In a brand new interview with Lyndsey Parker of Gold Derby and Lyndsanity! with Lyndsey Parker, SOUNDGARDEN drummer Matt Cameron spoke concerning the standing of the recordings made earlier than vocalist Chris Cornell‘s demise in Could of 2017. He stated (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): “Nicely, we’re within the strategy of ending it. We do not have a launch date but, however I would say we’re about — I do not know — perhaps 70 % completed with all of the monitoring and stuff. So, yeah, it sounds killer. It has been a extremely wonderful and bittersweet course of as properly. So, yeah, we’re our exhausting at work at finishing that album.”
Requested when the upcoming SOUNDGARDEN album was written and recorded with Chris, Matt stated: “Nicely, gosh, we began songwriting collectively, buying and selling demos forwards and backwards round 2015, ’16, one thing like that. After which we had some classes in 2017 earlier than we went out on tour, simply tough rehearsal. We recorded some rehearsals. However the vocals that we’re utilizing are from the demos that all of us recorded collectively. And so we’re simply form of constructing our tracks round these vocal components. However yeah, it sounds killer, and we’re actually excited to complete it.”
After Parker famous that it “should be emotional and bittersweet to listen to” Cornell‘s voice and to listen to these tracks a decade after they had been initially laid down, Cameron concurred. “It truly is,” he stated. “However I feel we’re making an attempt to remain centered on the general sound of it and all the explanations for us doing it. However, yeah, it has been robust to solo up that voice and listen to him loud and clear. However I feel the followers will prefer it and it is gonna be a very nice strategy to end the inventive chapter in SOUNDGARDEN.”
Requested if there’s any probability that a number of the new SOUNDGARDEN music might be launched in time for, or performed at, the band’s induction into the Rock And Roll Corridor Of Fame on November 8, Matt stated: “I do not assume there’s gonna be something performed on the ceremony. And I feel the concept is that we wanna wait till every little thing’s completed after which we’ll begin placing out singles. So, sadly we do not have an actual strict timeline for that simply but, however it’s fairly shut. It is fairly shut.”
Cameron additionally confirmed that one of many songs that may seem on SOUNDGARDEN‘s new album is a observe that he co-wrote, referred to as “The Street Much less Traveled”. He stated: “I wrote this music that I did not actually know if it could match for SOUNDGARDEN, however I simply despatched Chris all these musical concepts round 2016 or so, ’16, ’15. And that is one which he actually preferred. He made an association from my demo after which he added vocals to it, and it got here out actually, actually good. The lyrics are mesmerizing, as at all times. However, yeah, that is gonna be a extremely nice one for folks to listen to. It has all of the trademark parts that SOUNDGARDEN followers could be conversant in, in addition to a little bit bit of latest territory. And there is two or three different songs that do sound just like the band, however I feel we had been capable of form of stretch out a little bit bit creatively, and hopefully when folks hear that track, they will discover that as properly. However, yeah, I suppose it is exhausting rock. It is form of bluesy, form of psychedelic, form of folky, I suppose all of the issues that we had been recognized for. So, I hope folks like that one once they lastly do hear it.”
This previous Could, SOUNDGARDEN guitarist Kim Thayil instructed Rolling Stone that he was optimistic the band’s ultimate album would see the sunshine of day. “Our goal and aim was at all times to finish that,” he stated. “I in all probability have OCD sufficient to not need to go away one thing unfinished or incomplete like that, so I feel the extra we are able to attend to our physique of labor and our catalog…I feel everybody within the band feels that method. I do not simply to take care of my work, however the collective work, and on this case particularly, the work of Chris.”
Thayil continued: “I’ve delight for what I did and I need to see that come out. It does not exist within the vacuum. It exists as a collaboration with Matt and Ben [Shepherd, SOUNDGARDEN bassist] and Chris, however it takes on a wholly totally different weight when you concentrate on what it’s you are honoring, and the work that you simply’re paying tribute to. It’s us collectively. We need to do it proud. And that a part of us is definitely one of the intimate elements of what SOUNDGARDEN has been since 1984.”
He added: “It will be an excellent reward to the followers. And I do take into consideration this, and I do not understand how unusual this sounds, however I really feel prefer it’s a present to Chris too.”
Again in April 2023, SOUNDGARDEN and Vicky Cornell, the widow and private consultant of Chris‘s property, introduced that they’d reached “an amicable out-of-court decision” concerning the discharge of recordings made earlier than the singer’s demise.
The decision got here lower than two years after SOUNDGARDEN and Vicky got here to a brief settlement that may switch the SOUNDGARDEN social media accounts and site to the band’s remaining members, Thayil, Cameron and Shepherd and their managers, Crimson Mild Administration. This included SOUNDGARDEN‘s site, Fb, Instagram and Twitter.
