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Re: New Soundgarden best of or new album?
No way should it include Dusty. A better choice would have been Ty Cobb, or Overfloater, not Dusty.
I'd go for kickstand highly underrated song IMO.
Also, the only version of Beyond the Wheel that should be included is the one from Louder than Live, which is a far superior track than the studio version. That song back then live had way more energy and sounded way more imposing than the studio.
The studio version reminds me of Sympathy for the Devil. Its very understated yet extremely eerie, makes you feel as though Chris is watching you as he's singing
New Soundgarden interview out for Spin. Really good interview. Answers my questions about Susan Silver, but FUCK. They go pretty hard on Chris for putting out Scream in it.
The descriptions the interviewer gives of all four guys just hanging out though 
That really put a smile on my face
Most shocking detail is with regards to Chris' original tweet back on the first of January
Re: New Soundgarden best of or new album?
Saikin wrote:No way should it include Dusty. A better choice would have been Ty Cobb, or Overfloater, not Dusty.
I'd go for kickstand highly underrated song IMO.
I don't like Kickstand. It's the 'You're Crazy' of Superunknown. Completely unnecessary track on a flawless album. It's only saving grace is its short duration.
As far as a hits set goes, no one would ever be able to agree on a perfect track list. The discog is just too strong and certain tracks have to be included which weakens any compilation.
Its why the box set is the golden ticket for a trip to heaven. If they can get it right, it may be all the Soundgarden you need and wont have to whip out each album when you want a listen.
Re: New Soundgarden best of or new album?
One guy's homeless, one likes sleeping all day, one's in Pearl Jam, and one's Chris Cornell. Beloved '90s titans Soundgarden are back, but where are they going?
From a distance, it doesn't look like much has changed.
On a cool Thursday evening in June, three-quarters of Soundgarden stand on a street corner in the Belltown section of Seattle, smoking cigarettes. From half a block away, I can make out the long, lean figure of Chris Cornell clad in a green military jacket, leaning against the window outside the Palace Ballroom, a private dining room serviced by local celebrity chef Tom Douglas. The Soundgarden frontman's dark locks hang past his shoulders, a throwback to the band's heyday and a reminder of his status as grunge's only bona fide sex symbol. Guitarist Kim Thayil, 49, stands facing Cornell, a ponytail snaking halfway down his back from underneath a brown skullcap. A few feet away, bassist Ben Shepherd, 41, tall and imposing in a heavy black overcoat, stares into the distance.
As I cross the street toward the three, the years come into focus. Shepherd is stockier than before, Thayil's bushy beard is more gray than black, and Cornell's face bears etches and grooves befitting his 46 years. Inside the restaurant, drummer Matt Cameron, 47, stands talking to one of the band's new managers, music industry veteran Gary Gersh.
Although many people date the discovery of the Seattle music scene -- and by extension the beginning of the alternative-rock revolution of the early '90s -- to the moment in 1990 when Nirvana was signed to Geffen Records (by Gersh, it bears mentioning), Soundgarden really got there first. At the time of Nirvana's major-label deal, Soundgarden were already inked to A&M, had been nominated for a Grammy, and toured with Guns N' Roses. The band had started in 1984 as a weird post-punk trio, but by the mid-'90s, they were the band that punk kids, metalheads, and classic rockers could agree on: a heavy behemoth with surprising pop smarts that would eventually sell more than eight million albums in the U.S. alone.
Soundgarden called it quits in 1997, weeks after an ugly final concert in Honolulu that ended with Cornell and drummer Cameron playing a few songs by themselves after Shepherd walked off in frustration over faulty gear, and Thayil followed him. It wasn't exactly The Last Waltz. At the time, Cornell says, tensions within the band were high and communication was at a low, but for a band that had thundered its way to prominence, Soundgarden just seemed to sort of peter out.
"The one thing about Soundgarden most people don't get is that we always got along," says Cornell. "We drank, and any band that drinks is going to have chaos, but we never had that internal negativity that usually spells the obvious reasons a band breaks up."
