Soundgarden guitarist Kim Thayil was asked if Soundgarden had their ‘shit together’ in the spotlight in the 90’s compared to Pearl Jam and Nirvana in a new Vulture interview.
From my outside perspective as a fan growing up in the ’90s, it seemed like Soundgarden were the cool big-brother band in the Seattle scene that had their shit together, whereas Nirvana and Pearl Jam seemed a lot less comfortable in the spotlight. What was the feeling on the inside?
“I don’t think we were particularly comfortable in the spotlight, either. I think that feeling was generally shared among the Seattle bands.”
In a recent interview, Ad-Rock and Mike D talked about how putting together their new Beastie Boys book made it feel like they had their band back, because Adam Yauch was coming alive through the stories being told. Do you get a similar feeling from undertaking archival projects like this?
“This particular one, not so much. Other collections we’ve made — Telephantasm, the Echo of Miles collection, the 20th anniversary of Superunknown, the 25th anniversary of Badmotorfinger, the Sub Pop reissue of Ultramega OK— all of those already gave me a perspective on the body of work Soundgarden has. All those things allowed me to reexplore that material, as well as bonus and unreleased material. So, at this point: no.”
Thayil said in a new Forbes interview about Chris Cornell, “Certainly the majority of the time I knew him he had a great sense of humor, he had a strong work ethic and he was strong in character. He was not someone who’d do anything he didn’t want to do. You couldn’t make him do stuff he didn’t want to do. He was very resolute and decisive in his actions. And he also traveled light. He didn’t carry a lot of things with him. He tended to try to dump baggage, whether it was material or even social or relationships. He traveled light, he didn’t carry a lot with him.”
