Last week, stoner rock die-hards choked on their bongs when they learned that drone-metal icon Matt Pike had been replaced in legends of the genre, Sleep. Bubba Dupree, himself a hero of avant-garde metal in ’80s thrash trailblazers Void, is filling his shoes.

Yet Sleep aren’t the first major-league band Dupree has found himself involved with. In the late ’90s, he was on the verge of being drafted into Seattle grunge greats Soundgarden, as revealed in guitarist Kim Thayil’s new memoir, A Screaming Life.

In the fall of 1996, Soundgarden was on the verge of collapse.

The final album from their original tenure, Down on the Upside, showcased an increasingly fragmented songwriting approach. Thayil and bassist Ben Shepherd were creatively checking out. And the guitarist was growing frustrated with management interference in their touring lineups, which included artists he didn’t feel were a good fit, among them Pond, Rocket From the Crypt and a newly punk-oriented Moby.

The one unlikely saving grace was Moby’s guitar player for their European run: Bubba Dupree, who Thayil grew close with during the tour.

Meanwhile, frontman Chris Cornell could see the unhappiness in the ranks – and he was desperate to do something about it.

“Once again, Chris wanted to save Soundgarden,” Thayil recounts. “We were all moody, introspective, and contemplative people, more likely to brood than act, but Chris didn’t want the band to implode due to inaction on everyone’s part. We all knew there was unhappiness, but it wasn’t being addressed in a meaningful way.”

Cornell’s solution was to hire Dupree as another guitarist, in the hope that fresh blood would re-engage the rest of the band – even going so far as to suggest Dupree take over his own rhythm duties.

“Bubba would solve a couple of problems: it would free Chris from playing guitar and satisfy Ben and me,” Thayil reasons.

“While most of Soundgarden’s early and some later material only required one guitar, some songs needed two parts. Having Bubba play the second guitar would allow Chris to focus on vocals and improve everyone’s performance. It would elevate the vocals, guitar, and possibly reignite Ben and me creatively.”

Initially, Thayil and Shepherd were excited about the idea – it would bring, as Thayil puts it, “another talented, cool-­looking brown guy who could take over Chris’s parts and bring fresh ideas”.

Ultimately, however, the group were conflicted by their own admiration for the new recruit.

“He needed his own band, where his creativity wouldn’t compete with four other songwriters. He shouldn’t be a backup guitarist playing our old material, just like he didn’t need to be part of Moby’s punk project. His songs deserved their own voice.

“We all wanted Soundgarden to move forward, but we weren’t sure this was the solution to our problems. I appreciated Chris’s effort to reengage us, even if it ultimately didn’t work.”

Just a few months after the lineup change was discussed, Soundgarden would play their final show on February 9, 1997 in Honolulu, Hawaii. It would be 13 years before they played together again.

Outside of Soundgarden Chris Cornell got his wish to delegate guitar duties: to Tom Morello in Audioslave, and to Alain Johannes, or Pete Thorn and Yogi Lonich in his solo bands. But we never did get the chance to hear what a Bubba Dupree collaboration would sound like..

When Chris Cornell took his life at age 52 in May 2017, the music world mourned the death of the Seattle music pioneer and frontman of Soundgarden, which Cornell co-formed with guitarist Kim Thayil and bassist Hiro Yamamoto in 1984.

The tragedy was all the more trenchant since Soundgarden were on tour and working on the follow-up to their 2012 comeback album, King Animal.

“Strange is probably the best way to describe how I felt after Chris passed,” writes guitarist Kim Thayil in his new autobiography, A Screaming Life: Into the Superunknown with Soundgarden and Beyond. “Everything turned dark when the band ended so suddenly, taking with it a creative partnership I hadn’t fully understood until it was gone.

“Losing that left me in a constant, grim melancholy. It was a despondency so deep, it felt almost sublime. I wasn’t just feeling it – I was watching myself feel it.”

Thayil processed Cornell’s death in private and avoided the press for 18 months. When he started talking to promote an MC5 50th Anniversary tour (for which he was playing guitar), he revealed that Soundgarden had started working on the follow-up to King Animal before Cornell died, and that there were unreleased multi-track demos that featured Cornell’s vocals.

Soon after, the band started working on a new album, including a song Thayil wrote tentatively called X-Mas, which he says might have been the last thing Cornell ever recorded.

“I was thrilled, but it was also bittersweet,” Thayil writes. “Hearing Chris’s voice again, singing things I’d never heard before, was both joyful and emotional. It was like he was speaking to me from the past, reminding me of our work together. There was another surprise, too – an unheard alternate version of a song we had previously worked on, musically distinct from what he’d shared with us earlier. It was amazing.”

To plug the book, Thayil sat down with Guitar World and talked about the fertile Seattle music scene, how he altered his approach to guitar throughout the band’s career, his unconventional leads, the sources of tension that led to Soundgarden’s breakup in 1997, and the status of the band’s swan song.

You were categorized as a metal band before “grunge” became part of the vernacular. Did you feel like a fish out of water?

Yeah, because we were navigating popular culture and rock themes, but we were giving them context in a way that didn’t feel like metal. There were political and social aspects to our music that seemed closely aligned with underground punk rock.

After Nirvana’s Nevermind topped the charts, most major labels eliminated their metal departments, dumped their hair bands, and entered a mad dash to sign any loud alternative groups that might belong in the same universe as Nirvana, Pearl Jam, or Alice in Chains.

To be clear, they weren’t dropping Metallica or Megadeth. They were dropping these glam metal bands, but some of them were really damn good and wrote cool songs. It was unfortunate that record companies thought they had to stop promoting them and drop them. It’s also unfortunate that the record labels were motivated by caprice and fads.

What kind of guitar tone were you after when you started out?

Everybody talks about guitar tone now, but it wasn’t much of a topic then. We were just going with a power chord sound. I wanted to be loud. Tone wasn’t an objective.

What was your criteria for the guitars you played in the studio and on tour?

I just had to have a guitar that felt comfortable and did what I wanted. It’s like, ‘I want to play songs like the Ramones, and I want to play songs like Black Sabbath. Can this guitar do that? It can. Okay, cool.’ Being visceral was important to me. I wanted a guitar that felt responsive and a sound that leaped from the amp when I played.

The way I approached the instrument always seemed more important than what actually came out. If I wanted to play a solo that was slashing and manic, I beat up the guitar like I’m filled with that mania.

On the song Hunted Down, on Screaming Life, I wanted to be loose, wild, and feel this careening sound. On other songs, I’d want a more mellow, warm, bluesy sound, so I’d hang onto the notes and play triplets I learned from listening to Rush and Kiss.

Did you have a go-to guitar in Soundgarden?

The Guild S-100 was very versatile. I use a lot of other guitars – Gibsons, Fenders, and Gretschs – but that Guild was a big part of the Soundgarden sound, especially for noise.

You often played a sturdy meat-and-potatoes riff and then countered it with an atonal, noisy lick or an interesting effect.

I didn’t want to follow any particular scales, so I played whatever sounded right to me, whether it was crazy or kind of trippy. The pickups on that guitar were somewhat microphonic, so I could blow on the strings and it would feed back. I did that at the beginning of Flower.

But it wasn’t a shrill, out-of-control noise. It was a weird hum. And the way I set my amps and used a chorus pedal gave me feedback that grew slowly and swirled around in a psychedelic way.

Can you trace your arc of evolution as a guitarist?

A lot of it was informed by whatever I was listening to. When I was young, I liked Kiss, Black Sabbath, and Aerosmith, so I learned pentatonic scales. But I didn’t like them. I was like, ‘Oh, that’s only five notes. What about the other two?’

Over time, my playing became a mish-mash of everything I loved, including MC5, Gang of Four, the no-wave compilation No New York, Ramones, Black Sabbath, Sun Ra, Ornette Coleman, Frank Zappa, and Pere Ubu.

Dropped tunings figured largely into your songs as well as those of Nirvana, Alice in Chains, and even Pearl Jam. When did you discover the technique?

I was in my young twenties and hanging out with Buzz Osborne from the Melvins. We started talking about Black Sabbath, and Buzz goes, “You know they did this thing called drop D.”

We said, “What’s that?” And Buzz says, “You tune the E string down to D, and it sounds heavier.” When I got home, I grabbed my guitar, tuned it down, and immediately realized it was much easier to play chords, so I could play faster.

What was the first song you wrote in drop D?

Nothing to Say. I showed it to everyone at practice and explained the drop D sound and they loved it. The next song I did in drop D was Flower, and then Chris wrote Beyond the Wheel.

When [bassist] Ben [Shepherd] joined us, he brought in other tunings, and [drummer] Matt [Cameron] does a drop D in G, which we called “digga digga.”

He wrote Birth Ritual with that. It was cool because we were all songwriters and always tried to turn each other on to new stuff and impress each other. Suddenly, we didn’t feel limited by the intervals in which we tuned the guitar. We could do whatever we wanted.

Chris started out as a drummer and didn’t take the stage with his guitar until after 1989. Did having him onstage change the way you played?

Yeah, and at first I was resistant to it. If I wanted to solo on songs like Incessant Mace or Beyond the Wheel, having just the bass and drums behind me freed me up. But if Chris was playing chords, it framed the parameters in which I could play, which felt limiting.

Also, I liked playing riffs on my bridge pickup and solos on my neck pickup. I liked the warm sound of that, which is the opposite of what most players do. When Chris was also playing guitar, I couldn’t cut through, so I had to move to the bridge pickup.

Was that frustrating?

It was annoying, and he didn’t know it at the time, but when he switched from a Les Paul with humbuckers to a Fender Stratocaster or Telecaster, I had to adjust my playing again because his single-coil pickups were brighter than the Les Paul pickups. That’s when I started using the wah-wah.

In addition to cutting through the mix, the wah pedal added a psychedelic splash to the songs.

