Revitalised grunge-powered outfit Soundgarden are no longer the band who said they wanted to be “Black Sabbath without the parts that suck.”
That’s a statement guitarist Kim Thayall made long before their public meltdown in 1997, when bassist Ben Shephard threw down his instrument and marched off ahead of official confirmation they’d split.
But now singer Chris Cornell tells Classic Rock: “We’re trying to add all the parts that suck back in.”
His comments appear in the current edition of the magazine, dated July 2012, as Cornell talks about the organic nature of their reunion – which came about as they discussed tidying up business arrangements such as merchandise deals and online presence.
Since those first meetings they’ve released new track Live to Rise, and a new album is on the way.
But Cornell insists Soundgarden are remaining flexible about their musical approach, after having suffered for the previously rigid beliefs. “Rock should be about an attitude – about where a person is coming from,” he says. “It could be almost anything.”
And when his band appear before Black Sabbath on the Download main stage tonight, they’ll be showing a little more respect to the metal pioneers than they might have done 15 years ago.
source: classicrockmagazine.com
