Soundgarden guitarist Kim Thayil offered details on Soundgarden’s in the works new album in a new WMMR interview. Thayil seemed to indicate that the band are still demoing and writing songs, both individually and together, so fans will have to continue to wait for the new album.
“There are some songs that have been demoed. I think Matt’s (Cameron) demoed some things completely he’s recorded on his computer. Chris (Cornell) has demoed a few things. He’s written lyrics for ideas that I’ve written and that Ben (Shepherd) and Matt have written. So there’s some things that have been documented in rehearsal, there’s some things that are still in the developmental stage, ideas we have jammed on that we’re working out arrangements for. Every different stage within the process of songwriting is being addressed at this point.”
Soundgarden have previously said that they hope to release a new album by the end of 2017. The band released King Animal in 2012, their first album in 16 years.
In a February Music Radar, Chris Cornell was asked if Jack Endino could be involved with Soundgarden’s new album.
“He’s always on our list. I don’t remember a time when his name wouldn’t come out there in terms of recording or production.”
“I think with Soundgarden, the idea of a producer has always been a little bit abstract, because we really started using producers mostly when we were making major-label albums. It was a big investment by the label, but we’d just make friends with them, and then we would never do anything they said – we’d never include any of their ideas. And they were in a position really of just being an engineer and that was it. And there was mostly a role of engineer when it came to producers pretty much straight through our entire career.”
“So, really, I think, for me, a lot of it comes down to, ‘Who’s going to make it sound the way we want to sound’, not ‘who’s going to be included in any other choice’, for example song choices, song arrangements, song edits – things that producers do.
“Not only do we not need that, but I think it’s a really bad idea. I think that we have four people with a pretty good idea of what the band should sound like, and between us all, with our input, we get what we need to get.”
He later said regarding the new album, “We have a lot of interesting songs – sort of similar in that nothing really sounds like anything we’ve done before, and there’s definitely new territory, but it definitely sounds like us. That’s what I’m doing today, as soon as we hang up.”