It was a good addition to the sound. I wouldn’t do a regular wah-wah sweep because that’s been done to death. I wanted to be noisy, so I’d kick on the distortion and step on the wah-wah. It was screechy and screamy, so now I’ve got this weird feedback and noise, and I can do some slashing stuff.

Did you get an equipment upgrade when you signed with A&M for Loud Love?

We got an endorsement deal with Peavey, and they gave us a bunch of cabinets and amps, which built up our stage gear for tour. A few years after that, we did a deal with Mesa/Boogie. But each time we did a new deal, I’d get new heads and have to learn about their different features.

The Mesa/Boogie Rectifier had settings for “modern,” “classic,” and “standard.” Some were bright and percussive, which would be great if you're playing like Metallica, but I had to scramble to set everything to “standard” or “classic” and try to make the amp sound warmer and more like an old Fender Tweed.

Badmotorfinger (1991) was more musically complex than Louder Than Love, yet Outshined, Rusty Cage and Jesus Christ Pose were some of your biggest hits.

Chris was brilliant at taking what might seem like conventional formats and breaking them up in odd ways. Outshined is mostly in 7/4, but it was built around a great riff and had a memorable vocal line. And Rusty Cage was in drop B.

The detuned string is a little looser, so it has a slightly different sound and little overtones. It sounded heavy and incredible. So, we kept going with that. On Superunknown, The Day I Tried to Live is built on descending half steps, and it’s in 7/4. And Spoonman switches between 7/4 and 4/4.

Was becoming a multi-platinum band a double-edged sword?

No, because being famous was never a goal, and we could always sleep at night knowing our songs were still weird. But being in the position we were in was definitely strange, and you don’t know what it’s going to be like until you’re there.

You described the last album you did before your breakup, 1996’s Down on the Upside, as somewhat similar to the Beatles’ White Album, for which band members came to the table with finished songs that were recorded without much collaboration.

We were always coming in with our own ideas, but when we did that album, some people wanted their songs to sound just like their demos. It was like, “Well, we’re not making four solo albums here, we’re making a Soundgarden record.”

It bothered me a little because I write with Chris and [bassist] Ben [Shepherd] in mind, and I thought they should write with me in mind. That wasn’t happening – partly because of success and partly because of arrogance.

Was Down on the Upside a misstep?

When you’ve got a number of cooks in the kitchen, there’s always going to be a little friction. But I love the album. Every song on the record is there because the band wanted to learn it and perform it.

Were tensions mounting in the band before Ben stormed offstage during a show in Honolulu in 1997?

There were frustrations, but we were still moving forward. There have always been times when one of us might have a bad gig. We all just thought, ‘Okay, now we’ll get back on track and do the next show.’

Some have viewed that moment as the beginning of the end.

The narrative that’s out there is incorrect. It was just a fucked-up show, and it happened to be the last show of the tour. We all thought we’d wait until the next tour and everything would be fine. Then, months later, Chris decided to quit the band.

Is there a general misconception about Soundgarden among people who only know you for Spoonman and Black Hole Sun?

Thematically, Soundgarden dealt with pretty big things. We didn't write about parties or cars, and we didn't write he said/she said love songs. They were slightly grander and more psychedelic. They were about identity and orienting oneself in a creative, spiritual, and social world.

You had a tremendous comeback with your reunion tour in 2011 and the studio album that followed, King Animal, in 2012. As you’ve documented in your book, Soundgarden were firing on all cylinders when Chris took his own life on May 18, 2017.

In 2023, Chris’ widow agreed to give you the vocal tracks he recorded between 2015 and 2017 for songs you were all working on. Matt Cameron has said you’ve already got eight songs for a new album. Is it difficult to work with recordings Chris made before he died?

It’s emotionally draining and there are things about it that are sad and melancholic. But at the same time, it’s exciting to finish the work that we started with Chris. It’s a tribute to Soundgarden and a tribute to Chris. To not do this would be a great disservice to everyone, including the fans who knew we were in a writing cycle while we were touring.

Will fans recognize the album as Soundgarden?

I made an aphorism earlier about having too many cooks in the kitchen. Well, now we have one less. But we have these recordings Chris is on, and we all have a strong understanding of Chris’ identity within the band, so we are going to honor that completely, even though Chris isn’t there to throw in his two cents. So, yes, it will definitely sound like Soundgarden and I’m going to sound like me.

Do you have a release date in mind?

It’s too early to say. We’re not making this with any set deadline, and we all have other things we’re doing, so we’re fitting it into our schedules when we can. The whole process is a little sideways and backward. We’re not starting from scratch, we’re rebuilding. It’s forensic.

We’re taking things apart and seeing what we’ve got in there and what we need to add to flesh everything out. And we’re planning to take our time with it.

Has age brought you wisdom or inner peace?

Yeah, and with wisdom can come things like patience. But there was never any real major internal conflict. That wouldn’t have worked. We wouldn’t have made the records we did over a long period if it was no fun.

We probably wouldn’t have even stuck it out through [1987’s] Screaming Life. We did something untraditional because it was fun, not because it was lucrative.

• A Screaming Life is out now via William Morrow.
• This article first appeared in Guitar World. Subscribe and save.

In Guitar World’s exclusive excerpt from Kim Thayil’s memoir A Screaming Life: Into the Superunknown with Soundgarden and Beyond, the guitarist discusses the tensions that surrounded the making of 1994 masterpiece Superunknown – and admits they’d been warned about what might happen…

Alive in the Superunknown

When I first heard Chris’s demo of Black Hole Sun, I didn’t like it. Well, I recognized it as a good song, just not a Soundgarden song. If it had been written within our first six or seven years, it might never have made it to a record, because it wasn’t the kind of song that would’ve been adopted and debuted live.

We collectively would’ve said, Oh, this is kind of a cool song, but I just can’t imagine plugging in the amp and whipping it out at the Ditto Tavern or at the Rainbow. It was not a song we would have riffed on or come up with in a rehearsal. So it likely would’ve been shelved.

I knew Black Hole Sun had potential, but it wasn’t in line with the band we had been. We were a band that wrote songs together, jammed and communicated with each other onstage, presenting music that resonated with the audience.

Black Hole Sun felt more like something Chris created alone with his tape deck. Though he understood he had to write something we would all like, it didn’t align with our live, jam-heavy roots. It was more assembled and crafted, which was becoming the trend for much of our new material, including what we wrote for Badmotorfinger.

Chris was doing a large part of the songwriting, but he was making decisions as a songwriter and engineer, more so than as a musician. He was writing more for the studio than the stage, and once the record was out, we’d be tasked with figuring out how to make them work onstage.

It was on one hand liberating in that it allowed us to expand the spectrum of material we could create and the songs that we were writing. So our body of work could move into areas our previous approach never touched on.

But it was also inhibiting in that it took our musicianship, which was both our relationship to our instruments and our relationship with each other in real time, and kind of put us in a small room (a studio) with the parameters already defined.

Though I eventually embraced Black Hole Sun as a great song, Chris understood that some of his ideas would be rejected, and thankfully, it didn’t discourage him. We all had sensitivities to rejection. If we put effort into something we believed in, it could hurt when the band didn’t like it. For me, it was tough to bring a song to the table only to hear it wasn’t liked, though we’d all faced that.

Chris, though prolific, learned not to take criticism personally and didn’t second-guess himself. He took risks without worrying about the band’s judgment or how the audience would react. If the band didn’t like it, fine – there were other songs. If they did, even better, because our best work would be what we all liked, and that’s what the audience would connect with.

When we went to record our follow-up to Badmotorfinger in 1993, Chris found a like-minded partner in producer Michael Beinhorn. After working with Terry Date on our previous albums, we wanted a change. Michael had worked with bands we respected (Red Hot Chili Peppers, Soul Asylum, and some Seattle bands like Hammerbox and Love Battery), so we felt he’d understand our sound and wouldn’t radically alter our songs.

We liked the records he made. As always, we wanted someone who could capture good sounds and offer fresh ears – we didn’t need input on songwriting or arrangements, since we’d already rehearsed and preproduced most of the material. What we didn’t realize was that Michael’s approach was much more hands-on, using the studio itself as an instrument, much like Chris, crafting songs in the studio.

To a person, however, Michael’s approach – his Beinhorn-isms, that we eventually butted heads over – seemed to ultimately alienate all four of us. I can’t say that we weren’t warned, though. When word got out he was producing our next record, musician friends called us up and said, Hey, man, you might want to think twice about hiring this guy. In our arrogance, we thought, No, we know what we’re doing. We’re pretty strong-willed and assertive, and no-one’s gonna fuck with us. But it felt like to me that he did.

Michael seemed to operate under the notion that great art comes out of conflict and tension, and I often felt that he fomented this in various ways, by creating friction and conflict within the band and with him.

He would complain about the things I did and the way I did them, and he’d do the same with the rest of the band. He was also bad at eye contact. He’d chew on a straw and kind of look away while he was talking to you, which gave me the indication that he was bullshitting a lot.

Even the way he worked seemed inefficient and silly. It’s like, if you want to get to Vancouver, BC, from Seattle, you can just drive straight up Interstate 5 and you’re there. Or, you could drive east on Interstate 90 to Detroit, cross the border to Canada, drive the Trans-Canada Highway west, and end up in Vancouver, but that would be a circuitous, expensive, and time-consuming route.

I felt that Michael always took the circuitous, expensive, time-consuming route. It seemed like there was a way he felt comfortable doing things, and it didn’t jibe with the way that we wanted to do things. It was very difficult and contentious, and felt a little bit overdone and at times nitpicky. Every member of Soundgarden experienced it.

Matt turned up at the studio one day, and Michael had an excessive number of microphones set up on his relatively modest kit. It was outrageous. There were so many mics that they were impeding Matt’s access to his drums. He goes, “What the fuck is all this shit?” as he was trying to step over all the mic stands to get to his fucking drum throne.

