60 Songs That Explain the '90s - “Black Hole Sun”—Soundgarden

Episode Date: October 11, 2023

Rob is back for the final stretch of '60 Songs That Explain the ’90s,' and this week, it’s all about guitar tone! Listen as Rob peruses Smash Mouth’s wild discography before turning to Soundgarden and their hit “Black Hole Sun.” Rob also somehow finds the time to share his top five favorite made-up band names. Later, author Mark Yarm joins the show to discuss Soundgarden’s place within the big four of grunge music. Preorder Rob's book, '60 Songs That Explain the ’90s,' for 25 percent off TODAY ONLY (Wednesday, October 11) via Books-A-Million: https://www.booksamillion.com/p/Songs-That-Explain/Rob-Harvilla/9781538759462 Also, SIGNED BOOKPLATE COPIES are available for preorder via Premiere Collectibles starting on Thursday, October 12: https://premierecollectibles.com/harvilla Don’t forget to get your tickets to the '60 Songs' live show on November 16! Get your tickets here: https://teragramballroom.com/tm-event/the-ringer-presents-60-songs-that-explain-the-90s-x-bandsplain-live/ Host: Rob Harvilla Guest: Mark Yarm Producers: Jonathan Kermah and Justin Sayles Additional Production Support: Chloe Clark Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What would you do if you got scammed? Would you suffer in silence, or would you do something about it? Well, I got scammed once, and this is the story of what I did. I'm Justin Sales, the host of the Wedding Scammer, a true crime podcast from The Ringer. And for seven episodes, we're hunting a comment. A guy with a lot of aliases, a guy who's ruined a lot of weddings. And with the help of some friends, I just might be able to catch him. Listen to the Wedding Scammer starting October 17th.

Hello there, friends. A few announcements before this week's episode, many of them pertaining to my book, my book conveniently also titled 60 songs that explain the 90s will be released on Tuesday, November 14th, 2023, and is available for pre-order now at all the usual pre-order type joints. I am very excited about it, and I hope you'll check it out. Announcement number one, today only Wednesday, October 11th, are partnering with books a million for a one day only 25% off flash sale. You can pre-order the book via the BAM website and get 25% off, but only today. That link will be in the show notes here, and I'll also put the link up on Twitter where my handle is just plain old Harvilla, H-A-R-V-I-L-L-A. Announcement number two, starting tomorrow. Thursday, October 12th, we are partnering with

premier collectibles to offer signed bookplate copies of the book. I signed like 400 autographs last night. I had never before had to put much thought into what my signature looked like. I think it went great. That link also will be in the show notes and also I'll put it up on Twitter to repeat signed bookplate copies of 60 songs that explain the 90s. The book will be on sale for pre-orders starting Thursday, October 12th. And finally, for those of you in the Los Angeles area, I am pleased to announce that we are doing a live podcast event, a book celebration and crossover spectacular, featuring me, Bansplain and 24 question party people host Yassi Salick, and as a special guest, The Watch's Own, Chris Ryan, all of whom

appearing live in person in Los Angeles on Thursday, November 16th at 8 p.m. at the Teragram Ballroom. Do not ask me where in Los Angeles. That is, ask someone who lives there. That's what I did. You can get tickets now while they last at terragram ballroom.com. That's T-E-R-A-G-R-A-M ballroom.com. That date again is Thursday, November 16th at 8 p.m. I hope to see you there. Thank you for your patience. I hope you check out the book in some fashion. And now on with the show. Thanks. We don't talk enough about guitar tone, do we? No, it ain't. Dig that guitar tone, man.

Dig the rad guitar tone on Walking on the Sun, the breakout single from chaotic San Jose rock band Smash Mouth. From their 1997 debut album, Fush You, Mang, Fus H, Y, U. M-A-N-G. Scarface reference. The crunchiness, the fuzzed-out grouchiness, the vaguely retro-brattiness

of that super-rad guitar tone. It is 1997, and we're about through with scare quotes, alternative rock, ain't we? Grunge is peaked.

Brit Pop has peaked. OK computer is phenomenal and will, in fact, define the next 15 years of my life. But I hear that Radiohead are thinking of selling their guitars and buying a bunch of synthesizers and arpeggiators because they want to make something real. They want to make a can record. Heads up, rock is dead again. Rock remains dead.

And now it's weird out there. Folks, it's surreal. It's 1997 and ska is big now. Neo swing is big now. Electronica is in now. Total chaos. is in now. And here, then, is the genially scratchy sound of total chaos. Steve Harwell, frontman, smash mouth. Dig that raspy, blunt, and yet alarmingly sincere vocal tone. It ain't no joke. It ain't no joke even if he sounds funny, even if he's maybe sort of trying to be funny. Talking to Rolling Stone in 2019, Steve says,

Walking on the sun changed music. It changed the way people listen to music. I've talked to other artists over the years, and they said the day that song came on the radio, they were like, we're fucked. It was so different, and it was so unusual,

and it was so special. It just had that sound that we created. Ask anybody that's tried to copy us. You can't. You just can't. End quote. Is he exaggerating? Perhaps.

Perhaps. Is he being a little vague? A little. Do smash mouth in 1997 look like a bowling team that spontaneously decided to start a rock band? Absolutely. That's not an insult or a complaint. If you, like me, have super fond memories of, Spending hours playing heavy barrel in the bowling alley arcade while your parents won their bowling league,

I think you'll agree that Smashmouth's proto-Gai Fiery look is a selling point. So let's change music, fellas. Also, walking on the sun, a 1997 lament for the slow, cynical death of 60s idealism is a pretty great song that is now itself a quarter century old ugh that's tough but yeah the thesis here is things used to be better but now they're worse just singing and clapping man what the hell happened fashion is smashing the true meaning of it put away the crack before the crack puts you away you need to be there when your baby's old enough to be laid that's what he says there, right?

Crack before the crack put you away. You need to be there when your baby's old enough to relate. Well, I'll be damned. It turns out that's not what he says. It turns out that Steve says you need to be there when your baby's

old enough to relate. Oh. I thought it was when your baby's old enough to be laid. So like when your children are teenagers and having sex, I misheard Steve on that line for 26 years.

I regret the error. Guitar tone. Dig that guitar tone, man. Shout out Smashmouth, co-founder and guitarist and songwriter Greg Camp, providing that rad guitar tone. What I know for sure is that walking on the sun is startling and delightful in 1997 as hell.

And the single most 1997 aspect of this song is that it doesn't really sound anything like any of the other songs on the record it's on, which I am pleased to remind you is called Fush You. Meng. Hit it, fellas. Let's rock. That song's called Let's Rock. And here's where the total chaos kicks in. Smash Mouth started out as a bunch of dudes who used to be in rap groups. Steves was called FOS, which Relax stands for freedom of speech. And Smash Mouth are, at least

initially, a ska punk band. And occasionally, perhaps even a thrash punk band. This song is not called Let's Rock. No, that song is called Heave Ho. and it's about getting evicted because you partied too hard. Steve Harwell in a 1997 interview says, The question of a particular style never once crossed our minds. We didn't want to be labeled as a punk band, a ska band, a surf band, a rock band, a pop band, or a whatever band. We just wanted to be us, smash mouth,

and leave it to the people to interpret what we are. End quote. Consequently, many of those people try, to interpret Smashmouth were super confused. Fushu Mang producer Eric Valentine in that 2019 Rolling Stone article, he says, Smashmouth, quote,

had this dubious distinction of having a very, very successful record, but it was also one of the most returned albums because the very visible single, Walking on the Sun, was so different than the rest of the record. People would get the record, and it was like, what is going on?

