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How Soundgarden’s ‘Badmotorfinger’ Finally Got Some Attention

The late summer and early fall of 1991 effectively witnessed the birth of grunge via the release, within just a few weeks, of Nirvana 's Nevermind , Pearl Jam 's Ten and, on Oct. 8,  Soundgarden 's Badmotorfinger.  Alice in Chains ' Facelift had arrived earlier, in 1990.

All of these albums were crucial in that, together, they helped usher in a sea change across the music industry. Yet Soundgarden, who had been first to the table, forming all the way back in 1984, would be the last of these so-called "big four" to enjoy their just desserts: not enjoying truly massive hit singles at radio or multi-platinum sales until 1994's Superunknown  because they did it their own way, the hard way.

Unlike Nirvana (which led the charge by breaking punk rock and college rock to the masses via "Smells Like Teen Spirit"), Alice in Chains (which essentially made heavy metal palatable for the flannel-wearing hordes), and Pearl Jam (which did the same for classic rock in the eyes of born again "alternative rockers"), Soundgarden's music on Badmotorfinger put willing listeners to the test with its sinister, oblique lyrics, drop-tuned guitars, unusual time signatures, thorny arrangements and unrepentant heaviness.

Sure, the band scored decent MTV coverage for the album's most linear, if boring, doom riff in "Outshined," but most of the remaining cuts refused to take it easy on would-be fans and critics, many of whom weren't quite sure what to make of the band, either.

"I remember Mark [Arm] from Mudhoney said, 'Hey man, I just heard Badmotorfinger ,'" lead guitarist Kim Thayil told Paste  in 2013, "I’m all, 'What do you think?' [Laughs] And he’s like, 'Fuck, it sounds like Rush !'”

He elaborated, "At the time, if people didn’t like us, they’d say they it was because we were these scruffy, punk-rock assholes, or because we sounded too much like some kind of metal band. And if they did like us, it was the same argument [laughs], ‘Oh, it’s cool because they’re metal, or it’s cool because they come from this punk scene.’ We still get that.” Metal or punk or something else? Pinning any specific label onto Soundgarden has always been an exercise in futility.

Looking back on what had come before, Soundgarden's early-days roots in hardcore hadn't stopped the group from essentially meshing Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin (and Black Flag ), beginning with their debut EP, 1987's Screaming Life . Producer Terry Date was brought back to work on Badmotorfinger , which marked the debut of bassist Ben Shepard, who joined the band prior to the start of the sessions.

Watch Soundgarden Perform 'Outshined'

All four musicians – Thayil, Shepard, singer  Chris Cornell and drummer Matt Cameron – contributed strong songwriting efforts to the album, led by Cornell's serpentine "Rusty Cage" (later covered by Johnny Cash ), the aforementioned "Outshined," quite surreal "Searching with My Good Eye Closed," hypnotic "Mind Riot" and less distinctive "Holy Water."

For his part, drummer Cameron delivered the driving, sax-enhanced "Drawing Flies" and, in unison with Thayil, the monstrous doom-riffing of "Room a Thousand Years Wide" and the ominous "New Damage," one of many songs boasting unorthodox time signatures, in this case 9/8.

Then there was newcomer Shepherd, whom Cornell said in Kerrang! had brought a "fresh and creative" approach to the band's recording process, with Thayil also telling Kris Nicholson of The Music Paper that Shepherd's contributions helped make the album "faster" and "weirder." By this they were referring to Ben's two-minute punk rock hyper-blast "Face Pollution," the more deliberate, yet surprisingly infectious "Somewhere" and, working with Cornell, the ultra-doomy "Slaves and Bulldozers" – an eclectic triplet to say the least.

But Badmotorfinger 's arguable piece de resistance was a four-way band collaboration called "Jesus Christ Pose," which rose from Cameron's mind-boggling percussive assault to boast dissonant six-string strangling over a relentlessly charging main riff, all topped by Cornell's inimitable wails decrying the calculated martyr-like posturing of so many rock superstars. It epitomizes the cryptic, challenging beauty of the band's music.

Indeed, even Badmotorfinger 's title was intentionally chosen for its multiple potential interpretations, none of which could be properly explained by cover art's depiction of a spark plug within a mysterious cyclone design. But, in a promo CD shipped to radio and press by A&M Records, Thayil suggested that the title played on the Montrose song "Bad Motor Scooter," adding to The Music Paper : "It was sort of off the top of my head. I simply like it because it was colorful. It was kinda aggressive, too. ... It conjures up a lot of different kinds of images. We like the ambiguity in it, the way it sounded and the way it looked."

While it eventually broke the platinum sales mark, Badmotorfinger remained something of a cause celebre for grunge connoisseurs until broader swathes of music consumers revisited it after digesting the easier rewards of Superunknown , years later. While Badmotorfinger 's status as a grunge-era classic was never in doubt, its deeper, darker treasures simply didn't give themselves up to listeners as freely as Nirvana's or Pearl Jam's has. But who would have it any other way? 

Perhaps Kim Thayil summarized it best when he jokingly (but ultimately, correctly) told Kerrang! Magazine that Badmotorfinger was the "Heavy Metal White Album."

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Badmotorfinger

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December 8, 2016

With their detuned guitars, plodding tempos, permanently downcast expressions, and hardware-store dress code, Soundgarden looked every bit the “grunge” part, at least on first glance. If your first introduction came, for instance, via the image of frontman Chris Cornell baring his chest on a dimly lit soundstage in the video for “Loud Love,” you could easily mistake Soundgarden for a bunch of oafs wading in the same tarpit where the brontosaur remains of Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin lay fossilized. In fact, at points on their 1989 sophomore album/major-label debut Louder Than Love , Soundgarden came off as a ham-fisted Zep/Sabbath mashup.

Clearly, the band underwent a period of profound growth sometime prior to recording Badmotorfinger , the 1991 follow-up that captures the band clicking on all cylinders. In its breadth and execution, Badmotorfinger dramatically surpasses the band's previous work. (Just don’t judge by the even more oafish video for leadoff single “Outshined”). The album also sustains a level of focus, cohesion, and intensity that the band’s later, more varied albums lack. It is also the moment where Soundgarden’s unique four-way interplay comes into alignment in earnest, along with their collective sense of songcraft and ability to create atmosphere.