I’ve never seen Matt that angry. He started walking around the drum kit pushing the extra mics out of his way. We ended up removing half the mics Michael put on Matt’s set, leaving just one for each drum.

Michael certainly understood things about music, but it was from the perspective of a keyboardist. He seemed oblivious as to the interests or needs of a guitarist, or at least to mine. Michael could work with Chris, because guitar wasn’t Chris’s voice yet; it wasn’t a way to express himself. To some degree, Chris was a tabula rasa and Michael could direct and mold him to accommodate his production ideas.

He had a tougher time doing that with me. I disagreed with how Michael wanted the guitar to sound and with his entire process. I knew my sound and how to achieve it with my equipment, but he spent, what I felt, was an excessive amount of time trying to dial in sounds I didn’t want, making me repeat takes endlessly.

It felt like a waste, and when it started impeding or getting in the way of my interest in playing guitar the way that I wanted to play it, I would say, “I don’t want to do that.”

Eventually, I snapped, flipped him off, grabbed my coat, and stormed out of the studio. As I walked to my van, he chased after me, lecturing me, but I flipped him off again and told him to “get Steve Vai” before driving home. That was the low point in my relationship with Michael. Ben had his own conflicts – either spitting at or throwing a mic at the control room window. Michael, though, was too scared of Ben to confront him.

Chris got so fed up with Michael’s interference that he ended up recording his own vocals. He kicked Michael out of the control room and said, “Just show me how to start, stop, and rewind the tape machine.” Michael showed him how to do that, and Chris insisted that Michael and lead engineer Jason Corsaro leave the room. He allowed the other engineer, Adam Kasper, to stay in case he needed something technical. It was hilarious.

I just don’t feel like Michael developed a relationship dynamic with us in a way that would get the best out of us. We did our best in spite of him, and sometimes by going against him. Let’s just say, it seemed to me that he didn’t make any friends in Soundgarden during the recording of Superunknown. None of us kept a relationship with him afterward.

The process was, in my opinion, unnecessarily difficult and frustrating, though the record itself turned out great. We were very happy with the album we made with Michael Beinhorn, but its success came despite, not because of, the conflict with Michael. And while it still sounds like us, there’s a different ambience, due to the production and mixing.

The biggest shift is probably Black Hole Sun, which feels more like a piano song played on guitar. The construction and arrangement were unlike tracks like Beyond the Wheel or Power Trip. But I wouldn’t say Superunknown was a huge departure – it has a different feel than Badmotorfinger, but it makes sense in the band’s growth and trajectory.

Having made Superunknown the way we did – very focused on what we could do in the studio regarding different sounds and effects – we kind of had to reinvent ourselves in order to present the songs to our fans. It seemed a little bit awkward, because it wasn’t natural for the kind of band I felt like we were and had been from the beginning.

We were no longer just being a rock band easily capable of delivering our new material as it appeared on the record. Now we had to adapt the material we created for the record to the kind of band we were live. Initially, though, Chris wanted to try to more closely represent the sounds on Superunknown.

He put a lot of time and energy into trying to replicate those tones and sounds. He went out and bought a bunch of digital rack-mounted effects and a pedal board that allowed him to click on and off preset effects. He worked with his guitar tech to design all the presets. I didn’t get this approach at all. It was antithetical to what we were about.

I thought, Fuck that. Why? That’s not natural. Something about that just felt like what the Electric Light Orchestra would do; it seemed wrong for Soundgarden. Rather than attempting to replicate what the songs sounded like in the studio, I felt like we should interpret them for our live sets.

I don’t think Chris understood that my guitar sound and style were my voice, and key to what made Soundgarden unique. Even though Chris played guitar, he wasn’t experienced enough for it to be his voice. His voice was, well, his voice. At that point, Chris used guitar mainly to record song ideas on his four-track or eight-track, so his understanding was more from an engineer’s perspective than a guitarist’s.

Before we went on tour to support Superunknown, he spent a lot of time preparing to replicate the studio sound onstage. I’d show up at rehearsal, and he’d have this elaborate digital foot pedal setup with preset effects for different songs. He’d switch between effects for Hands All Over or Loud Love, then kick on a roto vibe for the verse of Black Hole Sun and a Leslie cabinet for the chorus. It started to feel really corny.

My attitude toward all of this began to cause some friction. Chris would come in hours before rehearsal with his guitar tech to work out the presets, and when I’d turn up he’d say, “Aren’t you going to do any of this?” I already had more pedals than I needed, so why would I want to start using digital mounts? I’d be just getting further away from being a guitarist and I’d start becoming something else. I was not into that.

Chris may have taken that as a slap against what he was doing. I think he saw himself as doing work and the rest of us weren’t putting in as much effort. But we felt that he was trying to build something that we didn’t need, and that wasn’t us.

I admit, I didn’t want to change the nature of how I played and how I wanted a guitar to feel on my fingers, because that was the kind of guitarist I’d been for the last eighteen years. That was my voice. It wasn’t just what came out of the amp. It was what my fingers were doing on the fretboard. I saw no need to change, not even for Black Hole Sun.

• Excerpted from the book A Screaming Life: Into the Superunknown with Soundgarden and Beyond by Kim Thayil. Copyright © 2026 by Kim Thayil. From William Morrow, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers. Reprinted by permission.

Seattle in the ’90s has reached mythological status. A time when the world focused its collective attention on a tiny scene of bands that had nothing in common other than a love of distortion, riffs and authenticity.

It gave birth to household names – chiefly the ‘big four’ of grunge: Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains and Soundgarden – but it also snuffed out the candle for some of its most iconic musicians.

Drugs and depression were an undercurrent that swept through the city like the Duwamish River. Kurt Cobain, Andy Wood, Layne Staley were all claimed by addiction. Chris Cornell and Mark Lanegan left longer legacies, but were still taken too soon.

For Pearl Jam guitarist Mike McCready, they were friends and bandmates. People he misses dearly. And the grief hit him all over again during the Covid lockdown.

“I was sitting around thinking about the singers that had died in our scene,” he tells me from his studio over Zoom. “I’ve had dreams about some of them and they haunt me sometimes. I was thinking, ‘Was it worth it for all these guys and women?’”

He didn’t know how to answer that question. He sought solace the only way he knew how: through art. Writing it all down seemed the best place to start.

“I could only write what I know. But I wanted to do it in the context of a historical fiction of the Seattle music scene. And I wanted to change the names and create its own world within it.”

McCready’s name is intertwined more than most. He got his first break when Cornell invited him to play on Temple of the Dog, the Soundgarden frontman’s tribute to his departed friend and roommate Andy Wood. Pearl Jam formed at the same time. A later stint in rehab sparked Mad Season, his part side-project, part therapy with Layne Staley and Mark Lanegan.

This new project, however, was outside his comfort zone, so he sought advice from friend, director and lifelong Pearl Jam fan Cameron Crowe. He was convinced: this could be a rock opera.

But not just yet. A stage show is still on the cards, but Farewell to Seasons is releasing first as a graphic novel that tells the story of Seattle through four fictional bands.

It’s packaged with a soundtrack album that features all-new songs from McCready, who is also singing for the first time, alongside a band of Seattle music vets including Duff McKagan, Dave Matthews bassist Stefan Lessard, Fastbacks drummer Mike Mussburger, Chris Friel, Nate Yaccino and Thunderpussy’s Molly Sides.

While it was challenging on both practical and emotional levels, McCready ultimately found the project cathartic. In a candid interview, he revisits his favorite musical eureka moments, the Seattle guitarists who most inspired him, and just what’s next for Pearl Jam.

You said you’re haunted by these ghosts. It must have been challenging to dig into the history of the Seattle scene and your part in it, given how many friends and fellow musicians you’ve lost along the way.

It was. It’s hard to think about the whole scene and how young and naive everyone was, and how much this explosion happened in this relatively provincial small city of Seattle, Washington, where everybody knew each other.

I was playing in a band prior to all that called Shadow, and I wanted to put that in the story as well. That’s one of the bands that’s actually named after the real band.

I felt like we never really got the props that we should have over the years, because we were 16 and playing all around the Northwest and doing shows. We broke up when everything started happening. I spent my 10,000 hours with that band, and I’m very proud of that era.

But later, getting to play with Layne or Chris or Lanegan, all these incredible singers, and now they’re gone. Kurt, for that matter – I didn’t know him at all really, other than him being an incredible singer-songwriter. Even Hendrix. What would they be doing now? Would they be blues artists? Would they be painters? That’s what haunts me to this day.

You moved to L.A. with Shadow to try and make it. When did you realize it hadn’t panned out?

About a year in, I got really sick with Crohn’s. We played a bunch of shows down there. Rick Friel, our bass player at the time, booked all the shows and made it all happen. We opened up for Andy Taylor. I got to see some cool stuff – I saw Jane’s Addiction at a club; I saw the Welcome to the Jungle video shoot.

The reason we moved down there was that Duff McKagan stopped by the Shadow house in ’84, and said he was moving to Los Angeles. And we were like, “There’s something to that.” And then a year later, they put out that EP [Live ?!★꩜ Like a Suicide].

It was a year of me working at Aaron’s Records, drinking too much, getting Crohn’s, going, “I can’t do this anymore.” So I moved back and I gave up. I quit playing music for two years from ’88, ’89. I was done. And then I got a call out of the blue from Stone.

What do you remember about that moment when you first played together with Stone? That must have been pivotal for you as a guitar player, to come back to the instrument after almost giving up.

When I got the call from Stone, I was working at a pizza place and I had given up. I was depressed and probably drinking too much. I was at my friend Tim DiJulio’s house, playing to a Stevie Ray Vaughan record – so I was still playing a little bit. And [Stone] saw that – I remember him walking in when Love Bone was still happening. But I had known him since seventh grade – Seattle was very small in the ’80s and in the early ’90s before it blew up. We all knew each other, we all went to the same parties.