Why is all the rest of this music so different? End quote. My favorite song on this record is called The Fonz and Sounds Like Weezer. The second most streamed song on this record is a ska cover of Wars' 1975 pop funk hit. Why Can't We Be Friends? And this song is called Sorry About Your Penice. Guitar Tone. Just now I almost typed Sorry About Your Penis into the YouTube search bar. But I stopped myself just in time. Close one. Smash mouth.

Super chaotic band. Smash mouth. Gleeful, equal opportunity subgenre desecrators. Smash mouth. Sublime's wario. Smash mouth, a wildly unpredictable rock band with in Walking on the Sun an unexpectedly huge hit song that teaches them the value of reinventing themselves as a slightly less wildly unpredictable pop band.

Anomalous and destabilizing and band redefining surprise hit singles were a big whoop in 1997. For example, in 1995, jovial Newport Beach rock band Sugar Ray sound like this. Bursa-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-a- guitar tone. That song's called Mean Machine. I'm not going to tell you what I always thought, dreamy Sugar Ray Frontman, Mark McGrath was singing right there, but it turns out I was right. Sorry about your penis. Whereas in 1997, suddenly Sugar Ray sound like this. And then Sugar Ray get to be a famous pop band.

And then Mark McGrath hosts some game shows. Post walking on the sun, our friends in Smashmouth are about to make that same transition from chaotic rock band to semi-caotic pop band. because that 2019 Rolling Stone article is, in fact, a lengthy and lovely oral history of one smash-mouth song. And not that one. This one. Somebody.

And this ain't no joke either. No matter how much of a joke it may once have been or how big of a way too online sort of joke it eventually became. It's a great opening line. Let's not be rude. Let them do the whole line. Somebody wants tommy the world is going to roll me. I ain't the sharpest tool in the shed.

That's a monster opening line. Tone sincere, All-Star from Smashmouth's 1999 album Astro Lounge is a destabilizingly huge top five pop hit. Once again, guitarist Greg Camp wrote it. And as he explained to Rolling Stone, he wrote it after reading a bunch of fan while sitting in laundromats on tour. Quote, we would read the mail and do our laundry. And we notice that there was a common thread in all of these letters.

Kids thanking us for being their band. They were sort of outcasts. They were kind of nerdy and picked on and stuff like that. End quote. So this one's for the nerds. The guitar tone, less rad. It's fine. This is not as rad.

The chorus, Immortal. Sometimes that's the trade-off. Then All-Star shows up on the soundtrack to Shrek, the disconcertingly popular 2001 animated children's film, in which Mike Myers voices a friendly green ogre. Then, an entire generation raised on Shrek grows up to spend all their time on TikTok making fucking All-Star memes. Mario, Bill O'Reilly, Kermit the Frog,

Star Wars characters. The Star Wars version is a Jimmy Fallon Enterprise, but it's still pretty good. Yeah, that's fine. My favorite All-Star meme, and it took me a while to find this, is this TikTok of a dude sitting on a couch playing video games, and his friend holding the camera is playing him a new remix of The Black Parade by My Chemical Romance, just to film his reaction. And the video game playing dude's eyes roll back into his head in his aspiration phenomenal video i had to search tic-tok for that dude the tic-tok search bar is not a natural environment for a grown-ass man i don't ever want to do that again steve harwell talking to stereo gum in 2017 he says you know i try not to pay attention to social media very much i try not to personally read and look at all that shit but i think it's cool that

All-Star has made such a resurgence. And then he says, it's entertaining. I get it. It doesn't bother me. But at the same time, I don't love it. End quote. Steve Harwell toured with Smashmouth, another 20 plus years, and they put out five more albums. The last one comes out in 2012, and it's called Magic, and ends with their cover of Don't You Forget About Me. Yes, that one. That sounds exactly the way. I thought that would sound. Smash mouth covering, don't you forget about me, sounds more like how I thought it would sound than any other song I've ever heard in my life. Remarkable.

Steve Harwell leaves Smashmouth in 2021. He retires. He struggles, often quite publicly, with physical and mental health issues. Let's not get into it. Go look all that up on the internet. Or better yet, don't. All I have to say about modern day smash mouth is that bassist, Paul Delisle is now the only original member left in Smashmouth.

And their new lead singer is a dude named Zach Good, who's super tall and mussely. And now in band photos, it looks like Zach could pick up all four other members of Smashmouth and play them like an accordion. Just whee, we, we, we, we, I don't imagine there's much internal debate in Smashmouth these days. I think the mussely lead singer guy says, we should totally. do this and the other guy say oh yeah sorry totally great idea sorry let's do it sorry yeah totally i'm stalling steve harwell died of liver failure on september 4th 2023 he was 56 in that rolling stone oral history of all-star steve says i'm not going to toot my own horn but nobody else could have sang that song

it would have never been what it is now i could have pitched that song to a million bands and they would have tried to do it, and it would have never been what it is. End quote. He is for sure tooting his own horn there, but he's not wrong. He may not have been the sharpest tool in the shed, but he was the right one. This is not a case of a super happy song that is now transformed by personal tragedy into a super sad song. All Star is unaffected by real world events. All Star abides, but I do wince a little now. Every time I read an old interview where Steve is still blatantly grappling with how

it feels to be shreked and memed out the wazoo. In 2017 he told Polygon quote, Shrek is a daily occurrence for us. End quote. Which is a super dark thing to say. Actually,

Shrek is a daily occurrence for us. Ubiquitous hit songs are dehumanizing. After you've heard a song 500,000 times on the radio, it's like you don't even hear it anymore. It doesn't really mean anything anymore. And the people playing it don't feel like real people anymore. And then something terrible happens. You were abruptly reminded that these people are painfully real. All Star had almost 25 years on the radio and on the internet before it was cruelly rehumanized by tragedy.

But of course, sometimes that all happens way faster. Guitar tone. That's a genuinely beautiful guitar tone, dude, so bright and fluid and playful and joyful, a defiantly bright ray of sunshine amidst all the sludgy and grouchy and joyless guitar tones clogging up alt-rock radio in 1992, all that grim, unimaginative God bless No Rain by Los Angeles rock band Blind Melon from their self-titled 1992 debut album.

I heard No Rain on the radio 500,000 times in 1992 and 1993 alone. And I'm going to be honest and say that it's never the song I was hoping to hear on the radio, right? We've talked about this. You're listening to the radio at any given time you've got three to five songs

you're dying to hear. And the song you're currently listening to ends and you lean forward in anticipation trying to manifest one of those three to five songs you're dying to hear. But instead, the rad guitar tone of no rain kicks in. And if you're me, at least, your shoulder slump and disappointment for just an instant. But then in the next instant, you think, ah, come on, dude, don't be rude. This song kind of kicks ass. It just happens to kick ass very gently. I'm going to be honest again and say that I have always heard that line as I like watching

the birds gather rain, which does not make sense. And I like watching the puddles gather rain, which is what Blind Melon frontman, Shannon Hoon actually sings. That makes way more sense, actually. Do you ever just sit around thinking about what a weird opening line that is? All I can say is that my life is pretty, pretty. The all I can say part is almost weirder than the my life is pretty plain part. The modesty, the chillness, the aggressively lowered stakes of that opening line.