In the oversized coffee table booklet that accompanies the seven-disc “super deluxe” version of this reissue, three dozen musicians offer their recollections, including Henry Rollins , Les Claypool, Vernon Reid, Kirk Hammett, Buzz Osborne, Dale Crover, Krist Novoselic, Tom Morello , Steve Von Till , etc, etc. High praise even comes from ancestral giants like Zeppelin leader Jimmy Page , Sabbath bassist Geezer Butler, and Rush guitarist Alex Lifeson. The mental image of Lifeson cranking Badmotorfinger with his kids, as suggested by his notes, is probably the most endearing. Sadly, though, Mudhoney ’s Mark Arm doesn't re-tell the story of how, on hearing the final mix for the first time, he sent the band a postcard with the disparaging note: “Fuck, you guys sound like Rush now.”

Though Louder Than Love cemented the band’s appeal with metal audiences, Soundgarden had first struck a national chord among college radio deejays who were keyed-in on the band’s underground pedigree. After working with the iconic independent label Sup Pop on their debut EP Screaming Life in 1987, Soundgarden initially turned down major label offers to release their debut full-length, 1988’s Ultramega OK , on SST, the venerated indie imprint founded by Black Flag ’s Greg Ginn. Those two releases in particular reflected the band’s affinity for underground/post-punk acts like Hüsker Dü , Bad Brains , and Sonic Youth .

In the new Badmotorfinger liners, Jello Biafra likens Soundgarden to a cross between Zeppelin and Killing Joke . But it’s not like the post-punk influences jump out at you on Badmotorfinger . That’s because, by that point, Chris Cornell and lead guitarist Kim Thayil had combined their individual guitar approaches into a complex latticework that remains somewhat inscrutable even as it grips you. For every Badmotorfinger passage that makes you want to bust into a fit of air guitar—the unevenly metered, Sherman tank trudge that closes “Rusty Cage,” the blues-metal crunch of “Drawing Flies,” the quasi-thrash gallop of “Jesus Christ Pose,” etc.—the music is rife with ten times as many intangibles. To choose just one, then there’s the high-end ambient buzz that permeates the album from start to finish, imbuing it with a static charge not unlike the electricity one feels in the air when entire sky darkens under a massive storm cloud.

Indeed, much of Badmotorfinger ’s power resides in its suggestion of a violence that rarely erupts and offers little catharsis when it does. The best example can be found on “Slaves and Bulldozers,” a seething seven-minute crawl where Thayil spends most of the time strangulating his guitar strings for spasms of noise that almost seem to emanate from an inhuman source. If you've ever been rendered speechless by the sight of the ocean, stars, volcanic activity—anything that suddenly makes you aware of your minuscule place in the order of life—Thayil’s “leads” (if they can even be called that) surge with the same coldly neutral ferocity.

Meanwhile, even when Cornell unleashes his famous throat-scraping roar on the line “now I know why you’ve been shaking,” the enormity of the music feels choked back rather than triumphant. In sharp contrast to other heavy music—which is mostly designed to take frustration out on external targets—Soundgarden's signature rumble doesn’t give you an athletic rush. All of that gnashing turmoil on “Slaves and Bulldozers” actually points inward , collecting in your muscle tissue as a kind of seismic potential energy. And when the entire band pulls back for Cornell to switch to a bluesy murmur before the song’s wailing climax, Soundgarden show a command of dynamics they simply hadn’t been capable of before.

As you listen more closely, it becomes increasingly apparent that none of the songs lend themselves to primary hues like “angry,” “sad,” or even “rocking.” In its most rousing moments, Badmotorfinger is anchored by a pensiveness that fosters daydreaming as much if not more than it gives you reason to bang your head. Fittingly, the album’s lyrics venture well beyond heavy rock’s typical purview: Where other bands would choose to emote more directly from the gut (or elsewhere), Soundgarden temper the attack of the music with painterly images Cornell delivers with Beatnik flair. On “Room a Thousand Years Wide,” Thayil’s refrain of “tomorrow begat tomorrow” extends the song’s ambiguously woebegone perspective over timeless eons. And though bassist Ben Shepherd’s “Somewhere” doesn’t quite disclose itself as a love song, the sense of romance is undeniable in lines like “From the likes of her/To the time of me/Like the moon to earth/Or the sky to sea./Only we’re no longer/Allowed to be.”

Badmotorfinger is also anchored by drummer Matt Cameron ’s inimitable way of dragging the beat back while also smoothing-out Cornell and Thayil’s preference for uneven time signatures. Even on punkish uptempo bangers like “Rusty Cage” and “Face Pollution,” Soundgarden never simply barrel forward, switching gears on a dime and moving sideways with the dexterity of a prog act. (Hence Mark Arm’s Rush comparison.)

With all four members stretching more than ever before, at several points the music verges on the transportive, head-trip vibe of space rock or psychedelia. On the dreamlike “Searching with My Good Eye Closed” swirls of guitar twine around Cornell’s voice, heavily draped in reverb to give it the weight of a mystical presence speaking through clouds. When playing together in a room, the band tended to lumber through the song—evidenced painfully by the bonus concert and demo versions included in the deluxe package.

Speaking of which: The studio outtakes here may be interesting from a forensic point of view, but they’re basically glorified demos that lack the agility of the finished songs. And while the version of “Black Rain”—with lyrics that would later be refitted for the Superunknown hit “Fell on Black Days”—works as a curio, the song selection could have gone deeper to include the early version of “No Attention,” a tune the band attempted during the Badmotorfinger sessions before settling on a later version for 1996’s Down on the Upside .

In its definitive form, though, “Searching with My Good Eye Closed” is the most dramatic example of Soundgarden’s ability to touch the otherworldly. If you listen very closely to the fade out, you can hear the last wisp of Cornell’s voice trailing off: It’s barely audible and lasts for just half a second before it's smothered out of the frame by the leaden trudge of “Room a Thousand Years Wide.” The same thing essentially happened with the band’s career two years later, when Soundgarden went on to sell five million and became alterna-rock household names with their next album, 1994’s Superunknown . Much like when a director known for working in black and white switches to color, the obvious change in palette is initially what dazzles about Superunknown .