As such, the band's current reunion was pretty inevitable. In April, Cornell, Thayil, Shepherd, and Cameron stepped onstage together for the first time in 13 years at the Showbox in Seattle to perform for 90 minutes as the anagrammatic Nudedragons. In August, they were one of the headliners at Lollapalooza, and this month, the unreleased track "Black Rain" will be featured in Guitar Hero 6 and on a new deluxe Soundgarden retrospective, Telephantasm, which will also include videos, TV appearances, alternate takes, and live tracks. Tonight, they'll sit around a large table, eat good food, talk about the old days, and behave very much like four guys who enjoy one another's company. No angry glances will be exchanged, no plates thrown, and the most substantive argument -- about how many stomachs a cow has -- will be solved via a quick consultation with Thayil's phone. (Answer: one stomach with four compartments.) Even the mention of Soundgarden's former manager and Cornell's ex-wife, Susan Silver, won't set off sparks.
"A lot of times bands re-form, and people have changed in ways that might be negative, and you're just fighting to be able to play the music with some degree of efficiency," says Cornell. "We're not that."
After dinner, Shepherd, Thayil, and I cross the street to the bar at the Palace Kitchen. Shepherd buys me a beer, and I ask him where he lives.
"Nowhere," he says. "Literally. I've been sleeping on studio couches and at friends' houses. I'm totally broke." Shepherd is part owner of a bar 15 minutes from here called Hazlewood, but he says he sinks any money from it into the solo album he's been working on since last fall. Six months ago, he split with his girlfriend and moved out of their house. "This is my home now," he says, holding up the sides of his slightly gamey overcoat.
Although he was the last of the four to join, in 1990, Shepherd took the band's dissolution hardest. "My whole life seemed over," he says. "Soundgarden broke up; my other band, Hater, broke up; my fiancée broke up with me; and then I broke three ribs. I got addicted to pain pills, drank a ton, and wound up OD'ing on morphine. I was laid out in my house for five days, and no one knew it. It was a fucking horrible time -- this total rock'n'roll cliché."
In the years after the split, he played on albums by Mark Lanegan and Tony Iommi, participated in some of Josh Homme's Desert Sessions recordings, and briefly joined a few bands, including Wellwater Conspiracy, the Seattle sorta supergroup of which Cameron was also a member. To Shepherd, Soundgarden's breakup was unnecessary -- "We should've just relaxed for a while and lived" -- and he hardly disavows the notion that he's been jonesing to get back together ever since. "I've just been waiting for these old geezers to snap out of it," he says.
That's not to say he doesn't have reservations. He could use the money ("If anyone is pissed at us for getting paid, fucking piss on them; they don't have to live our lives"), but he's the only one of the four who was disappointed by the Showbox gig ("It was boring; the crowd was dead still, and everyone was like, 'Yay! The antiques are moving!''‰"). In many ways, Shepherd seems like a guy searching for something, though even he doesn't quite know what. "I'm never satisfied," he says. "I don't like to sleep in, I don't like to get up. I feel broken." Thayil had raved to me about Shepherd's solo album, but Shepherd isn't sure he'll ever release it. "All the stuff I ever do -- Hater, the record I'm making -- it all sounds amateur to me. No matter what I do, I'm going to be associated with Soundgarden."
Thayil and I drive a couple blocks from the bar to Bad Animals, the studio where Soundgarden recorded their five-million-selling 1994 breakout, Superunknown, and their 1996 swan song, Down on the Upside. Producer-engineer Adam Kasper, who worked on both albums, is mixing "Black Rain" and plays us the latest version. The song, an outtake from 1991's Badmotorfinger sounds like, well, an outtake from Badmotorfinger, complete with sludgy riffs and Cornell's voice in screaming metal-god mode.
"What's amazing," Kasper says as he looks up from the mixing board, "is Chris recorded new vocal bits, and his voice still hits all those notes. You can't tell which vocals are from 20 years ago and which are from today."