That's all he has to say. You ever sit around thinking about why all he can do is read a book to stay awake and why he would want or need to do that? No rain was made further ubiquitous. No Rain was memeified in a distinctly early 90s sort of way by the fabled bee girl video directed by Samuel Bayer and starring 10-year-old Heather Deloche as a tap dancing girl in a bee costume who is met with ridicule and confusion

until she makes it out to the disconcertingly bright green meadow in which blind melon are frolicking and she finds a bunch of other cheerful people frolicking in bee costumes heartwarming. This video, coming several months after the initially modest release of their full-length debut is Blind Melon's big breakthrough moment. Somewhat to their chagrin. Suddenly, they've got a top 20 song and a multi-platinum album. Bassist Ben Smith talking to Rolling Stone in 1993. He says, It's really weird how the momentum picked up because of one video. The music hasn't changed. It's been on the CD forever.

What we do has not changed. The video and the politics behind everything are what's changed. Success has a lot less to do with music than I thought it did. End quote. The B-Girl is a daily occurrence for them. To compound this sense of weirdness and discomfort, much of Blind Melon's debut album is devoted to Shannon Hoon singing about how weird and uncomfortable and out of place he feels.

That's our friend bassist Ben Smith singing and so I wave goodbye, but that line still rattles me. Now, I will admit to you that I didn't spend much time with the full Blind Melon record in the 1990s because CDs cost $17 a piece and I was prioritizing. But one early morning recently, I was bumbling around the house watching my two-year-old daughter and I put on Blind Melon and then my daughter and I fell asleep in our recliner. And so the whole record just washed over us for an hour or so in like a wobbly, unstuck in time dream state. And I woke up with honestly no idea how old I was. And it was all super pleasant, actually. The chillness, the controlled noodliness, the strident lack of aggression, the rustic splendor, the birds gathering rain. Although, once I woke up and listened to it again, the song called Changes left me super rattled.

Also, if you're like me and you spent 992 and an oblivious teenager who had blind melons, no rain running in a permanent loop in the background of your daily life, then maybe it did not occur to you initially. And by you, I mean me, how much of the blind melon catalog is just Shannon Hoon being sweetly, but also quite severely bummed out. by the weather. Shannon Houn was born in this misery, I don't think I'll ever know, Lord, seen the sun from here. Shannon Houn was born in Lafayette, Indiana, and grew up devoting all his time to wrestling,

pole vaulting, and football, because that's what his domineering ex-joc father demanded of him. Shannon told Rolling Stone, by the time I was 17, I freaked out because I didn't have an identity of my own. I realized I'd wasted years trying to be what my parents wanted me to be. End quote. When he says I freaked out, he means he started singing and chasing rock stardom and hanging out with stoners and experimenting with drugs himself and racking up a super daunting police record. He left for Los Angeles in early 1990 and his own mother, Nell Hoon, talking to Rolling Stone, she says she was certain that, quote, he would either come back in a body bag or he would come back

signed. He got signed. The B-Girl video hit and he got huge and he struggled quite a bit and now quite publicly with legal issues and substance abuse issues. Blind Melon put out their second album Soup in 1995 and I'd like you to know that for pretty much all of 1995 the soup song Galaxy notably a much harder, darker grouchier song than Blind Melon's usual was totally one of the three to five songs I was desperate to hear on the radio. I love this song and I never got to hear it enough. I loved it for the super dark and hard and grouchy ending, especially. I still was way too oblivious to have any idea what was really going on with this guy, of course, but it was apparent enough that all the people who mistakenly thought they knew what was going on with this

guy were one of his biggest problems. Shannon Hoon died of a cocaine overdose on his tour bus on October 21st, 1995. He was 28. I heard no rain on the radio another 500,000 times after that, and I paid a little more attention to it then. I heard a little more clearly the plainness and the sweetness and the grace that is awfully hard to come by when a 1992 viral music video makes your rock band famous. The Blind Melon arc from ubiquitous hit single to crushing personal tragedy that redefines and rehumanizes that hit single took less than three years. But ask any hardcore smash mouth fan and they'll tell you, that arc from ubiquity to tragedy somehow hits harder the longer it takes.

Guitar Tone, my name is Rob Harvilla. This is the 105th episode of 60 songs that explain the 90s. And this week we are discussing Black Hole Sun by the Seattle Rock Band Soundgues. Garden from their extremely rad 1994 album Super unknown. Ooh, guitar tone. That watery,

eerie, discordant, but somehow enchanting guitar tone. Black Hole Sun is Soundgarden's moderately destabilizing 1994 viral video and long-awaited super breakout hit. It topped Billboard's mainstream rock airplay chart

for seven weeks back in 1994 when that specific chart basically ruled my life. Also, according to Nielsen, Black Hole Sun was the ninth most popular song of the decade on mainstream rock radio from 2010 to 2019. I believe we have discussed previously that the 10 most popular songs on mainstream rock radio in the 2010s, from Allison Chains to Nirvana to the offspring to Soundgarden were all released between 1990 and 1994. But let me see. say out loud once again that that is bizarre, but that's great news for this show. And also pretty cool for me personally, because this song gently kicks ass as well, albeit a little less gently. I didn't know this. I didn't find out about this until literally just now, but Chris Cornell is wearing a bent-up

fork as a necklace in the 1994 viral Black Hole Sun video. And it turns out that Chris received that fork necklace as a gift from Blind Mellon frontman Shannon Hoon. Yes. That's right. Once again, my long and baffling digressions are unexpectedly validated after the fact. Big news for me. During a fan Q&A in Kerrang magazine in 1997, Chris says, quote,

It was given to me by the late Shannon Hume, who fashioned it out of a fork he got in Denny's on the first tour Blind Melon ever did, which was opening for us. Kerrang is a British magazine, so they feel compelled to clarify parenthetically that Denny's is a U.S. fast food chain, which is very funny to me. I'd say Denny's is more fast casual, but it's still funny. Chris goes on about the fork necklace. He says, I really liked it, but I stopped wearing it after he died. because the other thing I wore was this ring that belonged to Andy Wood who died. It's like, I don't want to wear these fucking things from people who died. End quote.

Chris is referring, of course, to his dear friend and former roommate Andy Wood, frontman for the major proto-grunge Seattle rock band's Malfunction and Mother Love Bone. Andy died of a heroin overdose on March 19, 1990, shortly before the release of Mother's Lovebone's debut album, Apple. He was 24. Andy's death hit Chris extraordinarily hard. And actually, let's start here because this very morning, while bumbling around my house, watching my two-year-old daughter, I put on the Temple of the Dog record from 1991. Temple of the Dog being the Seattle supergroup Chris convened in Andy Wood's honor. And that record starts with Chris crooning and moaning and wailing and howling, a song he wrote for Andy called Say Hello to Heaven.