But as both albums have aged, you could make a case that Soundgarden actually accomplished more with the comparatively limited shading of Badmotorfinger . Listening back now it’s an album that would have sounded fresh and vital released at any time over the past quarter century. The band didn’t do the music any favors with that dreadfully dated “Outshined” video, but it doesn’t take long for Badmotorfinger to reveal itself as something far greater than a relic of its time.

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30 Years Ago: Soundgarden Break Through With ‘Badmotorfinger’

In the fall of 1991, alternative rock on the brink of explosion. Pearl Jam had released Ten  in August,  Nirvana released  Nevermind  in September —   which is credited as the first spark of the grunge revolution — and on Oct. 8, 1991 Soundgarden stomped in with  Badmotorfinger.

Following the release of 1989's  Louder Than Love,  Soundgarden lost original bassist Hiro Yamamoto and replacement Jason Everman before recruiting Ben Shepherd , who remains in the band to this day. Shepherd started out as a fan of the group, ever since their early days as a three-piece, when Chris Cornell sang and played the drums.

"He's got this real out-of-hand playing style, like Captain Beefheart playing hardcore, and this real frantic way of playing parts and writing songs," the frontman praised of their newest member to Kerrang! in 1991. "He'll just sit down and play really fast and intense and strange. He's really fresh and creative."

With a new solid lineup, Soundgarden headed into the studio in the spring of 1991 to record their third LP with producer Terry Date, who had worked on  Louder Than Love  as well. The recording process was split between three studios — Studio D in Sausalito, Calif., Bear Creek Studios in Woodinville, Wash. and A&M Studios in Los Angeles.

After a more collaborative songwriting process amongst Cornell, guitarist Kim Thayil , Shepherd and drummer Matt Cameron , the final product can hardly be described in simple terms. With the perfect balance of rawness and production combined with power and trippy elements, Badmotorfinger was the quintessential psychedelic metal album, if there had ever been such a thing up to that point.

The subjects of the songs spanned across a wide array of subjects, but Cornell, the band's primary lyricist, wanted the meanings to be ambiguous. "It's like reading a novel [about] man's conflict with himself and society, or the government, or his family, or the economy, or anything," Thayil described of the record's lyrical content to Guitar for the Practicing Musician .

Soundgarden, "Jesus Christ Pose"

Badmotorfinger  peaked at No. 39 on the Billboard 200, which was the biggest feat for Soundgarden thus far. While the album was springing them into success, the attention did not come without its controversy. " Jesus Christ Pose " was the lead single, and was viewed by some as an anti-Christ anthem. "It never got any airplay because of the references to Jesus. And MTV wouldn't play the video because they didn't like the idea of a girl on the cross," Thayil told Guitar School three years after the album came out.

Soundgarden, "Outshined"

The setback didn't phase the band, as " Outshined " and " Rusty Cage " eventually reached the masses and helped entrench them in the rock conversation. The latter song would eventually be covered by the iconic singer-songwriter Johnny Cash. Experimentation was rampant throughout several other standout tracks, like the jazzy "Drawing Flies" and "Room a Thousand Years Wide," which both featured brass horns.

Soundgarden, "Rusty Cage"

The hallucinogenic "Searching With My Good Eye Closed" starts off with a humorous, narrated intro full of animal noises. According to Cornell, the idea for the intro came from a See 'N Say — a Fisher-Price learning toy for young kids to learn farm animal calls. The singer later explained that he and one of his friends had been messing with one of the devices when the voice failed and faded out, giving him inspiration for the line " The devil says..."  that comes right before the first verse.

Speaking on its heaviness, Cornell told Raw , "I think you go through periods where you learn to get that kind of aggression out of you...On Louder Than Love it didn't really come out in what we did, so we decided we wanted to hear more of it. The new album is very close to us as a live band."

Soundgarden, "Searching With My Good Eye Closed"

The song structure varies a lot over the course of the 12 songs, some consisting of unusual time signatures while others follow a more radio-friendly format. Soundgarden had been previously worshipped by fans of the underground scene, and while it was apparent their slightly more commercial sound would turn those fans off, the band were far from sellouts.

"I don’t think a band should compromise themselves for anything. Not for an audience, not for a record label," Cornell affirmed to the Los Angeles Times in '91. "The feeling that you’re true to yourself translates almost every time to your audience. That’s the main point that rings true for us and keeps it inspiring and keeps fans inspired. I’m definitely proud of that.”

Nevermind' s immediate success overshadowed that of  Badmotorfinger  quite a bit in the beginning, but it eventually received the credit it deserved. It was nominated for Best Metal Performance in the 1992 Grammys, and only eight other albums had received nominations for that category at that point. It was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America in January of 1993, and double-platinum three years later.

Soundgarden's breakthrough caught the eye of several bigger bands like Guns N' Roses , who would give them the opening spot on part of their  Use Your Illusion  tour in 1992. While playing in large stadiums exposed the Seattle boys to bigger audiences, they weren't exactly pleased, and were nicknamed Frowngarden. "It wasn't a whole lot of fun going out in front of 40,000 people for 35 minutes every day. Most of them hadn't heard our songs and didn't care about them. It was a bizarre thing," Cornell explained to Raw .

Three years later, Soundgarden would catch up to the likes of Guns N' Roses in terms of popularity when they released  Superunknown  and the widely known "Black Hole Sun." But  Badmotorfinger,  to this day, remains the work of art that truly defined Soundgarden as a top dominating force in the '90s rock landscape.

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Soundgarden’s ‘Badmotorfinger’ at 25: Kim Thayil Looks Back

By Kory Grow

For years, when Kim Thayil thought about Soundgarden ‘s breakthrough into the mainstream, 1991’s Badmotorfinger – home to the heavy-hitting singles “Rusty Cage,” “Outshined” and “Jesus Christ Pose” – he was unhappy. Mostly, he felt uncomfortable with the way the pop machine exploited his scene. Badmotorfinger came out two weeks after Nevermind and a couple of months after Ten , and although he remembers feeling excitement when the group welcomed bassist Ben Shepherd into the fold, after founding member Hiro Yamamoto quit, he mostly remembered things as being awkward.