When we started playing together, selfishly, I was like, “’Okay, this seems to be my door. I better walk through it.” I always think of this Paul Westerberg quote: “Opportunity knocks once and the door slams shut.” After me going through LA and not making it and being depressed, all of a sudden this thing happens when I’m not looking for it. And out of a death – Andy Wood dies. That was an interesting musical paradox early on for me.

It was exciting. It was new. Who knew what was going to happen? But I felt like we connected first through humor. And then, he just had a ton of riffs and when we started playing, I wanted to do something opposite of what he was doing. Kind of like Aerosmith did stuff – early Aerosmith was in my mind back then – and I was going to be the lead guy, I guess, was his thought.

Farewell to Seasons starts with a young teenager, David Williams – who is based on you – jamming in his bedroom. Can you remember the moment you got your first guitar and started jamming in your bedroom?

It was late 1978, early ’79. Мy dear friend Danny Newcomb, who was the guitar player for Shadow, lived on my block and we were both 11. And I met Rick and Chris Friel. I’m a Cub Scout playing soccer, and all of a sudden I see this Kiss lunchbox that my friend Rick has. Those guys are playing and then I join them within six months.

We’re playing shows at 12 years old – our drummer’s eight. We started playing right away at talent shows in junior high. We rented a church out called the Unitarian Church. I just found a ticket for it the other day – it was a dollar. The Friel house is where everybody went and we would rehearse there all the time, three hours a day, five days a week for five or six years.

What was that first guitar?

It was a $100 Matao Les Paul, black. It was pretty good. It had a good neck on it. I smashed it and then I fixed it. I was doing that early and I kind of regretted it. I was 12 and I threw it in the air at this talent show – there’s a picture of me chucking it in the air in one of the Pearl Jam books. Yeah, I was way into The Who. [laughs]

Another thing that really struck me is how the novel depicts your life with Crohn’s disease. David’s parents say, “All he does is use the bathroom and play guitar.” Did playing guitar help you deal with Crohn’s?

[Laughs] I think it’s a little harsh on my parents because they were really supportive, actually. But for story’s sake, we kept it in there.

The pain that comes with Crohn’s disease – which feels unbearably bad in your gut, and it’s embarrassing and you shit yourself, and all sorts of stuff I’ve had happen to me over the years – I believe my playing got better because of that.

And it also got me back to Seattle from L.A. – so I look at it as a catalyst. This is with perspective; when I had it, it sucked and I thought my life was over. And it turns out it wasn’t. Luckily there’s a lot more medications and diets now than when I got it. I continue to work with the Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation because of that.

But yes, I think it helped – it made me play deeper, hopefully. It was an antidote. Guitar is an antidote to many things for me.

And of course, you had your own addiction problems, but guitar was always there. You even formed Mad Season out of rehab.

As I was spiraling in my addiction and alcoholism in the early ’90s, I luckily got into rehab. I got out and I was kind of naive – like, “I want to get everybody sober along with me.”

Layne was my friend, I saw him struggling and I wanted to help him out, but also wanted to create music with him because I was sober for the first time. It gave me confidence, whereas I didn’t really have the confidence as much with Pearl Jam because everybody was such great writers for those first three records.

Mad Season allowed me to explore my writing abilities with Layne and my friend Baker [Saunders], and then I always wanted to play with Barrett [Martin] because he was this great drummer for the Screaming Trees.

The premise of it was to help Layne or help all of us… but everybody’s got to help themselves. I had to find out the hard way.

Collaboration was such an important part of the Seattle scene. What are the jams and recording sessions that really stick in your mind?

We did a cover of Hey Baby (New Rising Sun) by Hendrix with myself, Chris Cornell, Matt Cameron, and Jeff Ament [as M.A.C.C.]. Those guys [Soundgarden] were in recording one of their records and I just came by and said, “Hey, I’ve got an opportunity to do a Hendrix song. Do you want to do this?” And they were all up for it. We got to do that song during their session. Watching Chris sing on that one…

I had seen him obviously when we did Temple of the Dog. Temple was probably the first life-changing experience for me in terms of, “Okay, now I’m playing on this thing that’s very important.” This was a tribute to Andy Wood that Chris had written and I wanted to be very conscious of that but also play my ass off.

Prior to that, it was a big learning experience for me to let go, and Chris allowed me to let go and play all over that record. He was always super-cool to me and super-cool to Ed [Vedder]. So I’ll love him dearly forever for that situation.

Playing with Layne was great – the thing about Layne was that he would never talk shit about anybody. We’re all shit-talkers in Seattle, very passive[-aggressive]. Layne wouldn’t. He was funny and had a good heart. So when I got to play with him and I was trying to get sober, it was a mixed bag of emotions. I felt very proud of the project, but I was worried at the same time: am I getting too close to this? Could this be bad for me?

Playing with Ed for the first time [in 1990] was amazing. We were listening to some old tapes when he first got here – he recorded stuff on a boombox, and I went, “Fuck, this guy is good.” It was the first time I was in a situation where everybody was really firing on all cylinders when Pearl Jam first got together. And that was going on at the same time as Temple. A lot was happening very quickly.

Who were the guitarists that had the biggest impact on you from the Seattle scene?

Clearly the most obvious would be Hendrix, which is the scene before, but he made it in England and we all know the history of all that. I love to hear Kim [Thayil] play – he’s got an interesting style. He hits a chord differently than I hit; that allows him to move his fingers in that way in those Soundgarden songs.

I like Jerry’s style – he’s a great writer. Getting to see all those guys play was really fun, and getting to tour and open up for Alice in Chains when we were Mookie Blaylock was a fun time. Steve Turner and Mark Arm just beat the hell out of the guitars and there’s a relentless punk energy there, so that’s fun to watch.

The thing that surprised me about the Seattle scene is everybody’s so different, and this very small scene turned out to be huge. Kurt, of course, was a great guitar player in his way, as a songwriter – getting to see that live was incredible, too.

I’ve got to get to the inevitable Pearl Jam questions: what’s next and when are we going to find out who the drummer is?

We’re on a holding pattern right now because I’m working on this and Ed’s going to Japan. We’re going to find somebody. We don’t have anybody right this second to announce. I wish I did. I’m dying to play. We’ll make it happen – I’m excited to see where our future is. Everybody still wants to do it.

Were you surprised when Matt Cameron announced he was leaving?

I was kind of surprised. I think Matt was getting tired of being on the road; he’s paid his dues over the years and I wish him the best. It just wasn’t working for him anymore going on the road, and that’s OK.

We’ve been around a long time, and Matt was a huge reason we are still around; we were lucky to have him for 27 years. I was a little surprised and sad, but I also love him and I wish him the best.

Lastly, is there any new guitar gear that’s impressing you? Last time we spoke you were raving about Fender’s digital Tone Master amps, and lately you’ve been running FRFR cabs.

My guitar tech, Josh Schreibeis, has designed an amp modeling system and I think it’s made me play better. I used it on the Dark Matter tour. I love the consistency of it. [McCready’s live system is based around the Fractal Axe-Fx III – Ed]

I love the Tone Master [Pro] – I have it right here and I play on it every day [at home]. I can pick up any kind of pedal on that thing and it sounds pretty great.

I know there’s purists that probably aren’t into that, but I felt like my amp modeling system along with the old analog stuff has made me a better guitar player.

I can say, “Hey, I want this to sound heavier,” and he’ll go, “Okay, bam, it’s heavier.” He knows the technical stuff, and I know the verbiage – like, “Make it sound like The Byrds in 1966.”

I think it was the consistency of the amps over the Dark Matter tour that pushed me to play better than I have ever done. I just felt more confident.

• Farewell to Seasons is released on October 6 2026 via Z2 Comics.

The 40th Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony took place over the weekend (November 8), and as usual the event was filled with star-studded collaborations.

The White Stripes, Bad Company, Soundgarden, Carol Kaye, Cyndi Lauper, Joe Cocker, Outkast and Chubby Checker were all among the Rock Hall’s Class of 2025, along with Warren Zevon, Thom Bell, Nicky Hopkins, Lenny Waronker and Salt N Pepa.

Soundgarden were inducted by Jim Carrey, who paid tribute to the band’s late singer Chris Cornell, remembering the time they crossed paths on Saturday Night Live – and was gifted a prized electric guitar signed by all Soundgarden members.

“I met the band in 1996 when I was hosting Saturday Night Live for the very first time, and I insisted on Soundgarden as the musical guest,” Carrey remembered. “By then, the lineup was Chris [Cornell], Kim Thayil, Matt Cameron on drums, and Ben Shepherd on bass. They launched into the dark, epic beauty of Pretty Noose.

“I stood right in front of them, letting the waves of electricity wash over me, like an audio baptism. They pushed me under and when I came up I was free.

“After the show, they handed me what is to this day, one of my most prized possessions. The Fender Telecaster Chris played on the show, signed by the whole band.

“Tonight, we make sure that Chris Cornell, Kim Thayil, Hiro Yamamoto, Matt Cameron and Ben Shepherd go down in history as one of the most majestic, powerful and influential bands ever to be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Long live Chris Cornell. Long live Soundgarden.”

Carrey’s tributes to Cornell and Soundgarden were accompanied by a performance from the surviving members of the band, who were fronted by Taylor Momsen and Brandi Carlile for covers of Rusty Cage and Black Hole Sun, respectively.

It was a heroic outing for grunge music. For Soundgarden’s set, Pearl Jam’s Mike McCready – wielding a Gibson Les Paul for the occasion – doubled up Thayil’s riffs on Rusty Cage, while Alice in Chains’ Jerry Cantrell layered up the leads for Black Hole Sun with his G&L Rampage.