Since Soundgarden's split, Thayil says he's been "happily semiretired." He's contributed guitar to records by bands like Sunn 0))) and Pigeonhed, and played with Jello Biafra and Krist Novoselic in the No W.T.O. Combo, a one-off project to protest the World Trade Organization. But for the most part, he's studiously avoided any serious creative commitments. "I got lots of offers," he says. "But I kind of wanted to be left alone. I enjoyed not having to answer to anything. I didn't even have to answer to the sun. I'd wake up and it'd be dark. I felt so fucking free."
When I ask if he has a feeling about what he wants to get out of the reunion, he laughs. "Yeah, I have a feeling I want to get out of it," he says. "Look, there are certainly benefits. There's camaraderie. Actually, that might be one of the most important things, just being able to hang out with the guys."
Soundgarden's reunion began not as a reunion but simply an effort to deal with some business issues.
"We got together, maybe two years ago, and decided we wanted to relaunch our catalog, get a website, be on MySpace," says Cameron when I meet him and Cornell the following day at Hazlewood, tucked between a tattoo shop and a nail salon on a busy street in the coastal suburb of Ballard. "Just basic shit. We weren't online at all. We've also got a bunch of unreleased stuff we wanted to try to put out."
Cameron is the only band member who needed to ask for time off from his day job to attend this reunion. Since 1998, he's been Pearl Jam's drummer, and everyone acknowledges that no matter how well Soundgarden 2.0 progresses, Pearl Jam is his priority. "We're sort of shoehorning all the Soundgarden stuff into my Pearl Jam schedule," he says. "So far it's been good, but I don't want it to get to where my head is going to explode."
Cameron has helped bring much of Pearl Jam's business savvy to Soundgarden, as well as some of that band's support staff. The periodic business meetings progressed during the past year or so, and then in March 2009, when Cornell's ex-Audioslave bandmate Tom Morello came through Seattle with his solo project, the Nightwatchman, Thayil, Shepherd, and Cameron got onstage and played three Soundgarden songs with longtime friend Tad Doyle, formerly of the '90s sludge-rock titans Tad, on vocals.
"It was really great seeing people's faces when Ben, Kim, and Matt come out," recalls Doyle. "People were just freaking out."
But some may have read the gig, which had been partly organized by Silver, as a dig. "I didn't feel any negativity toward it at all," Cornell says. "In a way, it sort of sparked the idea: If Matt, Kim, and Ben can get in a room, rehearse a couple songs, and play, maybe we all could do that as Soundgarden."
Last New Year's Day, Cornell sent out a tweet -- "The 12-year break is over and school is back in session. Sign up now. Knights of the Soundtable ride again!" -- that was widely misinterpreted as an announcement of the band's reformation.
As Thayil tells me later, "We're not the Knights of the Soundtable, that was our fan club. We were just re-upping it with the new website. But the rumors generated offers. The demand was overwhelming. I wouldn't say we acquiesced, but we kind of warmed to the idea."
Gersh, who had been managing Cornell's solo career, was brought on board to replace Silver, but the reunion has moved at a very deliberate pace. As of press time, despite rumbles about more gigs, there was exactly one confirmed show on the calendar: Lollapalooza. There is talk of a live album culled from mid-'90s concerts and maybe a B-sides collection, but the band hasn't yet written any new music.
"It would be exciting to record one song," says Cornell, "to hear how Soundgarden-ish that might be this much time later. But for me, it's been more of a trip relearning the songs and playing them together. Some of the songs we're approaching we've never played live."
After Soundgarden split, Cornell tried to transition to a solo career, but almost immediately ran into problems during the making of his 1999 debut, Euphoria Morning. "It was mentally, physically, and spiritually a fucked-up point in my life," he says. "I was waking up and drinking a glass of vodka just to get a dial tone. My marriage wasn't working at all, and rather than face that, I turned to constant inebriation and then drugs."
Euphoria Morning wasn't half bad -- more mid-tempo and mannered than Soundgarden -- but it sold decidedly sub-Soundgarden numbers and when he got an offer in 2001 to join Audioslave alongside three-fourths of Rage Against the Machine, it made sense. "I can definitely say I wasn't capable at that point of being captain of my own ship. I was a mess," he says. "The decision wasn't based on wanting to be in a band again, but ultimately that did help."