“It’s not a glowing, sunshine-y memory,” he says. “I always think of how we shot two videos for ‘Outshined’ – I developed this understanding of the song as being commercial and pedestrian – and how it was in MTV’s Buzz Bin. I thought it was a great album but I characterized it by this MTV, commercial-radio thing and the attention and fawning that comes with that.”

He’s since gained a new appreciation for the LP, as he trawled the band’s archives for a new 25th-anniversary, super-deluxe box set reissue of the album. In the process, he dug up never-before-released studio outtakes, previously unreleased footage and audio from the band’s homecoming shows in Seattle in 1992, music videos or more. He also started listening to the original album again. “I look at the track list, and it’s like, ‘Oh, wait a minute, “Slaves and Bulldozers” is on there,'” he says. “‘There’s “Jesus Christ Pose.” And, oh, crap, “Room a Thousand Years Wide.”‘ And I realized that there are so many elements and dimensions to that album that are powerful and pleasant and strong.

“I sincerely started falling in love with the album,” he continues, during a lengthy chat with Rolling Stone . “For years, my favorite Soundgarden albums were Superunknown and Screaming Life , and this jumped ahead of ’em. You’d think I’d be sick of it, but I started becoming more and more proud, especially after I saw the live material, the outtakes, some of the treatments [visual artist] Josh Graham did for the Blu-ray audiovisuals – I don’t have to think of MTV’s Buzz Bin playing the crappy ‘Outshined’ video anymore. It just gave me a different insight and appreciation.”

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What was everyone’s headspace like around the making of Badmotorfinger ? There was a definite sense of excitement because we had this new bass player. Everything was working creatively. There was a little bit of hesitation because we’d really built something over five or six years with Hiro, and in between we played with [tour bassist] Jason Everman, but when Ben joined it was exciting. He’s one of my best friend’s little brothers, so I felt responsible for him. So it was excitement and eagerness but also a little trepidation because it was new.

And in the time after Hiro left, not only did Jason not work out, but our friend Andy Wood died. And this was a big deal. Chris [Cornell] lived with Andy. We rehearsed at the house that Chris and Andy lived in. I’d known Andy before Soundgarden existed, checking out [his band] Malfunkshun, and that was a big, heavy hit. And then Chris had gone off and started writing a bunch of songs about his close friend and roommate and these songs turned into Temple of the Dog.

How did that affect Soundgarden creatively? It was a big jump. Before, a lot of the music was written by me and Hiro. But I’d lost my songwriting partner, and Chris lost someone who is so close to his heart that he’s writing songs for him and about him. This amazing courage came out of Chris. And you really see it coming around Badmotorfinger with Soundgarden. With Temple of the Dog, it surprised me, like, “Holy crap. You wrote this whole album in the past handful of months?” Some of them had perhaps been around for a bit longer. Whereas with Soundgarden, we write lots of material and we pick and choose and play them live and they come together over a period of a year or two. Chris definitely found his groove and voice in talking to and for and about Andy. So that was an amazing thing.

And Ben made a significant contribution to the band after the really emotional loss of Hiro. It was devastating to me that Hiro quit. I moved from Seattle to Chicago with Hiro. So that was a weird transition.

Chris Cornell Looks Back on 20 Years of Soundgarden's 'Superunknown'

Badmotorfinger is pretty different musically from the record that came before it, Louder Than Love , which is much more straightforward. Why was that? In the early days, when it was just Hiro, Chris and I, we had these quirky, weird elements. We were known as the band that would incorporate feedback as part of the song structure. And, prior to Screaming Life , we were kind of angular and jagged. We did a lot of psychedelic stuff built around the feedback and Hiro’s bass lines. Gradually, that psychedelia made it so I was pushed into doing solos. Then the riffs started getting heavier. You just see how the audience responded to what we were doing, and you flow with that. Our songs started getting a little bit slower and heavier.

At the same time, we’re borrowing from our buddies, like Malfunkshun, Melvins, Green River – everyone is going to each other’s shows. Everyone’s just taking notes and incorporating these different elements, and we started finding our strengths: where Chris’ voice was, where Hiro’s aptitude was. Hiro’s just like this funky, Gang of Four–type bass player. And I’m coming from an angular, punky, one-note, two-note guitar player, and next thing you know, in come the heavy riffs.

So we get Ben in the band, and he was a fan from day one. Ben loved a lot of the things in music that Hiro and I loved. Ben loved Joy Division, Wire, Black Flag, the Meat Puppets, Flipper. So these were part of who he is in his songwriting. So when we were jamming together he started doing some of the things we used to do, and it’s like a kick in the ass and a refresher. So after Louder Than Love , we kind of had to turn back. And that was a good move. The dark psychedelia, which was replaced by our slight visceral heaviness on Louder Than Love , that came back and so did the quirkiness [on Badmotorfinger ]. They’re all components of what we’re about.

One thing that remained the same between albums were your off-kilter rhythms. “Outshined,” for instance, is in 7/4. You know what’s odd about it? In the early days, with Chris [on drums], we wrote stuff like that. When we got Scott [Sundquist, drums] in the band, he couldn’t play the stuff in seven. He’s into Hendrix and Santana, so he’s got great grooves in four. And then Matt [Cameron] comes in and could do stuff like that. We wrote to the strengths of our drummers. So it’s like, “Oh, yeah.” We do crap in all kinds of weird things: nines and sevens and fives.

Well even with a song like “Outshined,” you can kind of nod your head along with it, even though it’s not straight four-four time. That’s one of the cruel tricks we realized were playing on the audience with [ Superunknown’s ] “My Wave.” It has this obvious, kind of AC/DC-ish two-chord intro, and the audience starts banging up and down. But it’s in five. So they’re jumping up and down, and it’s kind of hard to pogo in five. I’m sure someone can do it, but we’d feel so bad. We go to a Rage Against the Machine gig and the whole audience is up and down, and it’s all straightforward. And then we do “My Wave” and the audience goes up and down and get out of sync and it’s like this weird sea of people that just comes to a rest. It’s like you emptied a box of ping-pong balls on the floor and they roll around. We don’t mean to do that, but we kind of walk weird.