And holy shit man, Chris Cornell's voice. The Temple of the Dog record, of course, has Chris and drummer Matt Cameron from Soundgarden, along with Mike McCready and Stone Gossard and Jeff Ament, who are Andy's bandmates and Mother Left Bone, and are on the cusp of starting Pearl Jam with Eddie Vedder. And we've discussed the all-time Temple of the Dog karaoke jam Hunger Strike at length on this program. and Hunger Strike is still pretty dope. But returning to this whole record now, this whole record clearly peaks with track one,

with Say Hello to Heaven, and specifically with these extremely rad, wailed lines from Say Hello to Heaven. We're getting too heavy, too fast. Actually, this is superficial and also subjective, but not really. I feel like you can tell just by listening to Chris Cornell sing that he is, A, the best pure,

singer slash rock star to emerge from the fabled Seattle scene and he has also be the hottest, right? Soundgarden formed in Seattle in 1984 and once he switched from drummer to frontman the first five years or so

of the Chris Cornell Live experience are defined in retrospect by lascivious tales of his shirtlessness. In the author Mark Yarm's fantastic 2011 book, Everybody Loves Our Town, and oral history of grunge. We'll be talking to Mark in a little bit here. Chris Cornell's early

shirtlessness is discussed at some length, a guy named James Birdy Shaw, who played guitar in the fantastically named Seattle band Catbutt. James says, I remember one sound garden show where this girl was so enthralled with Chris that she was dancing like crazy and rubbing her rear end against me, all while staring at him. Did she know who she was rubbing up against? probably not i might as well have been a poll to her end quote and then immediately thereafter mark arm no relation frontman for beloved seattle scus rock band mud honey mark says this might be coming from a place of jealousy but the shirtlessness seemed contrived chris would wear tear away shirts clearly someone had done some damage to the seams before he would go on stage because he would grab the shirt right in the

middle and then pull it straight off him. I think I might have respected it more if he just came out on stage without a shirt at all. End quote, contrived shirtlessness. I love it. The usual move. The standard comparison is to place Chris Cornell in the fabled armadillo-trausered lineage of 60s and 70s sex god type rock and roll frontman.

Robert Plant and Roger Daltry and so forth. And just because that comparison is somewhat of a cliche doesn't make it not true. Tell me this guy wouldn't have kicked metric tons of ass in the 70s. This is heavy, man. Chris Cornell died by suicide on May 10th, 2017. He was 52. He had survived so much. He had mourned so many of his fellow rock stars.

Andy Wood, Kirk Cobain, Lane Staley, Jeff Buckley. way more spiritual crossover with Chris than you might think. Scott Weiland, him too. And then Chris too was gone. When he died, Soundgarden was on tour. Soundgarden's next show was in Columbus, Ohio. I had tickets. I had somehow never seen Soundgarden live.

I was so excited. And then suddenly I was crushed. I was doubly, triply, quadrupley, crushed. And now I can't stop myself from hearing say hello to heaven. a song Chris wrote 30 plus years ago about grieving his friend Andy as a painfully cathartic song about grieving Chris. I am hell-bent, though, on keeping this from getting too heavy. You cannot imagine the baffling and digressive lengths I will go to to keep this from getting too heavy. Do you ever just sit around and think about band names?

How strange, how ridiculous most band names are, and how, how awful. Often, band names get stranger and more ridiculous, the more famous the bands are. But the band's fame and the blunt force repetition of hearing the famous band's ridiculous name two million times somehow tricks you into thinking that the band name isn't that ridiculous. So far today, we have discussed bands named Smashmouth, Sugar Ray, Blind Melon, Sound Garden, Temple of the Dog, Pearl Jam, and, indeed, Catbutt. I submit to you that all of those band names are fucking ridiculous. Catbutt, of course, is most ridiculous. Soundgarden actually is the least ridiculous. Soundgarden were named after a Seattle art installation called A Soundgarden, a dozen 21-foot poles that swayed with the wind and made a cool noise. It is very funny to me to imagine oblivious people showing up to early Soundgarden gigs, assuming that the band called Soundgarden were going to sound like yanni or evangelist or enya or something and then they're confronted by the super heaviness and contrived shirtlessness of a wailing chris cornell but band names are tough man naming bands is hard one time i wrote a novel you don't want to hear about my failed novel and i respect that one time

i wrote a novel about a fictional rock band and i took it upon myself to compile a list of like a 150 fake band names. And those fake band names are very possible. The only successful element of the novel. Look out. Top five fake band names for my stupid novel. Here we go. Number five.

Suckass McSucketash. That's a good start. That should be higher. That's a great band name. Dude, it's too late to reorder this. But just pretend that's higher. I really dig the assenance of suckass, mc-sucketash, assenance, the term for rhyming vowel sounds.

The fact that the word that describes suck-ass-mix-suck-attash also has the word ass in it is just a bonus, really. That should be higher. Number four, the hardier boys. Ooh, literary. I have a lot of these. Can I do 10? Let's do 10. Top 10 fake band names for my stupid novel.

here we go. Number 10, suck-ass McSucketash. Ah, shit, it's even lower now. Number nine, the heartier boys. Number eight, Pantera bread. Okay. Pantera bread, who have an album called vulgar display of

cream cheese. Okay. Like, I have a lot of these, dude. 150 fake band names is an exaggeration, but not like a huge exaggeration. I'm going to do 20. Top 20. I'll it fast. Let's mix it up a little, too. Top 20 fake band names for my stupid novel. Real quick. Here we go. Number 20, the hardier boys. Number 19, Pantara bread. Number 18, mixed fuck nuts.

No. Number 17, boner machine. No. Number 16, melon baller and the endless breadsticks. Like the smashing puck. No, absolutely not. Number 15, colon on the cob. This was my college. roommate Jeans, band name idea. That is a very strange image, but I always dug it for some reason. Number 14,

Chicks-ahoy! Exclamation point, like the cookies, right? That was also, Gene. Not bad, Gene. Number 13, the Tarantino references.

Number 12, but lick junction. I like to picture this one in an illegible death metal font. You know, these band names were supposed to

be stupid and puerile for like thematic purposes. But I think you'll agree that I overdelivered on the pure aisle stupidity. Number 11, the five people you meet in hell. Okay, 20 maybe may have been too many to list here. Number 10, lousy massage. Couldn't even get an agent. Number nine, the prostate reformation. I was depressed for like three years. Number eight, Satan's bidet. And what would keep me up at night is, did this book fail because I didn't spend enough time on the stupid pure-isle fake band names? Or did this book fail because I spent way too much time on the stupid puretile fake band names? It's a real conundrum. Number seven, ass you like it. Ooh, Shakespearean, that's super literary. You can style that ass colon you like it or ass.

comma you like it or conversely you can do none of those things number six bill romans dung this one was extra disappointing this one is too literary bill romans dung only works if you write it down and also it doesn't work then either what a bummer number five jacuzzi like the word jacuzzi but french that one actually does work if you read it down number four swing Hym suit issues, dude. I'd like to see artificial intelligence try to train itself with this book. The computer or whatever would blow up from awesomeness. You're welcome.