It wasn’t the only performance dedicated to Soundgarden and Cornell. Toni, Chris’ daughter, was joined by Nancy Wilson for an acoustic rendition of Fell on Black Days, performed underneath an in memoriam photograph of the late vocalist.

Elsewhere on the docket, The White Stripes were honored by pop-rock duo twenty one pilots, who performed Seven Nation Army, and Olivia Rodrigo, who – fresh from her festival-stealing Glasto headline set – joined Feist with her acoustic guitar to sing We’re Going to Be Friends.

Flea also played bass for Stevie Wonder on a cover of Sly & The Family Stone’s Dance to the Music, and The Killers honored Warren Zevon with a performance of Lawyers, Guns and Money. Zevon was inducted by David Letterman, who, in his own speech, also recalled the time Zevon had gifted him a guitar.

Derek Trucks and Susan Tedeschi closed out the show with a cover of The Beatles’ With a Little Help From My Friends. Bryan Adams, Cyndi Lauper and Chris Robinson were among the song’s guest stars.

Trucks and his trusty Gibson SG were on guitar duty for the song, and though the spotlight was firmly on the singers, he still found room for some trademark fingerstyle licks sans slide.

You can catch up on the 40th Annual Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony and rewatch all the action at Disney+.

Soundgarden bass player Ben Shepherd has opened up on the fears he harbored going into what would prove to be Chris Cornell's final tour before he died.

The Seattle heavyweights toured the US in 2017, but the run of dates was cut short following Chris Cornell’s death in May that year. Even before they hit the road, Shepherd felt uneasy.

“I always thought we were going to be weird old men sitting out in the cabin he owned in the woods, laughing about everything. He really wanted to meet my son Noah, and he never got to,” Shepherd tells Bass Magazine of the impact of Cornell's passing.

“I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how the night before we left for the tour, I knew that something bad was going to happen,” he continues. “Something came over me, and I deeply felt like I couldn’t do it. I went around and said goodbye to my family. I could feel it.

“We were making the same mistake we always did, which was interrupting making our record in the studio to go play some tour for some reason.”

The band's last album, King Animal, came in 2012. At the time, it was their first record in 16 years, and landed after Soundgarden reformed in 2010. That was later followed by a collection of B-sides and rarities, Echo of Miles, but the record they were writing before that ill-fated tour was never finished.

At first, the band was hesitant to continue without Cornell, and have only taken the stage for a string of charity shows in the intervening years, including one fronted by Guns N’ Roses’ bassist and fellow Seattle native Duff McKagan. But the situation has since shifted.

Speaking to MusicRadar in 2019, guitarist Kim Thayil confirmed that they were looking to complete their demoed material, but the Cornell estate was holding onto the frontman's recordings.

The dispute, which stretched several years, was resolved out of court in 2023, and back in May, Thayil said the new album “would be a great gift to the fans.”

In his Bass Magazine chat, Shepherd confirmed that Terry Date – who has worked with Korn, Deftones, and the Smashing Pumpkins – will be producing the new LP. He first worked with the group on 1989's Louder Than Love, and its 1991 follow-up, Badmotorfinger.

"The first song we did together, the mighty one – seems when you first hear the demo, it’s not powerful at all," Shepherd says of the new material. "And then when you start playing it you’re like, Holy hell! I blistered my hands trying to play those parts.

"I was like, Thanks, Cornell. He and Kim always throw some wild riff in there that you have to nail. It’s just intuitive for them. I’ve always been amazed by those two, and that song is just whomping. These songs have been flooring me with how powerful they are."

The band is set to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame this weekend, alongside a Seattle-heavy cast of vocalists, including Brandi Carlisle, the Pretty Reckless’ Taylor Momsen, and Jerry Cantrell.

Soundgarden has previously performed with Carlisle, who said she hoped to be the band’s new singer in 2021.

Joe Satriani has paid tribute to late Soundgarden frontman Chris Cornell with an instrumental cover of Audioslave’s Be Yourself.

The track, which also features drummer Kenny Aronoff, is part of bassist Mark Menghi’s King Ultramega project – an ongoing tribute to the singer in honor of Soundgarden’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inauguration in November.

Satriani eases back on the fretboard fireworks in the cover, translating Cornell’s vocal line and Tom Morello’s sparse lead lines into more of a laid-back, low-gain bluesy vamp than you might expect from an Audioslave cover.

Only when it gets to Morello’s wah-wah solo does Satch engage the drive and add some modal embellishments, otherwise dialing into the pure melody of Cornell’s vocals.

“[Chris Cornell] was a brilliant vocalist and communicator,” says Satriani. “He often used his voice like an instrument, shaping the tone of his voice like a guitarist would finesse riffs and phrases.

“I took a deep dive into his magical sensibilities and came up with a multi-tracked guitar production approach that I felt would pay proper homage to his brilliance.”

“I remember like it was yesterday,” adds Menghi. “I was on a run through some crazy trail, just zoning out and the original song came on through my headphones… as I was running, I remember hearing Chris sing, ‘to be yourself is all that you can do,’ it was like he was talking to me… then thought to myself, ‘I can totally hear this as an instrumental a-la Satch style…’

“My hope is that whomever is listening to this song hears Chris over Joe’s guitar and understands that we are paying homage to Chris with our take on this tune.”

The song follows King Ultramega’s previous cover of Soundgarden classic Rusty Cage, which featured Mastodon’s Bill Kelliher and Alice in Chains’ William DuVall.

Be Yourself is out now. Proceeds from the track go towards addiction recovery and mental health nonprofit MusiCares.

Soundgarden guitarists Kim Thayil and Chris Cornell's preference for tunings that go beyond drop D is no secret. Indeed, alternate tunings became a significant part of the band's sound – so much so that they influenced the rest of the Seattle scene, including Nirvana and Alice in Chains.

One such tuning was EEBBBE – used in My Wave and The Day I Tried to Live (from 1994's Superunknown) – as well as the notorious EEEEEE (yes, that's six Es) on Mind Riot (from 1991's Badmotorfinger).

“Chris came up with that. I think that was from a conversation he had with [Pearl Jam’s] Jeff Ament, possibly during the Temple of the Dog period,” Thayil told Guitar World in a 2021 interview. “I think Jeff jokingly said, ‘Could you imagine tuning the guitar to all Es? Wouldn't that be crazy? That'd be dumb.’

“And Chris thought, ‘What would happen if you did that?’ So he tried it and wrote a song with that. It's hilarious in that one case, how a musician might think it’d be a crazy and goofy thing to do, but a member of Soundgarden thinks, ‘Hell yeah, let's do that.’ Of course, Chris could get a song out of a weird tuning like that.”

Another artist who decided to tune all his guitar strings to the same pitch? Lou Reed – whose pre-Velvet Underground project, the Primitives (alongside future Velvet member John Cale) released The Ostrich as a parody of dance crazes like The Twist.

In typical Reed fashion, he pushed the envelope by opting for DDDDDD, a curious tuning which, for obvious reasons, has since been dubbed “Ostrich tuning.”

In more recent Soundgarden news, earlier this year, Thayil spoke about potential plans to release the band's final album with Cornell, following years of multiple lawsuits.

Soundgarden’s Kim Thayil has spoken out about potential plans to release the band's final album with late frontman Chris Cornell – which, for years, was left in a state of limbo following multiple lawsuits.

When asked by Rolling Stone whether fans can expect to finally get their hands on the record, Thayil responded, “I think so. Our objective and goal was always to complete that.

“I probably have OCD enough to not want to leave something unfinished or incomplete like that, so I think the more we can attend to our body of work and our catalog… I think everyone in the band feels that way. I don’t just [want] to attend to my work, but the collective work, and in this case specifically, the work of Chris.”

Thayil asserted that he has immense pride in what he’s done, and as a result, wants to see the album out.

“It doesn’t exist in the vacuum. It exists as a collaboration with Matt [Cameron, drummer] and Ben [Shepherd, bassist] and Chris, but it takes on an entirely different weight when you think about what it is you’re honoring, and the work that you’re paying tribute to.

“It would be a great gift to the fans. And I do think about this, and I don’t know how strange this sounds, but I feel like it’s a gift to Chris too,” he concluded.

Vicky Cornell, Chris Cornell’s widow, first sued the remaining members of Soundgarden in federal court in 2019 over recordings that she and her team alleged Cornell had made as part of a solo project – but which the band insisted were created as part of their partnership with him.

The seven disputed recordings were made by Cornell in his Miami Beach studio months before his death in May 2017. The lawsuit also alleged that the band was withholding hundreds of thousands of dollars in royalties from Vicky Cornell and the couple’s children. It was eventually settled via an amicable out-of-court resolution.

Despite being eligible for induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame since 2012, Soundgarden finally made the cut this year, alongside the White Stripes, Bad Company, and Carol Kaye, among many others.

Gary Lucas has been called the “thinking man’s guitar hero” – but based on his work with Captain Beefheart, Jeff Buckley and Chris Cornell, perhaps he should be known as “the tortured artist’s guitar player” instead.

“Well, I’ve been tortured aplenty,” he laughs, telling Guitar World, “It’s a wonder I’m still here. But there’s no more joyful experience than getting onstage and turning a crowd of people on. I take them on trips; it’s a beautiful exchange of energy. I think there’s something about that that causes a resonance; it can produce shivers.”

Lucas admits that breaking the US market as a solo artist has been harder than in Europe’s; but that hasn’t stopping him trying. He plays two West Coast shows later this month.

Asked what audiences can expect, Lucas says: “A lot of is based on the feedback I get while playing. I can read the room and tell if people are getting bored. I like to switch things up very fast and watch people smile.

“I like the idea of taking a guitar and using it as a magic wand. My goal is to sort of astonish people – have them say, ‘Boy… I’ve never heard a guitar played like that before!’”