In March 2021, Thayil, Cameron, Shepherd and their enterprise supervisor Rit Venerus filed papers in Washington state U.S. District Courtroom claiming that Vicky Cornell had locked them out of their Fb, Twitter, Instagram, Vimeo, YouTube, Snapchat, Tumblr, Prime Spin and Pinterest accounts, in addition to SOUNDGARDEN‘s official site, and altering all of the passwords.
Thayil, Cameron and Shepherd claimed their socials had been beforehand managed by their then-management firm Patriot Administration. They stated they later discovered that Patriot had handed over all of the login data to Vicky after Patriot was terminated in October 2019.
The band requested a decide to order Vicky Cornell at hand over the passwords or embody a ultimate posting stating, “SOUNDGARDEN has briefly suspended its official social media accounts because of pending litigation.”
Cornell was discovered hanged in his room on the MGM Grand Detroit resort in Could 2017, following a SOUNDGARDEN present on the metropolis’s Fox Theatre. His physique was discovered quickly after he had spoken with a “slurred” voice to his spouse by cellphone. The demise was dominated a suicide.
In December 2019, Vicky filed a lawsuit towards the surviving SOUNDGARDEN members, alleging the group owed Cornell‘s property a whole lot of hundreds of {dollars} in unpaid royalties and the rights to seven unreleased recordings made earlier than the singer’s demise. Cornell is credited as a author on all seven songs, receiving sole credit score on two, “Most cancers” and “Stone Age Thoughts”. He wrote “Street Much less Traveled”, “Orphans” and “At Ophians Door” with Matt Cameron; “Forward Of The Canine” with Kim Thayil; and “Merrmas” with Ben Shepherd.
On the time, Vicky claimed that Chris made seven recordings at his private studio in Florida in 2017, including that there was no specific settlement as as to if the recordings had been meant for SOUNDGARDEN, which made Chris the unique proprietor. Nevertheless, the surviving SOUNDGARDEN members responded by saying that the unreleased recordings had been the results of writing and recording classes going way back to 2015. In addition they pointed to public interviews with Chris and Thayil that recommended that SOUNDGARDEN had been engaged on the fabric since 2015, and detailed recording classes up till April 2017, only one month earlier than Chris‘s demise. SOUNDGARDEN additionally included a number of textual content exchanges from Vicky, by which she referred to the unreleased recordings because the “SG information”. In addition they supplied a March 2017 e-mail from Vicky which stated that Chris was travelling for the “SG file”. The band went on to refute Vicky‘s declare that Chris‘s recordings befell in his private studio in Florida in 2017, insisting that many of the precise sound information “considerably predate 2017” and that the recording classes befell in Seattle and New York whereas the band was touring.
Responding to Vicky‘s lawsuit, Thayil, Shepherd and Cameron claimed that they “haven’t got possession” of their “personal inventive work,” and alleged that “Vicky Cornell has possession of the one current multi-track recordings of the final SOUNDGARDEN tracks that embody Chris Cornell‘s instrumental components and vocals. All the band members collectively labored on these ultimate tracks, Vicky now claims possession of the ultimate SOUNDGARDEN album.”
Thayil, Shepherd and Cameron initially accused Vicky Cornell of misusing funds from the January 2019 “I Am The Freeway: A Tribute To Chris Cornell” live performance. After being challenged by Cornell‘s attorneys with the specter of sanctions, SOUNDGARDEN withdrew that portion of its countersuit, whereas its legal professionals wrote on the time that the band believes the claims “stay well-founded.”
In February 2021, Vicky Cornell sued the surviving members of SOUNDGARDEN over the buyout worth for her stake within the band. Within the lawsuit, Vicky Cornell stated Thayil, Cameron and Shepherd supplied her simply $300,000 for Chris‘s share. This quantity, she stated, is way decrease than the actual worth of the Chris Cornell property’s pursuits in SOUNDGARDEN, particularly contemplating the truth that the band bought a suggestion of $16 million from an outdoor investor for SOUNDGARDEN‘s masters.
As beforehand reported, SOUNDGARDEN will be part of the Rock And Roll Corridor Of Fame class of 2025 within the Performer class. The Seattle grunge legends had been first nominated for the Rock Corridor in 2020, and had been on the poll once more in 2023 earlier than lastly being chosen for induction this 12 months.
Thayil, Cameron, Cornell and Shepherd are being included within the induction, as is authentic bassist Hiro Yamamoto, who was with SOUNDGARDEN from 1984 to 1989 and performed on the band’s first two EPs and first two albums.
