SOUNDGARDEN
Biography and full discography of SOUNDGARDEN, with a page for every album, on METAL BOOST.
Biography
SOUNDGARDEN
Biography
Soundgarden formed in Seattle in 1984. With a punk attitude, a crushing metal sound and Chris Cornell's powerful voice, they helped open up the sound that came to be called grunge, and they were the first of the new generation of Seattle bands to sign to a major label. Superunknown (1994) went to number one on the Billboard 200, and "Black Hole Sun" and "Spoonman" won Grammys. They stopped in 1997, reunited in 2010 and released King Animal in 2012; Cornell died in May 2017. The band entered the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2025, and the remaining three are finishing a final album built on Cornell's vocals.
Formation and Sub Pop (1984-1988)
Chris Cornell, Kim Thayil and Hiro Yamamoto formed Soundgarden in Seattle in 1984. Cornell and Yamamoto had already played together in a band called the Shemps, and Thayil and Yamamoto were friends from the Chicago suburbs who had moved to Washington together. The band took its name from a sculpture of wind-played pipes on the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's grounds at Sand Point in Seattle; NOAA itself records that the band named itself after the work.
Cornell at first played drums while he sang, until Scott Sundquist joined on drums in 1985 and left him free to concentrate on vocals. Matt Cameron replaced Sundquist in 1986. The band's first recordings were three songs on Deep Six, a 1986 compilation from the local label C/Z. Thayil was also the one who brought together Bruce Pavitt and Jonathan Poneman, the future founders of Sub Pop, and in 1987 Sub Pop released the band's single "Hunted Down" and the Screaming Life EP, produced by Jack Endino, followed by the Fopp EP in August 1988.
From SST to A&M (1988-1990)
The debut album, Ultramega OK, came out on SST Records on 31 October 1988. It is the only album the band made for SST, and it was nominated for Best Metal Performance at the 32nd Grammy Awards. The band then signed to A&M Records, the first of the new generation of Seattle bands to move to a major label. Louder Than Love, released on 5 September 1989, was their first album to reach the Billboard 200.
It was also Yamamoto's last: he left to return to university, and years later he said he had not been comfortable with an industry that sells music as a product. Jason Everman, formerly of Nirvana, filled in for a short time, playing bass on the band's cover of the Beatles' "Come Together" and appearing in the "Loud Love" video. In the spring of 1990 Ben Shepherd took his place, completing the line-up of Cornell, Thayil, Shepherd and Cameron.
Badmotorfinger and Superunknown (1991-1995)
Badmotorfinger, released on 8 October 1991, was the first album with Shepherd. It was nominated for a Grammy and later certified double platinum by the RIAA. The band supported Guns N' Roses on a stadium tour, and from July 1992 they toured with Lollapalooza alongside the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Pearl Jam and Ministry. The same year they appeared in Cameron Crowe's film Singles.
Superunknown, released on 8 March 1994, brought the band mainstream success. It entered the Billboard 200 at number one, and two of its five singles won at the 37th Grammy Awards: "Black Hole Sun" for Best Hard Rock Performance and "Spoonman" for Best Metal Performance. Howard Greenhalgh's video for "Black Hole Sun" was a huge MTV hit and won Best Metal/Hard Rock Video at the 1994 MTV Video Music Awards. The album was certified six times platinum by the RIAA in 2022.
Down on the Upside and the break (1996-1997)
Down on the Upside, which the band produced themselves, came out on 21 May 1996 and reached number two on the Billboard 200. Its single "Pretty Noose" was nominated at the 39th Grammy Awards. That summer they headlined Lollapalooza alongside Metallica, the first band to play the festival's main stage a second time.
A show in Honolulu on 9 February 1997 turned out to be their last for the time being. On 9 April 1997 a brief statement announced that the members had amicably and mutually decided to disband, and for the next thirteen years they worked on other projects: Cornell sang solo and with Audioslave, and Cameron became Pearl Jam's drummer.
Reunion and King Animal (2010-2017)
On 1 January 2010 Cornell announced the reunion on Twitter, writing that the twelve-year break was over. On 16 April the band played the Showbox in Seattle under the anagram Nude Dragons, their first show since 1997. In August they headlined Lollapalooza in Chicago, and in September they released the compilation Telephantasm, which was bundled with the video game Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock and was certified platinum on release.
In 2011 they released Live on I-5, recorded on their 1996 West Coast tour. In 2012 they wrote a new song, "Live to Rise", for the film Marvel's The Avengers, and on 13 November released King Animal, their first studio album in sixteen years, which entered the Billboard 200 at number five. In 2014 they played Superunknown in full for the first time, co-headlined a tour with Nine Inch Nails and released Echo of Miles, a three-disc set of rarities. In May 2017, during a North American tour, Cornell died after the band's show in Detroit. He was 52.