Johnny Cash’s version of “Rusty Cage” has a more straightforward time signature than the Badmotorfinger version. What did you think of how he pulled that off? I didn’t know what riff he would focus on. I didn’t know if he would take advantage of that main verse riff, that quick, two-note octave slide thing. Then I thought, “I can’t see him doing that.” Then I considered that ending riff with these odd starts and stops. I thought, “No, I can’t see him doing that.” So I didn’t really know what to expect. I guess he was backed by Tom Petty’s guys. They’re pretty talented musicians and they came up with a smart arrangement that built around the vocal melody and key changes. It really worked. Those guys deconstructed it and made it something that could work for Johnny Cash.

What was he like when you met him? We talked mostly about Willie Nelson, but I do remember him saying he liked the song. Johnny Cash is the most charismatic person I’ve ever met. I’ve met some people from rock stars to athletes to presidents and man, that guy, he’s just all about it. You’re in awe and it’s a little bit intimidating. He just put out good vibes.

Getting back to Badmotorfinger , all four of you were credited with writing “Jesus Christ Pose.” How did that come together? That was definitely a jam at rehearsal. I think Ben was just jamming up this loud and blurry, detuned bass line flopping around there. And Matt starts making it precise and coherent; Matt’s drum part is insane – it’s so fast and coordinated. And I picked up my guitar, thinking, “What the hell are they doing?” It took me a while to figure out what’s going on rhythmically and where to punctuate the one, so what I start hearing is that swirling, kamikaze bat [guitar] sound at the beginning. And that was a groove. Then I revisit the feedback and beneath-the-bridge guitar squeals that I used to do in ’84 and ’85. I did that mostly out of necessity because I really didn’t understand what it was Ben and Matt were playing; it was just too fast and involved.

Eventually, Matt and Ben lost each other, so we recorded it. Chris takes it home. We loved the groove, the action and dynamic of it. So Chris takes a recording home and works lyrics and around the lyrics finds a chorus. So he writes a couple other sections to help flesh out the arrangement dynamic and give room for the vocals. He brought that to rehearsal and we’re like, “Holy shit, this crazy, insane car wreck is now a song.”

One of the more curious outtakes on the box set is this version of “New Damage” with Queen’s Brian May playing on it. How did that come together? We did it for a Greenpeace benefit album called Alternative NRG . When we recorded it, the studio was powered by a solar-powered generator. We met Brian May here in Seattle, sent the multi-tracks in a studio that he wanted to work in – I think it was in New York. And he wrote a very Brian May–ish guitar-solo part over it. This is the first totally Soundgarden release it’s been on.

This box set marks the first time you’re releasing your full concert from the Paramount, part of which came out on the Motorvision home video. Was this something you’d just been holding onto? When we were working on this box set, Jeff, our A&R at Universal, asked what we had in our vaults, and I said, we probably have some live stuff that was taken from that Paramount show. There were a couple tracks that were mixed and released as B sides, but a lot of the B sides were corralled together for the Echo of Miles collection. And Jeff found something that said, “Live at the Paramount.” And I said, “Yeah, we got some B sides out of that. That’s old news, dude.” He goes, “No, there’s full multis of the whole thing. It’s all stereo. Not only that, there’s video.” Video?! We had shot all this footage and retained possession of it and through either the band’s neglect or management’s neglect or the label, it just got shelved. And it wasn’t properly archived, because I was not aware of it.

So they got it together. I thought, “OK, this is going to be crappy-sounding.” I’m sure we’re drunk and stumbling over our instruments, which was the punk-rock thing to do. Like, “Look, I can open a beer bottle with my guitar.” But it wasn’t bad. And then they fixed up the audio. And the final result is unbelievable. So we got the whole live concert on video and audio, so we included the two CDs in the super-deluxe box set and we got the whole DVD of a live show. I had no idea this material existed.

What did you think when you finally saw the footage of yourself in 1991? I expected it to be sloppy and drunken, just kinda screwy. And it’s way tighter than I imagined. A lot of times I look back on the live stuff we recorded and it’s a lot better than it sounds like from the stage. That’s an impressive surprise.

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What else have you taken from the experience of digging through your archives? Since we’ve been attending to the catalog these past seven years, we’ve gotten a chance to give some airtime to songs that didn’t have the opportunity to be heard or performed before, like “Storm,” which we did for the Echo of Miles box, and “Black Rain” [included in the box set and on the compilation Telephantasm ], which was a song where the lyrics weren’t dialed in because Chris would later use some of those for “Fell on Black Days.”

We’ve also been looking at some songs that Matt was a fan of before he joined Soundgarden that we maybe jammed on but never recorded. Some of these have come out, and some were never released. So there’s some of those out there and we’re going to attend to those as well. Some of them might be catalogue releases – not reissues because the songs haven’t come out yet – but they’re from sessions that were never released. Some may be re-recordings or reinventions, like, let’s re-explore the song with this lineup. That’s really a consequence of me going through the catalogue and looking at what we have and collecting the B sides.

Do you have more reissue or catalogue releases that you’re planning? Yes. Definitely. Since 2010, when we began attending to our catalogue, we were doing Telephantasm . We’re now looking back at the catalogue and we’re realizing which songs we never released or recorded. And then we start looking forward. So we’re juggling that with the new ideas we’re coming up with because we’re constantly writing while at the same time attending to the archives.

On that note, how far along is the new album? We’re still in the writing process. We have a dozen things demoed. First things first, here: Matt has these Pearl Jam commitments, and Chris has been doing a lot of touring to support Higher Truth  and Temple of the Dog.

Finally, getting back to Badmotorfinger , when you were making the album, were you aware of the way people were looking at the Seattle scene? We kind of had an idea, but we really couldn’t anticipate the commodification of the band. But it still is emotionally and creatively difficult to balance your understanding of what you’re doing as a songwriter or musician and then having to understand it as something that exists out there in posters and videos and record sales. It’s kind of a weird thing. Some bands are more graceful in how they deal with that than others, and I think Seattle bands had a few stumbles here and there, and certainly our band did. But we made some great records. I’m proud of the records and I’m proud of the success.