Number three, suck-ass, mick-socketage. Yes. Hell yes, that's more like it. Top three. The system works. All right, hear me out. Number two, sexual congress. come on like they're all wearing powdered wigs like the founding fathers come on that's pretty good

we're going to finish strong at least and the number one fake band name for my stupid agentless boondoggle of a failed novel is an erection lasting longer than four hours my point is that naming bands is hard and sound gardens band name while quite mislems was ultimately quite effective in conveying the spiritually pummeling, sonically overwhelming, earthy and yet supernatural grandeur of Soundgarden's music. Soundgarden put out their debut EP in 1987. It's called Screaming Life and the best song is called Nothing to Say. Guitar tone and better yet drop D guitar tone where you tune the low E string down to D so you can go Burner to burn

Burnerner That song rules dude Chris Cornell was born in Seattle in 1964 In 2020 on Facebook Chris's brother Peter wrote

My father was a tyrannical alcoholic and physically abusive man He beat the shit out of me And my brothers He wasn't kind He didn't show love Also

Impact Punishment and ridicule guided us along the path and molded us into the troubled beings that we would carry into the world and the future. End quote. Cornell is actually Chris's mother's made a name. All the kids took it after she divorced Chris's father. Chris's favorite beetle was John Lennon, but his favorite beetle's song was Hey Jude. He was in grade school the first time he realized his voice could startle people. In 2015, he told Rolling Stone, I think that's when the switch was thrown. The first time I had a music teacher, play a scale on piano, and asked me to sing it,

because she wanted to see if I had an ear or not. I remember singing the scale, and she almost jumped off the stool and looked at me. I remember it because that's the first time that had happened. No one had ever looked at me like that. End quote. He learns drums. He joins bands. He plays drums and sings for a while.

until he decides he can knock more people off of stools with his voice if he doesn't have to play drums while he's singing. Soundgarden in 1987, we got Kim Thaill playing all the guitars and writing all the music for now. We got Hero Yamamoto on bass. We got Matt Cameron on drums. And we got Chris Cornell on lead vocals and guitar later. We also got Chris on the cover, shirtless, and radiating rock god type energy. Though also, do you know Jim Ancauer, the old stoner burnout columnist for The Onion, who'd start every column with something like, oh, amigos, what up? I know it's been a long time since I rapped at you, but I've been knee-deep in the hoopla. And in his author photo, Jim's got this dazed, open-mouthed, transcendent bonehead type expression.

I get a Jim Ancauer vibe from Chris Cornell on the screaming life cover. That is a super niche reference, but I stand by it. The second Soundgarden EP called FOP, featuring a cover of the Ohio player song FOP, comes out in 1988. And there's not really a best song per se, but the most song, if you take my meaning, is called Kingdom of Come. She came in through the bathroom window. Those first two EPs come out on Seattle's fabled subpop records. But then Soundgarden sign with the even cooler and grittier independent label SST. Black Flag, Husker Do, Bad Brains, blah, blah, blah, blah.

For their 1988 full-length debut, Ultra Mega Okay, and naming albums is hard too, but Ultra Mega Okay is an excellent name for this record, which is super loud and growly, but is somehow missing an essential and distinctly Seattle sort of surly grit. The usual move. The standard comparison, the cliche that happens to be true, is that Soundgarden is half black flag and half black Sabbath. The band's early existential crisis. Well, it's a crisis for some people anyway, is that Soundgarden is maybe a metal band that maybe thinks it's a punk rock band. A punk rock band is a cooler and much more desirable thing to be in Seattle in 1988 and also every year thereafter.

But most punk bands don't have riffs this slow and heavy and punishing and righteous. I don't know what he's singing there. It doesn't matter. What matters is do-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-but the first truly great sound garden record. Out on a major label, A&M, comes out in 1989 and is called Louder Than Love, which was a compromise. They wanted to call it louder than shit or louder than fuck. I can't decide which one of those is worse. It's a tie for worst.

I do think louder than shit or louder than fuck would have been a more appropriate title for this record, though, maturity-wise. It's not the best or the most song on this record, but the song called Full-on Kevin's Mom comes pretty close to being both. When I bought this CD used at a college record store in, let's say, 1996, I gravitated instinctively.

toward full on Kevin's mom. I don't mind telling you, though I'm way more hesitant to tell you that the song I really gravitated toward on this record is called Big Dumb Sex. It's satire, dude. It's satirizing horny hair metal bands.

Although, according to Corbyn Reef's 2020 posthumous Chris Cornell biography, Total Fucking Godhead, Kim Thale had to explain to Hero Yammer that big dumb sex was satire. It is a bad sign generally when your guitarist has to explain to your bassist that the song

you just wrote is satire. Hero Yamamoto leaves Soundgarde before louder than love comes out, partially because he's sick of touring and partially because he wanted to be in a punk band and he's worried that he's actually in a metal band. And Hero will go on to get a master's degree in physics. And this too is a bad sign for your porny satirical rock song when the guy who's going to get a master's degree in physics doesn't get it. Hero wrote the song, Kingdom of Come, by the way. In conclusion, Big Dumb Sex is part of my favorite two-song micro-subgenre.

A micro-subgenre genre I describe as insufficiently satirical sex-crazed knuckle-headed rock songs with three-word titles where sex is one of the ones. words two songs in this micro subgenre here's the other one i dig the harmonics man well waw yes sex type thing by stone temple pilots this seems like a good place to say i want to assure you that you don't have to think a rock band called an erection lasting longer than four hours is funny it's fine if you don't think that's funny because i am happy to find that funny enough for the both of us. That is a service I can provide. I was washing dishes when I came up with that band name. I was looking out my back window while washing dishes and there was a deer in my backyard and the deer raised its head as if sensing my presence and the deer looked

right at me and I looked at it and it looked at me and the deer conveyed to me telepathically the band name an erection lasting longer than four hours. That's all true except the part about the deer. Okay, that's enough fucking around. Soundgarden are through fucking around.

What an incredible opening 10 seconds to a hard rock record. The guitar is calling out to and answering one another like wolves. The first truly stupendous sound garden record comes out in 1991 and is called Bad Motor Finger.

and begins with Rusty Cage, which is, more or less, a song about how they're seriously totally through fucking around. Do do do do. This is not my favorite sound garden record, but I feel like I'd be a cooler person if it was my favorite. Does that make sense? Don't answer that. Bad Motorfinger to its infinite credit is the album that includes a song

that got these lyrics onto mainstream rock radio. Did they play that version of Outer? outshined on the radio? Or was there an outshined radio edit that sidestepped the second verse altogether? I prefer to live in a universe where Chris Cornell got to say that on the radio. Bad Motor Finger peaks with a song called Jesus Christ Pose. It peaks specifically when this happens for roughly 16 seconds. We got Ben Shepard on bass now, and Soundgarden's imperial lineup is set.

and Ben makes his presence felt on a song called Slaves and Bulldozers, though it is challenging to make your presence felt when Chris Cornell is also perpetually making his presence felt. But this is not my favorite sound garden record. Super Unknown is my favorite. For its ambition, for its scope, for its shininess, for its tunefulness, for its bold attempts to enrapture me

at 16 years old, back when I was a little intimidated generally by both punk and metal. And the truth is, if I were ranking the 16 songs on Super Unknown, I would rank, let's see here, mailman, fell on Black Days, My Wave, Spoon Man, Fourth of July, maybe. That's Corbyn's favorite sound garden song, the Chris Cornell biographer. Corbyn knows his shit. Super Unknown, the title track, possibly? Oh, and for sure, the day I tried to live. I would rank six or seven super unknown songs higher than this one.