After Cornell (2017- )
The band were nominated for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame for the first time in October 2019. In April 2023 they and Vicky Cornell, on behalf of Cornell's estate, settled their differences out of court, which allowed the last songs Cornell and the band had been working on to be released. On 8 November 2025 Soundgarden were inducted into the Hall of Fame at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles. Jim Carrey inducted them, and founding member Yamamoto was inducted alongside Cornell, Thayil, Shepherd and Cameron.
Cameron left Pearl Jam in July 2025 to concentrate on that final album. As of July 2026, eight songs produced by Terry Date were being mixed by Joe Barresi, who had also mixed King Animal, and no release date had been set. On 9 September 2026 Thayil, Shepherd and Cameron played "Outshined" and "Spoonman" at half-time of the Seattle Seahawks' season opener, with the Pretty Reckless's Taylor Momsen singing and Mike McCready on second guitar. Thayil's memoir, A Screaming Life, was published in June of the same year.
The members
The band's own site lists Chris Cornell (vocals and guitar), Kim Thayil (lead guitar), Matt Cameron (drums) and Ben Shepherd (bass), with Hiro Yamamoto (bass, 1984-1989), Scott Sundquist (drums, 1985-1986) and Jason Everman (bass, 1989-1990) as former members. Thayil is the son of Indian immigrants, Yamamoto is Japanese-American, and Shepherd was born in Okinawa, where his father was stationed. "Circle of Power" is the only Soundgarden song with Yamamoto on lead vocals.
Discography
The six studio albums, in order of release. Each has its own page with the running order, CD details, liner notes and the official music videos. The band also released the Sub Pop EPs Screaming Life (1987) and Fopp (1988), the compilations A-Sides (1997) and Telephantasm (2010), the live album Live on I-5 (2011) and the rarities set Echo of Miles (2014).
| Released | Title | Label |
|---|---|---|
| 31 October 1988 | Ultramega OK | SST Records |
| 5 September 1989 | Louder Than Love | A&M Records |
| 8 October 1991 | Badmotorfinger | A&M Records |
| 8 March 1994 | Superunknown | A&M Records |
| 21 May 1996 | Down on the Upside | A&M Records |
| 13 November 2012 | King Animal | Seven Four Entertainment / Universal Republic |
Concerts in Japan
The band played Japan only once, in February 1994, a month before Superunknown came out: four concerts in Kawasaki, Tokyo, Osaka and Nagoya, promoted by Udo Artists. The dates and venues come from rockin'on's concert guide in its February 1994 issue. MUSIC LIFE's report dates the Kawasaki show to 8 February and BURRN!'s dates the Tokyo show to 10 February, and Shinko Music's press photographs of the Tokyo show carry the same date.
| Date | Venue |
|---|---|
| 8 February 1994 | Club Citta Kawasaki (Kanagawa) |
| 10 February 1994 | Tokyo Kosei Nenkin Kaikan (Tokyo) |
| 12 February 1994 | Osaka Mido Kaikan (Osaka) |
| 13 February 1994 | Nagoya Club Quattro (Aichi) |
About the sources
This page is based on the band's official site, soundgardenworld.com (the band page, each album's page and the news posts); the timeline on chriscornell.com, Chris Cornell's official site; the biography and news of their Japanese label, Universal Music; Sub Pop's release pages; the official sites of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and the Grammy Awards; the RIAA certification database; Billboard's chart records; the history of NOAA's Western Regional Center as the Internet Archive kept it; the printed pages of rockin'on (February 1994), MUSIC LIFE (April 1994) and BURRN! (May 1994); Shinko Music's press photographs at Getty Images; articles in Rolling Stone, Billboard, SPIN, Louder, Guitar World, The Seattle Times, Consequence, Blabbermouth.net, BARKS, KING 5, The Irish Times, the Associated Press and VICE Japan; MusicBrainz; and Wikidata. The English Wikipedia was used only as a starting point, and every fact taken from it was checked against one of these sources. Release dates are the ones on the band's own album pages; the Japanese editions' dates and catalogue numbers are on each album's page.
Trivia
The publisher of Kim Thayil's memoir, A Screaming Life, describes how the band was shaped by its members' backgrounds: Thayil's Indian heritage and founding bassist Hiro Yamamoto's Japanese background, it says, added something distinct to the band's identity and to its experiences in the industry as well as its music. Bassist Ben Shepherd was born in Okinawa, where his father was stationed with the US Army.
Soundgarden played Japan only once, in February 1994, a month before Superunknown came out: four shows promoted by Udo Artists at Club Citta Kawasaki on the 8th, Tokyo Kosei Nenkin Kaikan on the 10th, Osaka Mido Kaikan on the 12th and Nagoya Club Quattro on the 13th. VICE Japan reports that the crowds were modest, and the band never came back.
The band is named after a sculpture of wind-played pipes on the grounds of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration at Sand Point in Seattle; NOAA's own history of the site says the band took its name from the work. When Soundgarden returned to the stage at the Showbox in Seattle on 16 April 2010, thirteen years after they split, they were billed as Nude Dragons, an anagram of their name, and Kim Thayil, Matt Cameron and Ben Shepherd were announced under the same name for a benefit show at the Showbox on 14 December 2024.