You’ve got two shows coming up. What’s the story there?

“One show is in Seattle, where I’ve never played, at a place called The Triple Door, on March 25. And on March 27, I’m in Mill Valley at the Sweetwater Music Hall. That place is owned and operated by Bob Weir.”

You’ve sat in with Bob before, right?

“I had the pleasure of sitting in with him at the Atlantic Jazz Festival in New York. I had my National steel guitar, this 1920s one, which he thought would be good to play with him. I got on stage and everybody was wearing in-ear monitors – there were no stage monitors. So I’m sitting there, and it was just dead strings being strummed. But I’m a pretty good improviser, so I can normally wing it.”

You’ve been called the “thinking man’s guitar hero.” What are your thoughts on that?

“I try to bring my sensibility. I’m an avid reader and an eclectic listener, and I have a good memory. I don’t play down; I like to take people on trips. I want to elevate people and turn them onto obscure corners of the musical genius that inspired me.”

Have you always been passionate about music and guitar?

“When I was a little boy, the first thing that really got my attention was an R&B song by Thurston Harris called Little Bitty Pretty One. It’s a really rollicking number, and it’s beautiful. And Duane Eddy danced with a guitar, man. I was like, ‘I want to play guitar.’”

How much of your sensibility was cultivated with Captain Beefheart?

“He was like a university on guitar. His whole approach was unique. He once said, ‘The guitar is merely a standup piano.’ He insisted that I string my ’64 Stratocaster with the heaviest gauge strings. They were like piano strings, man. They were painful for my fingers!

“He stretched me technically. There were these arrangement exercises that were like symphonic pieces, and done as solo guitar arrangements using all my fingers – you know, playing conceptually. I had to teach myself these techniques in order to play Beefheart’s music.”

What were those techniques?

“For instance, fingerpicking. For years, I was a flat-pick guy who could emulate the sound of fingerpicking with rapid strokes. But that wasn’t fingerpicking, and he insisted on it. He was also trying to get me to use metal fingerpicks and a thumbpick.

“I found that too cumbersome. I met him in the middle, discarded the metal fingerpicks, and was able to use the same effects using my bare flesh, including my thumb and all the pads of my fingers.”

That must have required a serious build-up of your calluses.

“I played it methodically enough; not as much as to get blood blisters, but enough to toughen up the pads at the end of the fingers. I realized, ‘OK, I can do an alternating bassline with my thumb, get a really good driving rhythm going, and make changes and accents falling under the notes.’”

What was your most challenging composition with Beefheart?

“One of the things he had me arrange on guitar was a piece called Evening Bell. He wrote it on piano, sent me a cassette and said, ‘Learn that on guitar.’ He didn’t write music – that was not in his skillset.

“I go, ‘Well you’re using all 10 of your fingers on the piano, and there’s only six strings on a guitar. How am I supposed to do that?’ He goes, ‘You better find another four strings, man!’ Meaning, ‘Do the best you can,’ I guess.”

Beefheart was notorious for being ill-tempered with his band. How did that impact you as a player?

“I met Johnny Depp and he asked, ‘How did you get that sound?’ I said, ‘Beefheart used to holler at us a lot right before recording. He liked it when we were on the edge and nervous.’ You can hear that a little bit in our playing.

“He had an idea he called ‘the exploding note theory’ – he said, ‘Just play every note as if it has no relation to the previous or subsequent note.’ He saw them as like bombs bursting, or something like fireworks. The trick was not to bore people and always switch it up.”

That boot camp must have served you well with Jeff Buckley. How did you start working with him?

“I’ve not talked about this a lot, but I can reveal it now. Rise Up to Be and And You Will – which became Grace and Mojo Pin – came about when I’d just gotten home from a tour in Holland. I’d started working with Jeff, but I had a deal with Columbia Records to make a record with a female singer.

“It was a version of Gods and Monsters, based on my songwriting and guitar, but it was like a seven-piece band. I got into this contract; and about a year into it, we were struggling over stupid things and we hadn’t gone into the studio. So I got home from that tour, and the A&R guy called and said, ‘We’ve decided to drop your project.’

“I was flabbergasted – I was like, ‘How can you do that? We have a written contract.’ He said, ‘You can’t afford to sue us. But maybe we can have lunch one day.’ Click; he hung up. My wife was saying, ‘What are you gonna do? We don’t have health insurance; you left your day job.’ I said, ‘I know I have talent. I’ve got to stick to my guns.’

“I had Jeff Buckley waiting in the wings. We’d already written a song together. I rang him up in LA and he said, ‘I’ll be your singer.’ He was excited. Next day, I sat down and said, ‘I’ve got to come up with some music.’ It flowed out of me – and I finally felt comfortable. I got it down, put it on a cassette, and sent it to Jeff snail mail.”

How did Jeff like what you sent him?

“He called me up and said, ‘They’re beautiful, man. I’ve got some ideas. I’m coming to New York in a couple of weeks,’ which he did. I have a tape in my archive where I’m sitting on the couch with a guitar, and Jeff is standing over me, going, ‘OK, start. You know this one called Rise Up to Be? Now it’s called Grace.’

“He pulled out a notebook with lyrics and doodles, like a poet’s notebook. He started singing, and that was Grace. The first run-through, it was pretty intact. His only modification was when he said, ‘Okay, double this part,’ or ‘Play this section twice – I feel I’ve got more lyrics here.’ Otherwise, the beauty of working with him was that he left things alone.”

You and Jeff had remarkable chemistry. Has it ever been like that with someone else?

“He’s the best collaborator I ever had. I trusted him totally. Whatever I gave this guy, I knew he was gonna come back with some perfect, complementary part. When we went to record he had it all worked out. I was just sitting there like, ‘Oh, my God,’ listening to him. I was always in a group with a God-like lead singer – that’s the template!”

Speaking of God-like lead singers, what was it like working with Chris Cornell?

“He was phenomenal, man. He was a real gentleman. Out of the blue, I got a call from Steve Lillywhite, who said, ‘I’m producing Chris’s new album and he’d really like you to play on it.’

“The deal was I’d do one studio day with him in LA. I flew out there, went in on a Monday morning, and he threw a lot of music at me! At the end of the day he said, ‘Can you be here all week? I’m really digging your playing.’

“So I stayed until the end of the week. I think, on that Carry On album, I’m on at least eight tracks. That included a shred solo I did on his cover of Michael Jackson’s Billie Jean. That’s controversial among the fans, but Chris loved it. He was going for it, you know?”

Did he give you a lot of freedom?

“I gave him some little lines and bits to support the songs. I offered him some material on instrumentals, like I had with Jeff, but he didn’t really pursue it. I know one of the reasons Audioslave broke up was an issue over who wrote what.

“I think it’s in the nature to try and keep all the writing and publishing as much as possible. That’s fine; I’m very proud of having worked on it. And I wish he was still here. I couldn’t believe he passed away. I didn’t see that coming.”

You’ve said that your goal is to “throw light on the dark corners of culture that have been unfairly neglected”.

“In my life, I’ve been a connector. It’s important to spread the word, as an artist, of things that give me joy and that people might have overlooked. I’m for the underdogs. Beefheart, in a way, is the ultimate underdog. The odds of him ever getting into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame are not good, despite his influence.

“It’s important to talk these people up. I try to give props to people who were unfairly overlooked. It’s just a good thing to do. If people support fellow human beings instead of being envious, which is a bad look, the world will be in better shape.”

• Lucas plays The Triple Door, Seattle, WA on Mar 25 and Sweetwater Music Hall, Mill Valley, CA on Mar 27. See GaryLucas.com for tickets.

Gary Lucas remains an under-the-radar guitar hero. A prolific collaborator, the mercurial guitarist is best known for conjuring the six-string wizardry that formed the backbone of Jeff Buckley epics Grace and Mojo Pin.

But the former Captain Beefheart member also lent his talents to another of rock’s all-time greatest voices in Chris Cornell, when he appeared on his 2007 solo album, Carry On – the singer’s first since leaving rock supergroup Audioslave.

In a new interview with Guitar World, Lucas looked back at the sessions with the Soundgarden icon, describing him as “a real gentleman”.

“Out of the blue, I got a call from [producer] Steve Lillywhite, who said, ‘I’m producing Chris’ new album. He’d really like you to play on it,’” Lucas says.

“The deal was I’d do one studio day with him in LA. I flew out there, went in on a Monday morning, and he threw a lot of music at me. [laughs]

“I played a lot, and at the end of the day, he came back and said, ‘Listen, can you be here all week? I’m really digging your guitar playing.’”

Lucas would go on to play guitar on the bulk of the album’s tracklisting, including Cornell’s unlikely cover of Michael Jackson’s Billie Jean.

“I stayed there until the end of the week. I think, on that Carry On album, I’m on at least eight tracks [Lucas plays on tracks three through 14].

“That included a shred solo I did on his cover of Billie Jean. That’s controversial among the fans, but I don’t know… he loved it. He was going for it, you know?”

Although Lucas proposed some songwriting ideas during the sessions, his role was primarily to be a session guitarist – and that involvement remains a standout moment in his career.

“I gave him some music, little lines, and bits to support the songs. He was a very good songwriter. I offered him some material on instrumentals, like I had with Jeff, but he didn’t really pursue it.

“I’m very proud of having worked on it – and I wish that he was still here. I couldn’t believe that he passed away. It was so horrible and a big shock to me. I didn’t see that coming.”

Gary Lucas is one of many shared connections between the two rock icons.

After a brief friendship in the ’90s, Cornell helped to compile Buckley’s posthumous collection Sketches (For My Sweetheart the Drunk), alongside the late singer’s mother Mary Guibert.

She would go on to gift Cornell a red telephone that was once owned by Buckley, which accompanied the Soundgarden singer onstage during his Songbook acoustic tours.