This one barely sneaks into the top half for me, though I do understand, of course, why this one is the one. Start with a guitar there, right? Chris, in that guitar line in deep conversation, two wolves howling at one another. So according to Corbyn Reef's book, early in the process of making Super Unknown, Soundgarden are struggling a little bit.

The songs just aren't there. And their producer, Michael Bynhorn, says to Chris, what are you listening to? What's inspiring to you? And Chris says, the Beatles and Cream. And so Michael says, write a song that's like the Beatles and Cream. And then Chris somehow does. We're jumping around, but that's one of my favorite Chris Cornell lines. Black Hole Sun does indeed have the winsome prickliness of John Lennon, but also the rapturous melodiousness of Hey Jude.

But this song is also too eerie, too disquieting to register as a mere power ballad. It's too pretty to be ignored, but too mesmerizingly ugly to be trusted. Sorry not sorry, but I will not be dealing with the Black Hole Sun video. By the way, that shit creeps me out. No thank you. My esteemed ringer colleague Alan Siegel wrote a great feature about the Black Hole Sun video. Go read that. He's a braver man than I.

Bluh. That's the other extra fabulous Black Hole Sun line. No one sings like you anymore is apparently something a fan said to Chris on tour. But there's some delicious ambiguity here in terms of what the fan meant and what Chris thought the fan meant. And then the song picks up steam and power and volume and creepiness and propulsion. And then suddenly Chris Cornell is disconcertingly duetting with himself. And then our dear friend Kim Thaill unleashes the solo. The chaotic, fearless, boundless, bonkers guitar solo to the most popular mainstream rock radio song of 1994.

And the ninth most popular mainstream rock radio song. of the 2010s. Black Hole Sun is Soundgarden's catchiest and grandest and most conventionally anthemic song. But it is also, somehow, Soundgarden's gnarliest and skeziest and most confrontational song.

Paul McCartney never wrote a line as dark as, boiling heat, summer stench, neath the black, the sky looks dead. John Lennon did neither. And George Harrison never shredded like this. I heard Black Hole Sun on the radio

500,000 times between 1994 and 1995 alone and if I'm honest it was never one of the three to five songs I was dying to hear. The day I tried to live absolutely was though. Black Hole Sun was overplayed so intensely from Jump. Apparently

Black Hole Sun is still so overplayed now that you have to constantly actively remind yourself of how unconventional and subversive it is. Sounds guard made one more pretty great album down on the upside in 1996 and one ultra mega okay comeback album 2012's king animal in the interim chris hooked up with three of the dudes from rage against the machine informed audio slave which is a terrible name for a pretty rad band other stuff happened but i can

mercifully make myself forget about it all for the space of this guitar solo which you have to fight your way out of even though really you're tempted to stay wrapped up in in it forever. And then, climatically, Chris sings the lines. The lines right after the solo. These lines. Tell you all just disappear.

It was 23 years or so from the moment he sang these words when Chris Cornell himself disappeared. And you'd think such a long interval of time would make his disappearance hurt less. But that's the tremendous. and terrible power of Black Hole Sun, that it only hurts more. Our guest today is Mark Yarm, a freelance writer and editor and also the author of the great

2011 book, Everybody Loves Our Town and Oral History of Grunge. Mark, thank you so much for being here. Thanks for having me, Rob. Speaking is very much not a Seattle resident at the time. As a 90s teen, I thought of like the big four of grunge, right? So Nirvana, Allison Chains, Pearl Jam, and Soundgarden. But I wonder, is that the way you thought of them? Like, how did you envision Soundgarden within that universe, that lineage?

Yeah, I mean, they're very much part of the big four. I mean, obviously, each of them very unique unto themselves. I mean, Nirvana need no introduction, clearly. Allison Chains were from the more metal end of the spectrum. You know, Pearl Jam, in my mind, have always been a classic rock band. Even before they were being played on classic rock radio. You know, like Mike McCready playing his like Stevie Ray Vaughan inspired double-troubles stuff. Jimmy Hendrix, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, exactly. And, you know, obviously Soundgarden, who, at least early on, I mean, they were always compared to Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath, which was comparisons that I think they bristled that a bit. But, I mean, it's inevitable. You hear like a song like Incessant Mace from the early days, and it's just like straight up Led Zeppelin song, whether they like it or not. But they didn't take that as a compliment. They bristled a little bit. Yeah. When I talked to Kim from the guitarist for my book, he, you know, said we got compared to Sabbath and Led Zeppelin, but we were, you know, more into killing joke and Vowhouse. So they were, they came from a very sort of arty place.

starting even as a teenager, I had the sense that, like, Chris Cornell was a classic rock star, like in that sort of Robert Plant mode, you know, he looked like a rock star. He had this monster voice. Like, he just sounded and felt like a rock star the way people had been using that term since the 60s. Like, did he stand apart a little bit, even amid, you know, the Eddie Vettors of the world? Yeah. I mean, I think he stood apart for, I mean, you think of Chris Cornell. you think of him usually without his shirt on

and he was very oozing sexuality. I mean, that is something that all four of the big four grunge band, I mean, they were all like fronted by beautiful men. I mean, Kurt Cobain and Lane Staley and Eddie Vedder, all very good-looking individuals. But, you know, Chris Cornell was like, you know, I mean, I remember him on the cover spin, like, kind of like jutting forward with his shirt off.

I mean, that, you know, that was that was very much his vibe and very seemingly unself-conscious about it. And obviously, early on, you know, a lot of his performances were marked by that. But also, you know, from all, by all accounts, a very kind of shy and unassuming person offstage, you know, a very inscrutable. I mean, you know, obviously Kurt had a level of inscrutability, but he was pretty outspoken. And, like, I still don't, of the four of them, I still don't, I feel like I understand Chris Cornell the least. Like, he's the one, he's the one. I feel like, like Eddie Vedder was out there front and center with his politics and his, and his obviously disdain for fame or, or, you know, purported to stay for fame. And, yeah, I mean, Kirk Cobain was the same way.

It was, as we know, from reading his journals now and stuff, he had a very complicated relationship. relationship with fame. He really did desire it while at the same time, like, you know, uh, sort of chaff at the idea of them selling out. And, uh, you know, Lane Staley came from a more metal background and, you know, they were a little bit more, they were a little bit more horn dogs, I guess, um, that, that band, although Lane, Lane seemed like a little bit more like, somehow, I'm sure he was as horny as the rest, but he just, like, somehow, somehow, somehow elevated above that. Something about him, a little bit angelic about him.

I don't know. Elevated horniness. That's a great, that's a fascinating concept. Right. I think that was a grunge band that was signed in 92. That record never came out, but it would have been, it would have been killer. I love Mark Arm in your book calls it contrived shortlessness.

You know, like there's a jealousy. just Chris Cornell's whole image. You know, was there anxiety in Seattle in the early days that he was like too much of a rock star, that he was a little too close to the old guard, you know, that grunge was supposed to be overthrowing? I mean, I don't know if anyone put it, you know, in that much thought into it.

I mean, I think, you know, in talking to people, there was a certain amount of jealousy over the female attention that Chris Cornell got, which was apparently quite substantial. So, yeah, and what Mark Arm, no relation, by the way, to myself, which is a thing I always have to clear up with people because it's very confusing, Mark Arm, Mark Yarm, Nexus. But he, you know, I mean, Mark Arm called it contrived because he said that Chris Cornell would have these, like he would loosen the seams so that the shirts would tear away.