Kim Thayil had a hand in the birth of Sub Pop: he introduced Bruce Pavitt and Jonathan Poneman, the label's eventual founders, and encouraged them to start it. Pavitt had been his classmate in a progressive high-school programme outside Chicago, along with Hiro Yamamoto, who would become Soundgarden's first bassist. In October 1987 Sub Pop released the band's Screaming Life EP.
Live on I-5, released on 22 March 2011, was recorded on the West Coast leg of the band's 1996 tour, the first time they had ever recorded their shows; engineer Adam Kasper travelled with them. They had meant to release it soon after the tour, but once they split, the tapes sat in a closet at Studio X in Seattle. The title refers to Interstate 5, which runs the length of the West Coast.
In the band's first days Chris Cornell sang from behind the drum kit. As he told it, they did not know whether a singer or a drummer would be easier to find, so they looked for both, and because a drummer turned up first, he became the singer. That drummer was Scott Sundquist, who joined in 1985, and the producer Jack Endino saw the handover happen mid-set: Cornell came out from behind the kit, introduced the new drummer, and sang the rest of the show.
Founding bassist Hiro Yamamoto left in 1989, just as the band moved to a major label. Years later he said that he had not been comfortable, at the time, with an industry in which the music is a product. He went back to university and later became head of organic chemistry at a Washington company that tests drinking water. When Soundgarden entered the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2025, Yamamoto was inducted alongside Chris Cornell, Kim Thayil, Ben Shepherd and Matt Cameron.
The title "Black Hole Sun" came from Chris Cornell mishearing something a news anchor said on television. He put the song together in his head on the drive home from Bear Creek Studio in Woodinville, kept the melodies turning over so he would not lose them, and whistled them into a dictaphone when he got home. When the demo reached the producer Michael Beinhorn, he has said, he played it fifteen times in a row.
News
Matt Cameron, Taylor Momsen, Mike McCready & More Staged A SOUNDGARDEN Tribute At "Power To The People" Festival
On October 3 at Merriweather Post Pavilion in Columbia, Maryland, the SOUNDGARDEN drummer played "Loud Love", "Outshined" and "Spoonman" with Mike McCready (PEARL JAM), Taylor Momsen (THE PRETTY RECKLESS), Tom Morello and Robbie Mangano. Morello introduced them as the "Suns Of Soundgarden".
SOUNDGARDEN Release Official Footage Of Their NFL Halftime Performance Of "Outshined" And "Spoonman"
Kim Thayil, Matt Cameron and Ben Shepherd were joined by Taylor Momsen and Mike McCready at Lumen Field during halftime of the Seattle Seahawks’ 2026-2027 season opener — their first stage appearance since the band’s Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame induction in 2025 — with the Seahawks’ Blue Thunder drumline.
SOUNDGARDEN To Reunite At The Seattle Seahawks Season Opener On September 9 With TAYLOR MOMSEN And MIKE MCCREADY
Kim Thayil, Ben Shepherd and Matt Cameron will play the halftime show at Lumen Field in Seattle, joined by THE PRETTY RECKLESS singer Taylor Momsen and PEARL JAM guitarist Mike McCready.
SOUNDGARDEN Are Working On A New Album Built From Unreleased CHRIS CORNELL Recordings, Produced By Terry Date And Mixed By Joe Barresi
Kim Thayil described the new material as “a lullaby paired with psychedelia” and said there is no release date yet while the band works out contractual matters with the record label.
Soundgarden To Play Halftime Of The Seattle Seahawks Season Opener On September 9
The band will perform at Lumen Field during the Seahawks’ home opener against the New England Patriots, joined by Taylor Momsen of The Pretty Reckless and Mike McCready of Pearl Jam. McCready will also perform the national anthem pregame.
SOUNDGARDEN Begins Mixing Final Eight-Song Album: "That's All There Is With Vocals", Says MATT CAMERON
Drummer Matt Cameron discussed the album of previously unreleased Chris Cornell vocals on the "Let There Be Talk" podcast.
Albums
Soundgarden's sixth album, out on 13 November 2012: their first studio album in sixteen years, and a number-five debut on the Billboard 200.
Soundgarden's fifth album, out on 21 May 1996: sixteen songs the band produced themselves, and a number two on the Billboard 200.
Soundgarden's fourth album, released in 1994. It entered the Billboard 200 at number one, and "Black Hole Sun" and "Spoonman" both won Grammy Awards.
Soundgarden's third album, released in 1991. It is the first with bassist Ben Shepherd, built on alternative tunings and odd metres, and it was the band's first record to chart high in the United States.
Soundgarden's second album, out on 5 September 1989: their first on a major label, and the last with founding bassist Hiro Yamamoto.
Soundgarden's debut album, out on 31 October 1988: their only record for SST, later nominated for the Grammy for Best Metal Performance.