When Audioslave released their debut the following year, Cornell's substance abuse problems had gotten worse. He landed in rehab and cleaned up, then divorced Silver in 2004. Audioslave's commercial success never really erased the fault line between Cornell and the rest of the band, and few were surprised when, amid disputes over royalties and creative decisions -- Cornell has said mixers and session musicians were brought in to work on their recordings without his knowledge -- he walked away in 2007 to begin another solo album. By this time, he'd moved from Seattle to Paris, gotten remarried, opened a restaurant, and had two kids. Carry On turned out to be a reasonable grab bag of hard-rock riffs, mellow singer-songwriter fare, and classic R&B flourishes, but the public reaction to it was muted. The same couldn't be said of 2009's Scream.
Scream paired Cornell's voice with beats by Timbaland in one continuous 60-minute song suite, and while that may sound compelling on paper, the results were confounding. The collaboration was at least partially orchestrated by Interscope Records boss Jimmy Iovine, and it shows: The clash of sounds was occasionally appealing but ultimately contrived. Yet the vituperative reaction to it among critics and Soundgarden fans was over the top. Cornell, shown on the cover smashing a guitar, was branded a virtual traitor to rock'n'roll. (That he sings "Whole Lotta Love" on the new Santana album may be penance of sorts.) In an infamous tweet that more or less summed up the public response, Trent Reznor wrote: "You know that feeling you get when somebody embarrasses themselves so badly you feel uncomfortable? Heard Chris Cornell's record? Jesus."
Cameron and Shepherd both express admiration for Scream as a gutsy experiment, and Thayil, while less enthused, certainly saw potential. "I know if me, Matt, and Ben would've been in the studio with Chris and Timbaland, it wouldn't have been bad," he says. "Sometimes, you just need backup."
"It felt natural to me," Cornell says of Scream. "I had a good time doing it, and the only obstacle really was the perception of it. And perception is something I never spent too much time worrying about."
But that perception only seemed to add to the mounting problems in Cornell's life. In the preceding years, his split with Silver had gotten ugly: In 2005, he initiated a $1 million lawsuit, alleging that Silver had defrauded him of royalties and never returned, among other things, his Grammys and some recordings and journals; two years later he filed for a restraining order against a man he said Silver had hired to stalk him; in 2008, he implied on his website that he'd finally recovered from Silver 15 of his guitars. For her part, Silver regrets the way the split became so public, though she maintains it wasn't her choice. "I turned the other cheek really up until this moment," she says. "I've never publicly talked about any of this. After he cut off the [Audioslave] guys, he seemed to surround himself with really bad choices. It didn't ever have to be acrimonious. It's incredibly painful, unnecessary, and expensive when someone is abusing the legal system to try to hurt another person."
Silver, who still manages Alice in Chains, remains a popular and influential figure in Seattle, and with Cornell living elsewhere, many in the local music scene took her side. "Chris and Susan have had their issues, which has been polarizing," says Jonathan Poneman, founder of Sub Pop, which released Soundgarden's first two EPs, Screaming Life and Fopp, in the late '80s. "Seattle's music community is pretty tight, and there's a lot of regional pride. Between Soundgarden breaking up and Chris not being in the area, I don't think there was much of a tendency to embrace what he was doing. There might be a little more forgiveness of some dubious career paths had he remained here."
To Silver, this is the real story of the reunion's genesis. "Chris didn't have anywhere else to go," she says. "His solo career was so unfocused that he started to modify his behavior to make this work and earn the other guys' trust back. Making amends takes awhile, which is why there's only been a club show and a commitment to one national show."
While it's impossible to separate Silver's comments from her status as Cornell's ex, there is a certain logic to them. But Thayil disagrees with her take on the band's agenda, or lack thereof. "Susan certainly understands some aspects of Chris differently than I do," Thayil says. "I think her perspective is as grown-up, fair, professional, and objective as an ex-wife's can be. But there was never any strong animosity with any of us. If there was some mountain to climb there, I wouldn't waste my time with that and I can't imagine Chris would."
