Man, Soundgarden… those guys were something else.
I first got into them in ’91, back when I was still living in Queens. A friend played me “Jesus Christ Pose” and I couldn’t believe how heavy it was. Chris had this voice that seemed way too big for whatever speakers you were listening through. I went out looking for Badmotorfinger pretty much right away, and then started working my way backwards.
By the time I moved to Seattle in ’92, Soundgarden were already one of my favorite bands. I’d missed the years when you could see them playing little places around town, which I still wish I’d been here for. By then they were already well on their way to becoming a really big band.
They always sounded a little different to me than most of the other Seattle stuff. Heavier, definitely, but also weirder. There was Sabbath in there, Zeppelin, punk, all this psychedelic stuff. Kim could make his guitar sound completely wrong in exactly the right way.
And they’d been doing it forever. Chris, Kim and Hiro Yamamoto started the band back in ’84, years before anybody outside Washington gave a damn about what was happening up here. Matt Cameron came in later, and Ben Shepherd eventually replaced Hiro. That lineup — Chris, Kim, Matt and Ben — is still Soundgarden to me.
Badmotorfinger was the record that got me, but watching Superunknown happen was something else. Suddenly “Black Hole Sun” was everywhere. MTV, radio, bars, record stores. You couldn’t get away from that song for a while even if you wanted to. Somehow the record itself was still strange as hell.
One of the best times I saw them was at the Showbox on June 20, 1996, right after Down on the Upside came out. It was basically a warm-up show before they went out on Lollapalooza. They opened with “Waiting for the Sun” by the Doors and played a bunch of the new record. I remember hearing “Blow Up the Outside World” and “Boot Camp” live that night, and they sounded huge.
They also did Captain Beefheart’s “Dropout Boogie,” because apparently playing a normal set was never really an option with those guys.
I like Down on the Upside more now than I did when it came out. It’s a strange record. You can hear them pulling in different directions, but there’s some great stuff buried in there. “Burden in My Hand,” “Overfloater,” “Boot Camp” — I go back to those a lot.
It sucked when they broke up in ’97, but I can’t say it was a complete shock. By the end they just seemed tired. They’d been at it for thirteen years.
Chris made a solo record a couple years later that I liked, especially “Can’t Change Me.” Now I keep hearing he’s been working with the guys from Rage Against the Machine. I haven’t heard anything yet, but that combination sounds completely insane, so I’m curious.
I still probably reach for Badmotorfinger first. Maybe because it was my way into the band. But there really isn’t another Soundgarden record that sounds exactly like it, and there isn’t another band that sounds exactly like Soundgarden.
I miss those guys.