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Soundgarden on 30 years of ‘Badmotorfinger,’ the ‘weird science project’ that became a grunge classic

It’s a rare feat for an artist’s freakiest record to double as its commercial breakthrough.

Soundgarden’s “Badmotorfinger” was born in peak MTV era, 30 years ago Oct. 8, two weeks after Nirvana’s “Nevermind.” By the time the first-wave “grunge” band dropped its marvelously wigged-out fourth album in the fall of 1991 , which drummer Matt Cameron likens to a “weird science project,” Soundgarden had steadily risen from the rosters of venerable indie labels to a major-label act with a Grammy nomination under its belt.

It’s easy to hear the rock radio appeal in songs like the motoring “Rusty Cage” or “Outshined.” But the level of airplay and MTV attention the “Badmotorfinger” singles received was new. In guitarist Kim Thayil’s mind, that level of commercial success was typically reserved for records that had “the edges rounded off” or were somehow “compromised.”

“I think the success probably had us focused, and had our fans focused, on the individual songs and videos,” Thayil says. “We hadn’t [received] a lot of that before, so understanding our record in terms of ‘Outshined’ and ‘Rusty Cage’ getting all over [MTV], it kind of took me away from the understanding of the album as a whole. … I love the album so much when I take it out of the context of MTV’s Buzz Bin.”

“Badmotorfinger” would become Soundgarden’s highest-charting album at the time, and it was also its most sonically adventurous. (There’s nothing “compromised” about a trippy, seven-minute slugfest called “Slaves & Bulldozers.”) Beyond the singles, “Badmotorfinger” is art-metal mastery, heavily dosed with Thayil’s psychedelic leads, free-jazz freakouts, odd time signatures and alternate tunings — headier stuff more in keeping with ’80s rock’s underbelly than digestible radio cuts.

“It has weird elements that rock bands at that time, that were popular on MTV or on the radio, didn’t really incorporate in their overall sound,” Cameron says. “But that scene that we came from, that ’80s underground scene … they did incorporate really weird aspects. We really liked Captain Beefheart and Pere Ubu and all these post-punk or nontraditional rock elements in these bands.”

Several weeks before “Badmotorfinger” and “Nevermind” hit the shelves, Alice in Chains’ first album went gold. Roughly a month earlier, Pearl Jam unleashed its now-classic debut , “Ten.” Collectively, those records helped catapult the sounds gestating in Seattle clubs for years into the pop culture consciousness, making our Upper Left city the rock ’n’ roll capital of the world for a time.

More significantly, they helped make authenticity a prized trait in music’s mainstream coming out of the hair metal era.

“I hear a lot of joy in that music,” says Cameron, who would later join Pearl Jam as well. “There’s just this sense of discovery that you can definitely hear in the music and I think that’s why it resonates with audiences — back then — and it continues to resonate. As far as ‘Badmotorfinger’ goes, that’s such a true statement about who we were at that time. When music is true, when art is true it definitely can resonate with people.”

For all their shared Seattle DNA and inescapable “grunge” grouping, each band was decidedly different. If Alice in Chains were Seattle’s brooding dark princes, Nirvana its mellifluous punk agitators, and Pearl Jam the rock-canon amalgamists with a voice from God, “Badmotorfinger” further distinguished Soundgarden as sonic explorers down to try anything (as long as it was heavy), grounded in colossal grooves and the unmistakable wail of archetypal frontman Chris Cornell.

“Soundgarden’s so free and so open to things, we didn’t have any prima donna weirdos or preconceived notions of who we are,” says bassist Ben Shepherd, who joined just prior to “Badmotorfinger.” “We know that we’re always in a transformation of defining ourselves and that record is part of that, too.”

Thayil points to the new-guy bassist as “Badmotorfinger’s” “MVP,” crediting Shepherd with sparking the band’s tinkering with alternate tunings — one of the first elements cited whenever Soundgarden’s music is appraised. (It was also Shepherd’s idea to throw the gonzo trumpets on “Face Pollution,” something few heavy metal or hard rock bands were doing at the time.) In some ways it was a throwback to the band’s early days when “we were a bit more angular and quirky,” Thayil says.

Back then, Shepherd was just stoked to be in the band.

The younger brother of Thayil’s old roommate, Shepherd was one of Soundgarden’s earliest fans, hooked from the moment he caught an early gig at the defunct Gorilla Gardens, back when Cornell was playing drums. “I turned to all my friends and told ’em these guys are gonna be big,” Shepherd says. “They’re like, ‘Yeah, yeah, whatever.’ But they all agreed that Soundgarden stole the show that night.”

There hasn’t been much show-stealing over the last pandemic-ravaged 18 months, for Soundgarden or anyone. But in August, all three of Soundgarden’s surviving members took a Washington stage together for the first time since Cornell’s death in 2017. The trio joined Brandi Carlile at the Gorge Amphitheatre for a mighty run through “Black Hole Sun” and “Badmotorfinger” cut “Searching With My Good Eye Closed” — songs the home state heroes recorded together for a recent Record Store Day release.

“Brandi’s interpretation of ‘Searching’ — I love that song, always loved it,” Thayil says, comparing it to the first time he saw Eddie Vedder sing with Pearl Jam or Cameron and Cornell play with Temple of the Dog. “But all of a sudden she sings it and that shiver went up and down my spine. After 20 or 30 years, I didn’t know that song had it in it until Brandi sang it.”

The Gorge homecoming was just the second time the Soundgarden mates have performed their songs together since Cornell’s death, following a Los Angeles tribute concert in 2019. “At first when Chris died, I was like, ‘Nope, never do this,’” Shepherd says. “When we played the tribute concert, it was really hard for me because I’m so used to taking the stage with the guys. And not having Chris there, I barely made it onto that stage or off of it.”

COVID-19 concerns aside, it sounds like the Gorge experience was a bit more upbeat for Soundgarden’s amiable bassist. It was the first time Shepherd’s son got to meet “his uncle Matt” and see the guys play together. (The typically stoic 6-year-old declared it “mind-blowing.”)