That's right. It's like a WWF thing. Yeah, yeah, I get it. like that, something like that. And yeah, I mean, it was, I think there was, in people I talked to, there was a certain amount of jealousy over that attention that he would get for that. But I think Chris Cornell, as far as I know, just shrugged it off. Yeah, you said unselfconscious. Like, how do you think that Chris Cornell felt about fame, about rock stardom, about adulation? Do you think he struggled with it? Do you think he didn't particularly?

struggle with it relative to the way everyone else seemed to be struggling? He probably did, but I mean, what he told me something interesting when I spoke to him, which was that, you know, he pointed out that Pearl Jam was the band who did it right because they were overwhelmed by fame when that, when 10 came out. They pulled back. They stopped putting out music videos. They stopped releasing singles. they like really retreated

whereas she's like whereas Nirvana you know Kurt was clearly very troubled and you know they just kept you know pushing out stuff they you know did a heart shape box video you know like they went on tour right it was like it was like a stop yeah

they did not stop whereas Pearl Jam did stop and I think Chris Cornell attributed that to their longevity I mean there's a reason that that Pearl Jam were still around today and I think it's because they knew when to pull back and how to sort of modulate or moderate their success. I love Allison Chains, but I love how people in your book hate Allison Chains, right?

That they were a little more polarizing. I think somebody calls them Sound Kindergarten. I think, was there ever ever any comparable aversion to Soundgarden? Like maybe as they got more popular or sound changed or were they always like enormously respected. I mean, I get the sense. I mean, there were two bands in my book that everyone shit on. And one of them being Alice and Chains.

I mean, not everybody shit on them because, but, you know, because they came from sort of more of a poodle-haired, poison L.A. glam sort of origin. And they were in a different scene. They were playing like the VFW halls and the roller rinks and stuff, where the sub-pop guys were playing. were playing in, you know, all the clubs that, you know, the Central Chavron and all the clubs we know about. So, you know, they, they were from another part of town.

They practiced at the music bank, which is a pretty infamous sort of like, I mean, there were some grunge bands who were there too, but it was more a little bit more metal in nature. And they were seen as, you know, train jump, train hoppers, train jumpers, whatever you want to call them. and the band Wagoners, yeah, and the, and of course the other band was Candlebox, who, you know, I dedicate a couple of chapters. Everybody shifts on Candlebox. Yeah, they do. I don't, not deservely.

I mean, they, Candlebacks had the unfortunate, I mean, they were from Seattle, but they were a little younger than the rest of them, but they were kind of in the scene, but like, yeah, they were a little too late, and they also were seen as taking advantage. Like, people thought that they were rumored that they came from L.A.

And, you know, that they were fucking Madonna and whatever. You know, all the, all the, the, the ways you could put down another band. But to answer your question, I don't, I never got that sense that Soundgarden were, I mean, perhaps, I'm not privy to everyone's interior thoughts. But I didn't get the sense because they were, they're OGs, you know, they were around from the beginning. I mean, I begin my book with Deep Six, which was the CZ Records compilation, and the bands on that were Green River, which later became, I always forget one or two of the bands in it, but, you know, there was Green River, which obviously later broke off into Mudhoney and Pearl Jam.

There were the Melvins who were still the only band of these six who were, still in existence thing. Skinyard, malfunction, you men, and then we had Soundgarden. So, very sort of proto-grungy on that. So they were around from the beginning.

They were all very woven into the scene and respected. So I mean, I'm sure, you know, if you're in a band that is not making it and you hear Soundgarden on the radio, of course you're going to be jealous. But I

don't recall any instances of people bad-mouthing them at least publicly. Okay. I wonder what relationship Soundgarden and Chris Cornell in particular had with Black Hole Sun. You know, their biggest hit, I think, by certain objective measures, but it's a pretty anomalous song for them. It's a long way from that Deep Six compilation of Black Hole Sun, right? It's certainly as close to a power ballad as they ever got.

Like, was there any resentment or anxiety within the band about this one thing? song sort of blowing up like this? I mean, Kim called it their dream on, you know, sort of their, was that a compliment coming from him? I think so. I think so. I think he had some difficult, I mean, this was a song written by Chris, dreamed up and written by Chris.

And obviously different than his usual style. So, but, you know, I didn't really actually cover that, you know, Black Hole song and Super Under very much of my book because by that point, I was kind of documenting the descent of grunge, the post-Curt major label, like, killing spree, basically, of all those fans. And then, you know, at that time, as someone in the book pointed out, Soundgarden had basically, they became, they were not so much affected by this grunge backlash

because they already had become pop stars with a special, with Black Hole Sun, which was ubiquitous. I don't know. You were around that year old enough to be around that summer. It was like on all the time. It was the only song they played on the radio. It might have been. Several summers in a row.

Yes. Yeah. It was definitely probably not the song of the summer, but maybe the song of the summer for a certain, you know, like, Gen X sort of well, lose a cohort. But, or, you know, but it was ubiquitous.

I, you know, I've never heard them say it's not like an albatross around their neck or anything like that as far as I can tell. I mean, yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's not like where they would, as far as I know, like not play it or or feel resentful for it. I just don't get that sense. Obviously, a lot of bands are like that with their huge big hit, but I just never got that impression. I mean, again, I can't read mine. So I don't know if there's, you know, I'm sure some songs are more fun to play than others. But I just didn't get the sense that there was a lot of resentment.

Like, how dare this song become popular. Yeah. How much of that ubiquity do you think was down to the video? You know, I was thinking about Blind Melon and like the B-Girl video, like, completely transforming no rain. And I don't think it's exactly like that with Black Hole Sun, but I do think that's a video that anyone alive in the 90s can still clearly picture. Yeah, yeah. I actually rewatched it right before this just to refresh my memory. I don't like it.

You don't like it? I do not like that. It creeps me out, man. Okay. I know it's supposed to. That's the objective of the video, but it's a little too successful for my life. Okay. I mean, it holds up pretty well for something, you know, decades old now.

But, you know, some of the effects are, you know, I don't know. But then again, you go to a movie, you see a movie like The Flash and it compares pretty well to that. It's like, it's the CGI. It's like, it's like. It's not an MCU product. Oh, no. Well, I don't have very high regard for this. But it is like, it was very effective at using that CGI.

I mean, very simple CG at this point, like making people's eyes pop out and their mouths distend and things like that. It's super creepy. And as I said, that was MTV was playing that constantly that summer. I remember seeing that video so much. And I mean, I still like, yeah, like, as you said, I could still picture it. Like, I still picture the, there's a Bufant, like housewife with a cleaver to, to, about to take it to a fish. And there's, like, kind of a preacher looking guy. and, you know, the band kind of doing their best not to emote very much.

You know, as you know, they were... They do seem a little dead-eyed, you know, on purpose. Yeah, I think that was on purpose. It was on purpose. I mean, they were, they also had a reputation. They were, you know, when they were on tour with Guns and Roses, they were known as Frown Garden because they were, like, super intense and unsmiling. That's very funny, actually, that name.

That's good. Yeah, I like that. I mean, I don't know if they appreciate it very much. Probably not. That video is just so compelling and so memorable and so vivid that, as you said, we remember it all this time later. I mean, I think it had, I think I would say it had, I mean, MTV was obviously a force back then still. So I think it did have a big role in it.

