Man, Soundgarden… those guys were something else.
I first got into them around ’91 when a friend played me “Jesus Christ Pose” and I couldn’t believe how heavy and beautiful it sounded at the same time. Chris Cornell had one of those voices that just took over a room — when he hit those high notes it felt like the walls were shaking. From that moment I was all in.
By the time I moved to Seattle in ’92 they were already one of the bands I was dying to see live. I caught them on March 6th at the Paramount Theatre. It was one of those nights where everything just felt right. The place was packed, the band was locked in tight, and the crowd was going nuts. They played a bunch of stuff off Badmotorfinger plus some older tracks, and you could tell these guys were headed somewhere big. I remember standing there in the middle of the crowd thinking, “Damn, these guys are gonna blow up.” And they did.
They were always a little different from the rest of the Seattle scene. They had been around longer than most — since ’84, when Chris, Kim Thayil and Hiro Yamamoto first started jamming together. They had this heavier, more psychedelic edge, and they took things more seriously in a way. While a lot of bands were getting famous overnight, Soundgarden always felt like they were playing their own game, on their own time.
I still remember how proud I felt when Badmotorfinger came out and then Superunknown just took over in ’94. Songs like “Outshined,” “Spoonman” and “Black Hole Sun” were everywhere, but they never lost that underground feel for me. Even Down on the Upside in ’96 had some real gems.
It sucked when they called it quits back in ’97. After all those years grinding it out, the band just kind of ran out of gas. But I’m glad Chris is still making music — he’s got this new thing going now with the guys from Rage Against the Machine. Sounds pretty interesting from what I’ve heard.
These days I put on Badmotorfinger when I want to go back to those early nineties shows, or Superunknown when I’m feeling nostalgic for how massive that whole era felt. Some bands just stay with you, you know?
Soundgarden wasn’t trying to be the voice of a generation like some other bands. They were just four guys making music that was bigger than the clubs they started in. And man, they made it sound easy.