“You know how when you ride a bike, no matter who you are or how old you are, it turns you back into a little kid?” Shepherd says of reuniting with his bandmates. “That’s what that’s like.”

How much time the guys will spend making music together in the near future remains to be seen.

The fate of a potential new Soundgarden album, in the works at the time of Cornell’s death, hinges on a lawsuit between the band and Cornell’s wife over the late singer’s vocal recordings. The band declined to discuss the lawsuit, citing the ongoing litigation.

“I think we’re definitely getting closer to making some music together again,” Cameron says. “But our path to get to that point in our lives is not a straight one right now, so we have to take a few detours before we get there.”

Correction: A previous version of this story misstated the release date of “Badmotorfinger.” Initially scheduled for Sept. 24, 1991, it was delayed by two weeks to Oct. 8, 1991.

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Badmotorfinger

• Edit source

Badmotorfinger is the third studio album by the American alternative rock band Soundgarden , released on October 8, 1991 through A&M Records. After touring in support of its previous album, Louder Than Love (1989), Soundgarden began the recording sessions for its next album with new bassist Ben Shepherd . The music on the album maintained the band's heavy rock sound while featuring an increased focus on songwriting as compared with the band's previous releases.

The focus on the Seattle grunge scene helped bring attention to Badmotorfinger . The singles "Outshined" and "Rusty Cage" were able to find an audience at alternative rock radio and MTV. Badmotorfinger became the band's highest charting album at the time on the Billboard 200. The band supported the album with tours of North America and Europe, including opening for Guns N' Roses on that band's Use Your Illusion Tour. In 1992, Badmotorfinger was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Metal Performance. The album has been certified two times platinum by the RIAA in the United States.

• 1 Recording
• 2 Music and lyrics
• 3 Release and reception
• 4 Packaging
• 5.1 Satanoscillatemymetallicsonatas
• 7 Personnel
• 8.2 Singles
• 9 Accolades
• 10 References

Recording [ ]

This was the band's first album with bassist Ben Shepherd, who replaced previous bassist Jason Everman following the band's promotional tour for the album Louder Than Love . The album's recording sessions took place from March 1991 to April 1991. It was recorded at Studio D in Sausalito, California, Bear Creek Studios in Woodinville, Washington, and A&M Studios in Los Angeles, California. The band again worked with producer Terry Date. The album was mixed by Ron St. Germain.

Soundgarden chose to work with Terry Date again as it had on its previous release Louder Than Love . Frontman Chris Cornell said the band chose to work with Date again seeing as the band had a good relationship with him and did not want to go through the pressure of trying to find a new producer.

Cornell said that Shepherd brought a "fresh and creative" approach to the recording sessions. and the band as a whole said that his knowledge of music and writing skills redefined the band. Before joining, Soundgarden had been Shepherd's favorite band. Compared with Louder Than Love , the band took a more collaborative approach to the writing process.

Music and lyrics [ ]

Steve Huey of Allmusic said that the songwriting on Badmotorfinger "takes a quantum leap in focus and consistency." He added, "It's surprisingly cerebral and arty music for a band courting mainstream metal audiences, but it attacks with scientific precision." Guitarist Kim Thayil jokingly called it the "Heavy Metal White Album ." Cornell said, "I think there's songs on the new record which are almost more commercially viable because they have that memorable feel to them, and I think if anyone expected us to come out and make something more commercial than Louder Than Love , then I'm glad that they were surprised." Cornell also added that the album is more representative of how the band is live. Shepherd contributed the song "Somewhere" and collaborated on the musical composition of several other songs on the album. Thayil said that Shepherd's contributions helped make the album "faster" and "weirder."

On the opening song, "Rusty Cage", Thayil uses a wah pedal as an audio filter, producing an unusual guitar sound. In describing the song's guitar riff he said that it "almost sounds backward." Soundgarden utilized alternative tunings and odd time signatures on several of the album's songs. "Jesus Christ Pose" and "Outshined" were performed in drop D tuning. On "Rusty Cage", "Holy Water", and "Searching with My Good Eye Closed", the bottom E string is tuned all the way down to B. On "Mind Riot" every string is tuned to one of several E's. Soundgarden's use of odd-meter time signatures was varied as well; songs like "Jesus Christ Pose" are in typical 4/4 time, "Outshined" is in 7/4, "Somewhere" is in 6/4, "Face Pollution" uses 9/8 and 6/4, and "Rusty Cage" uses 4/4 for the majority of the song and a repeated pattern of 3/4, 2/4, and 5/4 in its coda. Thayil said that he didn't "push for weird time signatures," but rather "push[ed] to get the quirkiness out of things."

Cornell said that he tried to not get too specific with his lyrics and was more interested in "creating colourful images." Thayil suggested that it is "like reading a novel [about] man's conflict with himself and society, or the government, or his family, or the economy, or anything." "Jesus Christ Pose" was written about famous people who exploit the symbol of Jesus' crucifixion as to suggest that they're persecuted by the public. Cornell said that "Outshined" is about going from "periods of extreme self-confidence" to "plummeting in the opposite direction." "Holy Water" was written about people who force their beliefs unto others. Thayil wrote the lyrics for "Room a Thousand Years Wide", and said that the song is about "experience in general." "New Damage" subtly criticizes the right-wing government of the United States.

Release and reception [ ]

The album became a breakthrough hit for Soundgarden. Badmotorfinger peaked at number 39 on the Billboard 200 album chart. It was the band's highest position on that chart at the time. It was released in the same year as Nirvana's Nevermind and Pearl Jam's Ten , all of which helped to break grunge into the mainstream. Although overshadowed at the time of its release by the sudden popularity of Nirvana's Nevermind , the focus of attention brought by Nevermind to the Seattle scene helped Soundgarden gain wider attention. Badmotorfinger was among the 100 top selling albums of 1992. Badmotorfinger has been certified two times platinum by the RIAA.