Cornell also wrote Wave Goodbye, which appeared on 1999 solo effort Euphoria Morning, in tribute to Buckley.

Back when it was announced that Joe Satriani and Steve Vai would be forming a band together, much buzz abounded about who would fill the band out.

Earlier this month, that question was answered with the unveiling of the group's full lineup – Pete Thorn on rhythm guitar, Marco Mendoza on bass, and Kenny Aronoff on drums. Hence what was already a supergroup became even more of a dream team.

Thorn idolized both Vai and Satriani as a young guitarist, and got to know them through his years as a sideman for everyone from Don Henley, Melissa Etheridge, and, most prominently, Chris Cornell.

Cornell's tragic death in 2017 hit Thorn hard, and the guitarist – in an effort to get out a little bit – attended a gig of Vai's just two nights after his friend's death. It was there that his future bandmate became much more than just one of his guitar heroes.

The gig in question was the 2017 Malibu Guitar Festival, a few years after an initial friendly encounter between the two.

“It was two days after Chris Cornell had passed,” Thorn recalled in a new interview with Guitar World. “A friend who did some work for Steve invited me to get me out of the house. I really was in a funk, obviously, super-sad, but I decided I should go. After Steve played, I was summoned to come to the little backstage area.

“Steve motioned for me to come over, then sat with me and proceeded to say, and I'm paraphrasing a bit, ‘I know you lost your friend, and I just want you to know that you can still have a relationship with him, it's too soon now, but the time will come where you think of them, and it'll be good thoughts, happy, good memories.’

“I will never forget that,” Thorn continued. “Here, I'd lost a close friend and collaborator, and a hero of mine, from the time I was 11 years old or so, took the time to console me.

“And that's Steve. He has an amazing ability to make you feel seen; I believe he genuinely cares about what others are doing and what they are up to; he always asks about you and how you are every time.”

Keep your eyes out for the full Guitar World interview with Thorn – which also covers the guitarist's time in Henley and Etheridge's bands, and how his rig has slimmed down over the years – in the coming weeks.

Soundgarden’s surviving members recently reunited for the first time since 2021 to perform a six-song set at a benefits concert in Seattle.

Stepping out for a brief encore as part of the 13th annual SMooCH concert in aid Seattle Children’s Hospital’s uncompensated care fund on December 14, Kim Thayil, Matt Cameron, and Ben Shepherd enlisted some notable help for the occasion.

Seattle-based singer-songwriter Shaina Shepherd fronted the band in place of the late Chris Cornell. The set, made up almost entirely of Soundgarden songs, was bookended by Hunted Down and a cover of the MC5’s Kick Out The Jams. Guns N’ Roses star Duff McKagan provided support on Kickstand and that raucous set closer. Outshined, Flower and Beyond the Wheel also featured on the setlist.

Thayil, whose signature Guild guitars finally landed late last year, donned another interesting Guild for the performance. The electric guitar features Guild’s offset Surfliner body, but unlike the Fender-style headstock of the standard production models, it has the Gibson-esque shape as seen on his signature guitars.

He also brought out his go-to SG-alike Guild Polara guitars, while McKagan made light work of a Fender Telecaster on Kick Out The Jams.

The band were performing under the moniker Nudedragons, an anagram of Soundgarden. It was the first time Nudedragons had been used for a concert in 14 years, after Soundgarden debuted the name to perform a surprise set in 2010.

Thayil, Shepherd and Cameron had reunited in 2021 to perform with Brandi Carlile.

Since Soundgarden’s disbanding, Thayil has formed 3rd Secret, a supergroup of his own featuring Matt Cameron and Nirvana bassist Krist Novoselic. He’s also provided a guitar solo on I Quit, a solo track from Melvins' man Dale Crover, which features a new tuning he invented.

It is believed that Cornell’s final Soundgarden recordings will see the light of day after Cornell’s estate and the band’s surviving members settled their long-running lawsuit last year, but if anything happens beyond that is yet to be seen.

As good-time rock legends and solemn grunge trailblazers respectively, Van Halen and Soundgarden might feel like two bands at either side of the rock spectrum, but Alex Van Halen has revealed that he and Eddie Van Halen held secret jams with late Soundgarden frontman Chris Cornell.

The revelation comes in Alex Van Halen’s new interview with Rolling Stone regarding Brothers, his tell-all book about his relationship with his brother, Eddie.

Alex isn’t sure precisely when the jams with Cornell took place, but he does recall Eddie stepping out at one stage, leaving just the frontman and the drummer playing together.

As Alex remembers, the Soundgarden singer was enthusiastic about the collaboration, despite being “in a very fragile part of his life”.

“I got behind the drums, and he started playing bass,” he says. “We played for 45 minutes. This motherfucker got so into it he started bleeding. I said, ‘This is the man you want.’ And then he died.”

While the exact timing of Cornell’s jams with both Eddie and Alex Van Halen are unclear, the drummer’s comments indicate they were in the year leading up to Cornell’s death in May 2017.

Cornell had come into contact with Van Halen previously via Pete Thorn and amp guru Dave Friedman, after requesting Eddie Van Halen contribute guitars to an acoustic version of the title track from his 2009 Timbaland collaboration, Scream. According to Thorn, a reel featuring Eddie’s recordings still exists at 5150, although Cornell never got around to tracking vocals.

Cornell wasn’t the only A-list singer on the cards for Van Halen. Alex Van Halen also references plans for an Ozzy Osbourne-fronted VH album, which were confirmed to Rolling Stone by the Black Sabbath icon himself.

“Yes, we were discussing it,” Osbourne writes. “It is something that if it had come to fruition, would have been phenomenal. Eddie and Alex were great friends of mine for a very long time and it’s a regret of mine that we never got it together. [Reality show] The Osbournes got in the way of creating new music at that time, unfortunately.”

Following Eddie Van Halen’s death in 2020, any future activity from Van Halen sounds extremely unlikely – particularly after David Lee Roth reportedly turned down a potential tour over the inclusion of tributes to the fallen guitarist.

Heart's Ann Wilson has revealed the trick she used back in the ’90s to compel her musician peers to jam whenever they passed by her house.

In an interview with the Broken Record Podcast, she recalls, “Usually, it would happen after somebody's concert, and everyone would show up for the concert. And then whoever was free afterward would show up at my house, and they'd all come in and start drinking beers and smoking ciggies and sitting up on my counters, and then pretty soon somebody has started to play.

“I was no fool – I would always have in my living room, I'd have guitars laying around, casually, and a piano and a couple of little amps.”

The musicians who happened to jam at Wilson's house included Alice in Chains' Layne Staley, Soundgarden’s Chris Cornell, and Kim Thayil, and Pearl Jam. The musicians were all part of the Seattle music community, who quickly embraced Wilson and her sister after they moved to Seattle, and formed their acoustic side-project, The Lovemongers.

“Oddly enough, a lot of those musicians that were part of the Seattle community then loved The Lovemongers, and we loved them, and we'd all show up at each other's shows. And it didn't matter that it was at this little club. It really didn't matter. It was just about the music and about playing camaraderie," she adds. 

In a recent interview with Total Guitar, Wilson's sister and bandmate, Nancy Wilson, described what it was like for the two of them to return to Seattle after grunge annihilated the hair metal scene. “We were so embarrassed to come back during the explosion of Soundgarden and Alice In Chains and Pearl Jam,” she admits. 

“All those guys were our brothers from our hometown. When Mother Love Bone’s singer Andy Wood died, my best friend Kelly Curtis, who managed Pearl Jam, invited us to come to his memorial party. 

“That’s where I met Chris Cornell and all these guys that I’m still really tight with – Eddie Vedder, Mike McCready and Kim Thayil. It was such a relief to be accepted into that rock community in our hometown, after the big hair and the artifice in the ’80s.”

Heart are currently on their Royalty Flush tour. The North American leg wraps up on May 24 at Atlantic City Hard Rock Live, New Jersey. This will be followed by a European and UK leg, which includes their largest-ever UK headline show on July 1 at London's O2 Arena.

With a dad like country great Steve Wariner, it’s no surprise that Ryan Wariner ended up flanking music royalty – including the likes of Gene Simmons, Dave Mustaine, Chris Cornell, and Ann Wilson.

But while Wariner shares his dad’s passion, he doesn’t share his affinity for chicken pickin’ licks, instead choosing to rock out – though his dad did influence him to pick up the guitar in the first place: “The first thing was seeing my dad play electric guitar,” Wariner says. “I thought it was the coolest thing, and I wanted one.”

“I had toy guitars as a kid in diapers, so I guess I was collecting guitars even then,” he laughs. “And I remember hearing White Room, and it being like a lightning bolt. I begged my parents for an electric guitar and never looked back.”

The youngster soon traded in his toy guitars for a real one, which his dad loved: “My dad was all about it,” Wariner says. “But he pushed me in the direction he went. I was into rock from the start.”

Through his father is a bona fide legend, Wariner erred toward his mother’s music taste, shaping his career: “The drive for the rock thing came from my mom,” he says. “She doesn’t have any musical talent but had that taste.”

He continues, “When I was nine, she said, ‘Have you heard Eddie Van Halen?’ I said, ‘No,’ and she said, ‘Oh, you’re going to like Eddie.’ She was right, and I never went down my dad’s path. I love it when I hear it, but all I ever cared about was rock.”

These days, Wariner is an established Nashville session player, though not for the same reasons as his dad. He’s bucked the trend in a city known for its twang by injecting power chords into the mix.

He’s become a go-to hired gun in situations that call for rock delivered through a Marshall stack, leading to a spot in Ann Wilson of Heart’s solo band: “Ann was working with Tom Bukovac, and he’d let her know he couldn’t do it anymore. So, word traveled through the grapevine, and eventually, my friend Rob McNelly told them I’d be good for the gig.”