As to the general perception that Cornell left Soundgarden, Seattle, his past and -- at least on Scream -- rock behind him, he admits that on those counts he's guilty. "For me, for survival, there had to be a lot of changes," Cornell says. "After enough years of getting fucked up, I got to the point where physically and mentally I was in danger. The idea that I'm not the same person -- well, I hope not, because that's sort of the point."
Re: New Soundgarden best of or new album?
Amazing article. Was getting sick of SPIN delaying this as we've known about the interview for like two or three months, but it was worth it.
Soundgarden called it quits in 1997, weeks after an ugly final concert in Honolulu that ended with Cornell and drummer Cameron playing a few songs by themselves after Shepherd walked off in frustration over faulty gear, and Thayil followed him.
We'll never get the full story on this incident. Many years ago on the old SG sites it was mentioned that Cornell and Ben came to blows after Cornell finally left the stage.
"Nowhere," he says. "Literally. I've been sleeping on studio couches and at friends' houses. I'm totally broke." Shepherd is part owner of a bar 15 minutes from here called Hazlewood, but he says he sinks any money from it into the solo album he's been working on since last fall. Six months ago, he split with his girlfriend and moved out of their house. "This is my home now," he says, holding up the sides of his slightly gamey overcoat.
I really feel sorry for this guy. I am a Ben nutswinger through and through and I have never understood why this guy has not been the most sought after musician whether just as a studio musician, song writer for other bands, or actually being asked to join a major band. This guy has it all. One of the most recognizable bass tones, killer songwriter(musically and lyrically), and has a good voice. Like Cornell he can play a wide variety of instruments.
He does have a shitty rep though and that may be a big factor. Has always been abrasive towards fans and actually used to spit on them during shows. Still doesn't take away from the fact he's probably the most underrated musician of the past twenty years.
His cover of Mona Bone Jakon is one of the best covers I've ever heard. Strange thing about Ben though....he never plays bass on his solo projects. Its like he saves that gift for Soundgarden.
Although he was the last of the four to join, in 1990, Shepherd took the band's dissolution hardest. "My whole life seemed over," he says. "Soundgarden broke up; my other band, Hater, broke up; my fiancée broke up with me; and then I broke three ribs. I got addicted to pain pills, drank a ton, and wound up OD'ing on morphine. I was laid out in my house for five days, and no one knew it. It was a fucking horrible time -- this total rock'n'roll cliché."
If I ever met him we'd get along great. 
In the years after the split, he played on albums by Mark Lanegan and Tony Iommi, participated in some of Josh Homme's Desert Sessions recordings, and briefly joined a few bands, including Wellwater Conspiracy, the Seattle sorta supergroup of which Cameron was also a member. To Shepherd, Soundgarden's breakup was unnecessary -- "We should've just relaxed for a while and lived" -- and he hardly disavows the notion that he's been jonesing to get back together ever since. "I've just been waiting for these old geezers to snap out of it," he says.
Now is your chance to shine. You finally have what you always wanted. Step up to the plate in the studio, and if you have a vault, shove it in Cornell's face.
I really wish he had never released that first Wellwater Conspiracy album. It has some tunes just begging for the Soundgarden treatment.
I agree with him about the breakup. Cornell was an idiot. In an old Ben interview he mentioned how Cornell showed up to his house one day and told him SG was over, and he just sighed and went along with it. Mentioned how if he could have went back he would have protested Cornell's way too shaky trigger finger.
I don't even want to imagine what these guys could have done with Cornell's Audioslave tracks.
That's not to say he doesn't have reservations. He could use the money ("If anyone is pissed at us for getting paid, fucking piss on them; they don't have to live our lives"), but he's the only one of the four who was disappointed by the Showbox gig ("It was boring; the crowd was dead still, and everyone was like, 'Yay! The antiques are moving!''‰").
