at the Anti-Inaugural Ball with Audioslave last month.

Cornell played expensive fundraiser shows for President Obama in 2012 in Iowa and San Francisco, with costs for one show ranging from $100 to $7,000 for a photo with Obama. Soundgarden also performed at Obama’s Inaugural Ball in 2013.

Cornell told the Washington Post in 2013 that Soundgarden playing for Obama was ‘triumphant.’

“I had done three different Obama fundraiser events alone, just with an acoustic guitar. When inauguration came up, they invited me to play, and I said, ‘I’m out touring with my band. What if my band played?’ And they loved the idea of Soundgarden doing it. To me it just seemed like a triumphant thing to be able to do.”

“When we went there, unfortunately, it becomes less about the moments you’re onstage and more about just getting from the hotel to the event, and getting inside and everything happening the way it’s supposed to. It was all that – it was totally crazy, and we were totally fish out of water in terms of the kind of music we play. I like that. . . . The moments that Soundgarden has done things where we were fish out of water have always been the most memorable and the most rewarding.”

Cornell said in 2012 regarding Obama, “I for one am very excited about four more years.”

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