I don't like using the word underrated, but I don't think you can praise. Kim Thao enough, like as a guitarist, you know, as a songwriter, as a soloist. Like, I love, you know, Mike McCready, Jerry Cantrell, whoever, as much as anybody. But, like, what's special and what sort of irreplaceable about Kim? As a one-time music critic, I mean, I used to work for Blender magazine back in the day. I was always a terrible music critic. I couldn't describe, like, his technique or anything like that. That's not what we're going for, yeah.

yeah, but I do get the sense. Like, he does feel underrated to me. I can't quite pinpoint it, but it's just like his name doesn't come up enough. You know, when we're talking about great guitarists of the era or any era, I don't know. Maybe Chris Cornell, no pun intended, outshone him a bit in that regard. He was obviously the focal point of the band. I'm not sure. Maybe he was flashy enough. I can't really pinpoint. I mean, do you have any theories why he might not get the love he deserves? Well, I was thinking about like guitar magazines, right?

Where like they would teach you to play the solos and like you can transcribe the alive solo, like the notes. Like you can't play it like him obviously, but you can sort of put it on paper in a way that makes sense. And I don't think you can do that with the Black Hole Sun solo. I can picture every moment of it still, but it's a lot less distinct. It's just like this giant swirl that just sort of overwhelms you. It just feels like a different experience. And like you can't replicate any of these solos, but that one is like extra hard to even attempt. Right, right.

I mean, it does seem like, I mean, I know that Kim is a very skilled guitar. And a wonderful person, by the way, I should say. have gone drinking with him, which is he loves to drink and talk. That's good. That's good. Yeah. No, it is good. It is good.

It is good. It's fun, fun to hang out with for sure. But, yeah, I mean, I know that Black Hole Sun was on some guitar world list of 100 best solos or something like that. But, yeah, I don't, I just don't, I can't pinpoint it, but I don't feel like he gets the love he deserves. Maybe because it's, because there's so much going on Black Hole Sun. so seems a little secondary maybe? I don't know. I don't know.

To the Beatles-esque. I mean, what draws you into that song is obviously, you know, the beetle-esque nature of it and kind of Chris Cornell's lyrics. And it's just, I don't know. I'm a little, I'm a little befuddled as to why he doesn't get more love. I'm sure he's fine with it. It's very cool that you got to just sit around and draw. drink with Kim Phel. That's just, that seems like a good time. It was. It was. He was. He was like a philosophy major. So he likes to philosophize.

These are smart guys. Yeah, they're all very smart guys. I mean, all the people in this scene super smart, educated and and articulate and thoughtful. Yeah, for sure. I wanted to ask you about Susan Silver, you know, who married to Chris for almost 15 years, I think, who managed Soundgarden, Alice and Chains, screaming trees, a bunch of others. I think she has a reputation as a really great manager. And I was wondering, in terms of a band like Soundgarden, like, what does a great manager do for them? You know, what's the difference between a great manager and a bad manager? Like, why is she so important to them?

Yeah. I mean, Susan, as who I interviewed from my book, was great. And, like, obviously, a superb manager. I'm not sure if she's still managing Allison chain. I don't know where that stands at this point or if she's split in duties or if she's yeah, I think so. I think so. I've lost a little track of her lately, but you know, she

first started managing the U-Men. She's just very ambitious, very, very, like, she could be very charming, very kind, but like also very no bullshit. I mean, you know, in the book she talks about like, I mean,

to control a band like Alison Chains. She was talking in the book about like Mike Star, or Mike Star, who's the basis, like, urinating on a wall and her having to like drag him out of a bar by his ear. That's right. So I think, I think someone's going to have to clean this up. Yeah. Yeah.

I think it was, yeah, I mean, I think it was very much her ability to deal with these grungy guys. is obviously she had something, you know, some, some ability and a certain, I mean, but as I was saying, somebody in the book said that she was like one of the, you know, four people who were super instrumental to the scene, the other couple that come to mind or, you know, Bruce Pavett and Jonathan Poneman from supop, but, but this person placed, you know, Sue's, and up there with him with them as far as being influential to the scene. You know, she helped run this clip, The Metropolis, which was very pivotal for a lot of those early bands.

And she was just, yeah, she kind of force of nature. Yeah. I think you would have to be to even attempt to control, you know, Soundgarten or certainly Allison Chains. I can't even imagine trying to do that. Just to wrap up, there are some super heavy scenes in your book, of course, and those tend to be, you know, Andy Woods wake, you know, the death of Kirk Cobain of Lane Staley. It really breaks my heart to think of all the grief Chris had been carrying for so long, just to listen to the Temple of the dog record now and to hear the grief in his voice. Do you hear Soundgarden differently now, or do you think about your conversations with Chris differently now that he's gone as well?

I mean, I didn't really talk to him that much for this, but I don't know. I mean, it puts it in some sharp relief, I guess. But, I mean, obviously, you go back and you sort through the lyrics. And, I mean, he was obviously had a brooding side for sure. I mean, as I mentioned earlier, he was super inscrutable. And his death is very confusing to me, the mix of drugs and, you know, taking his own life. and what exactly happened seems very like sort of shrouded in mystery. It's not like, you know, Kurt Cobain's, despite all the many, many, many, many conspiracy theories,

seems pretty cut and dry to me that the Chris Cornell thing seemed to come out of the blue. You know, like many, many years, you know, I guess how old was he in this 50s? But it just came out of the blue, but to me, at least. but yeah it's super sad and super it's a bummer it's i mean with lane and kirt those were expected with chris cornell it didn't it didn't feel that way so i think it's kind of all the more striking because of the surprise factor i guess just to wrap up i thinking what you said about how chris drawing a line between nirvana who just couldn't stop Pearl Jam, who really did stop Pearl Jam, who just took total control, you know, over their

output and what they would do and how they, who they wanted their fan base to be, like, just Pearl Jam sort of figured it out. I wonder where you fix Soundgarden, you know, on that spectrum, right? You know, a Soundgarden put out one record after Super Unknown and then disappear for, like, I don't know if it was 10, 15 years, you know. It's like 13 years, yeah. Yeah, between a king animal, you know, the last one. But did Soundgarden manage, at least for a while, to sort of control their own narrative?

Or did they ultimately struggle with it every bit as much, you know, as even Nirvana did? I think they obviously struggled with internal pressures and the band. And that's why they kind of fell apart the first time. But, I mean, I guess they were somewhere in between. They managed to reunite quite successfully, record a couple of albums. I don't know what's happening with the music that was being recorded when Chris died. I maybe we'll hear it someday. I don't know.

I've lost track of, you know, as the years have gone by, like my ear to the ground, a little bit less so. I'm not sure what's going on with that music. Yeah, so I think they were kind of a middle ground of a band And that sort of obviously burned out but was able to get back together with pretty seamlessly at first, it seemed. Yeah, it did. Mark, this has been awesome. Thank you so much for talking.

Thank you, Rob. I appreciate it. Thanks very much to our guest this week, Mark Yarm. Thanks, as always, to our producers, Justin Sales and Jonathan Kerma. And thank you very much for listening. And now, without further ado, I think you should go listen to Black Hole Sun by Soundgarden. We'll see you next week.