Allmusic staff writer Steve Huey gave the album four and a half out of five stars, calling it "heavy, challenging hard rock full of intellectual sensibility and complex band interplay." Ann Powers of Blender said, "Cornell strikes the perfect Jesus Christ pose on this sonic wallop." Gina Arnold of Entertainment Weekly gave the album a B+. She said, "On songs like the cynical "Jesus Christ Pose" and "Slaves and Bulldozers", Soundgarden sound a hell of a lot smarter than their peers, who seldom get beyond extolling booze, girls, and cars." She ended her review by stating that "the final effect is merely stylishly bombastic rather than bludgeoningly bombastic. Tuneless heavy metal is, after all, still tuneless heavy metal, and in that department, Soundgarden are as functional as they make 'em." Critic Robert Christgau gave the album a B-, calling it a "credible metal album" while also criticizing the album's lyrical writing.

Badmotorfinger included the singles "Jesus Christ Pose", "Outshined", and "Rusty Cage". The three singles gained considerable airtime on alternative rock radio stations, while the videos for "Outshined" and "Rusty Cage" gained considerable airtime on MTV. The lead single "Jesus Christ Pose" and its music video were the subject of widespread controversy in 1991, and the video was removed from MTV's playlist. Many listeners were outraged by the song and its video, perceiving them as anti-Christian. The band received death threats while on tour in the United Kingdom in support of the album. "Room a Thousand Years Wide" was released previously as a single in 1990, but not to promote the album. It was released (with the song "HIV Baby") as a 7" through Sub Pop's Single of the Month club a full year before the release of Badmotorfinger . The song was re-recorded for this album. "Rusty Cage" was covered by Johnny Cash on his 1996 album, Unchained . It also appeared on the fictional radio station Radio X on the videogame Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas and in the 32-bit version of Road Rash .

At the 1992 Grammy Awards, Badmotorfinger received a nomination for Best Metal Performance. It was also ranked number 45 in the October 2006 issue of Guitar World on the magazine's list of the 100 greatest guitar albums of all time.

Packaging [ ]

The Badmotorfinger logo consists of a jagged, cyclone-like design. In the center of the logo is a triangle containing a spark plug. The album's cover art was illustrated by guitarist Mark Dancey from the Sub Pop band Big Chief.

Thayil suggested the title Badmotorfinger as a joke on the Montrose song "Bad Motor Scooter". Regarding the title, Thayil said, "It was sort of off the top of my head. I simply like it because it was colorful. It was kinda aggressive, too...It conjures up a lot of different kinds of images. We like the ambiguity in it, the way it sounded and the way it looked."

Following the release of Badmotorfinger , Soundgarden went on a tour in North America that ran from October 1991 to November 1991. Afterward, the band took a slot opening for Guns N' Roses in North America on the band's Use Your Illusion Tour. Soundgarden was personally selected by Guns N' Roses as its opening band. This was Soundgarden's first arena tour. Afterward, the band took a slot opening for Skid Row in North America in February 1992 on the band's Slave to the Grind tour. Soundgarden then headed to Europe for a month-long headlining theater tour. Afterward, the band then returned for a tour in the United States. Soundgarden rejoined Guns N' Roses as part of the Use Your Illusion Tour in the summer of 1992 for a tour of Europe along with fellow opening act Faith No More. Regarding the time spent opening for Guns N' Roses, Cornell said, "It wasn't a whole lot of fun going out in front of 40,000 people for 35 minutes every day. Most of them hadn't heard our songs and didn't care about them. It was a bizarre thing." The band would go on to play the 1992 Lollapalooza tour with the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Pearl Jam, and Ministry, among others. The band later released the video compilation Motorvision , which was filmed at the Paramount Theatre in 1992. Track listing All lyrics written by Chris Cornell, except where noted.

Satanoscillatemymetallicsonatas [ ]

In anticipation of the band's appearance at the 1992 Lollapalooza tour, a limited edition of Badmotorfinger was released on June 23, 1992 with a second disc containing the EP Satanoscillatemymetallicsonatas (or SOMMS ). The title is a palindrome. This EP includes three covers, a Soundgarden original, and a song recorded at a concert. For its cover of Black Sabbath's "Into the Void", the original lyrics are replaced by words of protest by Chief Sealth, which fit the metre of the song. At the 1993 Grammy Awards, "Into the Void (Sealth)" received a nomination for Best Metal Performance.

Outtakes [ ]

The album's singles featured eleven B-sides from the Badmotorfinger recording sessions that weren't included on the album, "Stray Cat Blues", "Into the Void (Sealth)", "Cold Bitch", "I Can't Give You Anything", "Girl U Want", "Show Me", "I Don't Care About You", "Can You See Me", "Homicidal Suicidal", "Touch Me", and "She's a Politician". Various versions of the "Jesus Christ Pose" single featured "Stray Cat Blues" and "Into the Void (Sealth)", various versions of the "Outshined" single featured "Into the Void (Sealth)", "Cold Bitch", "I Can't Give You Anything", "Girl U Want", "Show Me", "I Don't Care About You", "Can You See Me", and "Homicidal Suicidal", and various versions of the "Rusty Cage" single featured "Stray Cat Blues", "Girl U Want", "Show Me", and "Touch Me". The SOMMS EP featured "Stray Cat Blues", "Into the Void (Sealth)", "Girl U Want", and "She's a Politician". "Show Me" was later featured on the 1993 No Alternative compilation, "Cold Bitch" was later featured on the "Spoonman" single, "Girl U Want" was later featured on the "Fell on Black Days" single, and "She's a Politician" was later featured on the "Burden in My Hand" single. "Cold Bitch" was one of Shepherd's favorite songs that the band recorded. The song "Birth Ritual" was worked on during the recording sessions, but wasn't completed. It would eventually see release on the Singles soundtrack. "No Attention", which later appeared on the band's 1996 album, Down on the Upside , was attempted during the Badmotorfinger recording sessions. Thayil said that the recording of "No Attention" that came out of the sessions didn't work.

Personnel [ ]

Chart positions [ ], singles [ ], accolades [ ].

The information regarding accolades attributed to Badmotorfinger is adapted in part from AcclaimedMusic.net. [35]

References [ ]

• 2 Superunknown (album)
• 3 Chris Cornell

'92 Badmotorfinger Tour Tote

This line has been exclusively designed to honor Soundgarden's legendary set at Lollapalooza 1992, 30 years later. 

Soundgarden Badmotorfinger design printed on a Branson natural colored tote bag.

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