Looks like your abrasiveness towards fans is rearing its ugly head again. I understand not liking these hipster crowds, but just fucking roll with it. You're back for one final run. Enjoy it.
"All the stuff I ever do -- Hater, the record I'm making -- it all sounds amateur to me. No matter what I do, I'm going to be associated with Soundgarden."
His solo projects do have production issues. Listen to Hater's first album as an example. That was recorded right before Superunknown.
There's nothing wrong with being associated with Soundgarden. A pretty impressive word to have in your future obituary. You were a vital part of it.
Since Soundgarden's split, Thayil says he's been "happily semiretired." He's contributed guitar to records by bands like Sunn 0))) and Pigeonhed, and played with Jello Biafra and Krist Novoselic in the No W.T.O. Combo, a one-off project to protest the World Trade Organization. But for the most part, he's studiously avoided any serious creative commitments. "I got lots of offers," he says. "But I kind of wanted to be left alone. I enjoyed not having to answer to anything. I didn't even have to answer to the sun. I'd wake up and it'd be dark. I felt so fucking free."
I've always wondered if Axl ever attempted to contact him at several points during the Chinese sessions. Axl is such a huge fan of them and with his revolving door he surely considered it at one point.
Cameron is the only band member who needed to ask for time off from his day job to attend this reunion. Since 1998, he's been Pearl Jam's drummer, and everyone acknowledges that no matter how well Soundgarden 2.0 progresses, Pearl Jam is his priority. "We're sort of shoehorning all the Soundgarden stuff into my Pearl Jam schedule," he says. "So far it's been good, but I don't want it to get to where my head is going to explode."
I don't like the sound of that at all.
Last New Year's Day, Cornell sent out a tweet -- "The 12-year break is over and school is back in session. Sign up now. Knights of the Soundtable ride again!" -- that was widely misinterpreted as an announcement of the band's reformation.
Funny. We mentioned that same thing here when it happened how it may not have been an actual reunion and we were jumping the gun.
Good to know they got major interest though.
As of press time, despite rumbles about more gigs, there was exactly one confirmed show on the calendar: Lollapalooza. There is talk of a live album culled from mid-'90s concerts and maybe a B-sides collection, but the band hasn't yet written any new music.
FUCK.
Cameron and Shepherd both express admiration for Scream as a gutsy experiment, and Thayil, while less enthused, certainly saw potential. "I know if me, Matt, and Ben would've been in the studio with Chris and Timbaland, it wouldn't have been bad," he says. "Sometimes, you just need backup."
Talk about hitting the nail on the head....
To Silver, this is the real story of the reunion's genesis. "Chris didn't have anywhere else to go," she says. "His solo career was so unfocused that he started to modify his behavior to make this work and earn the other guys' trust back. Making amends takes awhile, which is why there's only been a club show and a commitment to one national show."
Not her biggest fan but she makes a valid point.
Re: New Soundgarden best of or new album?
Wow... what a wonderful article.
James, one song Cornell wrote in Audioslave that I always wondered about was Shadow on the Sun. I can only dream what Soundgarden would have done.
The problem with the Showbox gig was how fucking crowded it was. You didn't have much room to move because everyone was already dry humping everyone else. There was movement though, but I think mostly these people were just in awe. Because everyone was singing along and screaming the whole time.
Ben also needs to understand that Soundgarden's fan base has gotten a lot older (it wasn't a hipster crowd of a bunch of young kids), and therefore they obviously aren't going to mosh like they did back in '90. There was a lot of older people at that show. And they were energetic, just not in a moshing sort of way.
Also amazing that Cornell's tweet wasn't actually announcing Soundgarden reuniting. And even more amazing that all the fan interest and news stories worked.
I don't like the sound of Pearl Jam being Matt's priority. Pearl Jam can find another drummer. Soundgarden needs him.
Susan may actually be right about Cornell feeling he really has no other options. Scream went down like a turd in a punch bowl and Carry On did marginally better.
Let's hope they keep it together and Ben releases that solo album.
Re: New Soundgarden best of or new album?
"Nowhere," he says. "Literally. I've been sleeping on studio couches and at friends' houses. I'm totally broke." Shepherd is part owner of a bar 15 minutes from here called Hazlewood, but he says he sinks any money from it into the solo album he's been working on since last fall. Six months ago, he split with his girlfriend and moved out of their house. "This is my home now," he says, holding up the sides of his slightly gamey overcoat.
He can sleep on my couch when they play over here
I don't like Kickstand. It's the 'You're Crazy' of Superunknown. Completely unnecessary track on a flawless album. It's only saving grace is its short duration.
I just love that dirty gritty punk stuff short hard hitting songs. Its the same reason I got into Oasis. They had some great punk tunes.
Not to go to off topic but if your into that sludgy punk sound this track is great
Re: New Soundgarden best of or new album?
I've always wondered if Axl ever attempted to contact him at several points during the Chinese sessions. Axl is such a huge fan of them and with his revolving door he surely considered it at one point
Thayil would've completely changed the whole fucking game on CD. I'm not talking about the Bucket stuff, but i'd shit my pants thinking about that guy writing the Robin stuff from the ground up during the initial writing/recording process for CD in the late 90's
Thayil taking that end of CD, you probably would've never needed Bucket, and Izzy probably would've come back in 2001 when asked.
Just fanboyism, but it would've changed the whole fucking album imo.
Axl Rose
Kim Thayil
Izzy Stradlin
Tommy Stinson
Josh Freese/Brain
Dizzy Reed
That's a fuckin' supergroup right there.
Re: New Soundgarden best of or new album?
Axl Rose
Kim Thayil
Izzy Stradlin
Tommy Stinson
Josh Freese/Brain
Dizzy ReedThat's a fuckin' supergroup right there.
Tommy and Kim would compliment each other perfectly. I think Finck would stylistically be a better compliment to those two than Izzy though. Josh on drums I think simply because he meshes well with Finck in a live setting and then drop Dizzy when pitman got on board.
THAT is one hell of a band. Obviously go by a different name. Had they released CD in 2001 they would have been going up against Audioslave which would have been amazing
Re: New Soundgarden best of or new album?
Thayil would've completely changed the whole fucking game on CD.
That's an understatement.
I'm not talking about the Bucket stuff, but i'd shit my pants thinking about that guy writing the Robin stuff from the ground up during the initial writing/recording process for CD in the late 90's
He actually could have handled both their jobs. Axl could have saved money by simply hiring Thayil. Axl would have only needed a 2nd(and 3rd) guitarist for touring purposes.
I'm not crazy. I'm not insinuating he is the best guitarist in the world and shits all over Bucket. Thayil said something like this years ago but I don't remember the exact quote..... "Am I the best guitar player in the world? No, but I can stand right up there next to them".
I agree. He has this really unique style and is a jack of all trades. He can write entire songs(musically and lyrically) from scratch or just do like on DOTU and add the Thayil spice to already completed songs, which is the position he would have been in had he joined GNR after any departure.
I think someone of his stature walking through the revolving door would have sped up the process. He's not gonna sit there and suck his thumb year after year while cashing his checks.
His songwriting credits are impressive, but the guy deserves a trillion brownie points for writing the lyrics to Room A Thousand Years Wide, which is a song that was in their vault for awhile that Cornell didn't know what to do with.
Tommy and Kim would compliment each other perfectly. I think Finck would stylistically be a better compliment to those two than Izzy though.
Finck barely compliments anybody. We're damn lucky there was some chemistry between Finck and Bucket or CD would have been an even bigger mess.
Having said that, I agree about Finck fitting better than Izzy(yeah I know, BLASPHEMY!). Kim and Izzy's styles are exact opposites and Thayil could somewhat "mold" Finck into what he is doing. Izzy is Izzy and while a powerhouse, I cant imagine those two getting much off the ground.
Obviously go by a different name.
Why? The lineups you and Axlin08 listed are better than the current GNR lineup. Why would a stronger lineup not be deserving of using the name? Have our standards dropped that low?