“So, they called me,” he continues. “We jammed on some classic Heart songs, like Crazy on You and Barracuda, and it went great. The gig was a no-brainer, and really, the gig of a lifetime. I don’t just play shows; I get to be a band member and help write songs. I’m the luckiest guy, and it keeps getting better.”

One of your highlights is working with Gene Simmons. How did that happen? 

“I got that gig through some friends of mine who live in Nashville, Jeremy Asbrock, and Phil Shouse. They were playing with Gene and had some gigs they couldn’t do. But I wasn’t a diehard Kiss guy like them; I knew the staples.

“So, when I got there, the preparation was knowing that I had to play the songs exactly as the fans expected to hear them. Jeremy and Phil were keyed in on every nuance, and I needed to be, too. That was the most I ever dug in regarding playing everything as it was on the record.”

Was Gene easy to get along with?

“I didn’t meet Gene until the afternoon before the first show when he came into the dressing room to hang out. He brought a bass, went through a few things, and said, ‘Wow, you did your homework.’ After that, we did the show, and he spent the rest of the night telling us stories. Despite having a big personality, Gene was very kind and gracious.”

Tell me about playing slide guitar on Megadeth’s Poisonous Shadows.

“I was playing a show with my dad in Nashville – I was playing slide – and Dave [Mustaine] was there. So, afterward, he got a hold of me, saying, ‘I’m in Nashville working on a record [Dystopia], and I have a song that I don’t want any shredding on,’ and then he said, ‘I need some slide. Would you come down and play?’”

Why did Dave choose you?

“He said, ‘I love your intonation and touch on the slide,’ which was terrific. It was an immediate ‘yes’ from me, as I’d loved Megadeth since I was a kid. I can tell you that eighth grade me would never think something like that would happen.”

What gear did you use?

“The same Gibson Les Paul I’m using with Ann Wilson, plugged into Dave’s rig. I’ve had many Custom Shop Les Pauls, but there’s something about that one. But anyway, Dave gave me the melody, and we did it in about 20 minutes, and said, ‘Okay, let’s go to lunch.’ We hung out, and he was very appreciative, but they forgot to add me to the album credits… but it was still amazing.”

How did you find yourself in the studio with Chris Cornell? 

“The Chris Cornell thing was one of the best experiences ever. Chris’s voice was unreal, and Soundgarden was my favorite band of that era. The project was a Johnny Cash thing called Forever Words, and Chris was there to cut this track, You Never Knew My Mind, comprised of unfinished [Cash lyrics] from the ‘70s. Chris’s track was dark and slow-paced, and they chose me because they didn’t want a typical Nashville session guy; they wanted a rock guy.”

Was it nerve-wracking stepping into the studio with Chris?

“Well, my friends sold them on me, telling them, ‘Ryan is the guy, and he’s a rock guy.’ So, I just showed up with a couple of guitars and got set up. But Chris was super-cool and friendly, and within 10 minutes, we were rolling. I tried to treat it like any other session, started to think about the arrangement, and stayed ready.”

And was it easy to catch Chris’s vibe?

“I was sitting in this chair and getting dialed in, and we did the first take with headphones on. I was so focused that I didn’t even notice Chris entering the booth. But when he started singing, I heard it through the headphones and got cold chills. I almost stopped playing because I’d never heard his voice like that. After that, we cut the acoustic stuff with an old Gibson J-45 in two takes and then did overdubs.”

You laid down some incredible electric work there, too. Was that with a Strat?

“It was. It was a maple neck ’59 Strat that my uncle gave me. It’s a guitar that my dad also used a lot in the ‘80s, so it’s been on several famous records. My buddy Stanton [Adcock], from The Wallflowers, actually played that guitar once and said, ‘Dude, I have to stop – I’m never gonna want to play my guitars again!’”

How did you create the spooky vibe throughout the track?

“I pulled out my Prescription Electronics Experience Fuzz, my favorite secret weapon in the studio. I used that to make the spooky sounds, with a ton of delay and reverb. It’s to the point that you could barely tell what I did, and it sounds like weirdness permeating the track.”

Did you receive any feedback from Chris?

“I found out later that what I did there was Chris’s favorite thing about the track. Chris had said I created ‘a symphony of chaos,’ which is crazy because I was just trying to stay above water. Hearing that meant the world to me. It meant even more because he was gone less than a year later. Some days are like that, where they’re just pure magic.”

You’ve mentioned a few guitars you’re partial to, but what amps do you rely on? 

“I’m a real amp-head, man. I’ve been collecting vintage amps forever. My favorite is a purple ’68 100-watt Marshall Plexi. It’s the holy grail, and I’d never trade it. I’ve had a ton, but that one is the one that I can’t live without. I randomly found it on eBay, took a chance, and it paid off.

“It’s got the old Van Halen Sylvania tubes, and it’s my favorite color, so it’s an absolute powerhouse. I’ve got old Supros, Vox AC30s, and used old black-panel Fenders a lot, but I always seem to go back to my purple Marshall.”

What are your greatest challenges as a session player?

“Man, the biggest challenge is not getting stuck in my head. Not all sessions are created equal regarding their coolness, but that doesn’t matter, because everyone in the room is top-notch. And that’s another thing I need to overcome: feeling like I’m not as good as the others in the room. I have to remember that I wouldn’t be there if I couldn’t keep up. I often remind myself that I’m good enough to be there.”

And what’s your greatest triumph?

“The session with Chris Cornell. The fact that we nailed it in two takes while dialing in the sound, and that the fuzz thing was Chris’s favorite meant a lot.

“But also, working with Ann Wilson. Touring and recording with a legend is not something I take lightly. I’m very proud of Another Door because some of that stuff is my favorite to play live; everyone reacts so well to it. So, working with Ann is deeply rewarding. It’s a high-water mark.”

• For more information, head to RyanWariner.com.

This week, Mike McCready unveiled his second signature Stratocaster with Fender, but the Pearl Jam guitarist has a heck of a lot more in the works – and we’re not just talking about the Seattle rock icons’ hotly anticipated new  album.

But let’s start there. In an interview with Guitar World yesterday (September 12), McCready was enthusiastic about the band’s new material and the input of Andrew Watt – the super-producer who initially found fame in the pop world with Post Malone, Dua Lipa and Justin Bieber, but more recently established himself as the rock collaborator du jour after working with Ozzy Osbourne, Iggy Pop and Pearl Jam frontman Eddie Vedder.

“It’s just about finished,” McCready says of the new effort. “I think there's a few tweaks here and there that have to happen, and we’re probably not going to have anything out this year. But Andrew Watt brought an energy and a youthfulness and a great ear to us that I think we needed.

“He kind of kicked us in our asses a little bit. Like, ‘Okay, let's go, let's go, let's go, let's go go go!’ He's the most hyper guy I've ever met besides myself. But he's a giant fan of our band, and he's a really smoking guitar player in his own right.”

Watt’s enthusiasm galvanized the band’s performances, McCready says, noting that there are “elements of the first three records in the energy that is there, but not things derivative of it”.

“He got us into a room and just pushed us as hard as we could be pushed,” he explains. “You know, it’s hard for a quote-unquote outsider to come into our world because we've done things a certain way. We're open to new things, but we are also in our own world. We've done things for 30 years. So we know the dynamics of our band very well. But sometimes we need to get pushed and questioned, and Andrew did a great job of that.”

In particular, McCready nods towards drummer Matt Cameron’s performances on the record as a highlight, noting that in leans more towards his work with Soundgarden than Pearl Jam.

“Matt Cameron's playing better than I’ve ever heard him in a long time. I mean, of course I've heard him with Soundgarden and of course he's incredible and always has been. But he's playing more like that now – he's kinda loose. Andrew pushed him to play however he wanted to play. How Matt’s playing on this record has made it amazing in my mind.”

But while Cameron used his own drum set, the rest of the band opted to record using Watt’s enviable gear collection – which includes a ’64 Gibson SG, ’65 Telecaster and ’59 Les Paul Junior gifted by Ozzy Osbourne – rather than bring their own rigs to the sessions.

“Andrew had a ’59 Strat that I played while we were in the studio,” McCready reveals. “We used all of his equipment, which is different for us, too. I think Matt used his own drums, but I just went, ‘Hey man, this guy’s got great equipment, and I'm just gonna play on whatever he says.’”

But McCready has one more musical project in the works: a rock opera inspired by his experiences as part of the Seattle music scene.

Last month, the guitarist shared a performance of an acoustic composition called Crying Moon, written as a tribute to his friend and Temple of the Dog bandmate Chris Cornell. The late Soundgarden frontman is part of the inspiration behind the new project.

“I look at him as one of the greatest singers and songwriters of all time, aside from being a friend,” McCready says of Cornell. “I love Chris and I'm working on a little project about the Seattle scene and a musical kind of rock opera thing. It's just from my experience in the Seattle music scene, and he's part of it.”

McCready notes that Crying Moon will appear in the rock opera, but as for what form the musical will take, that remains to be seen – he’s currently weighing up “a record and maybe some sort of stage/play thing”.

“I'm just in the middle of it,” he says. “I’m working on a script and I've got about 18 songs that I'm working on, and I'm singing on it. It's been a long journey.”

For more from the Pearl Jam guitarist, including his thoughts on digital amps and covering Van Halen's Eruption, check out Guitar World's full interview with Mike McCready.

Soundgarden and the Estate of Chris Cornell have settled their legal battle over the final recordings made by the late frontman.

The news, which sets the stage for the release of Soundgarden’s final songs, was announced on Chris Cornell and Soundgarden’s social media accounts yesterday (April 17).

“Soundgarden and Vicky Cornell, on behalf of the Estate of Chris Cornell, are happy to announce they have reached an amicable out of court resolution,” reads the statement.

“The reconciliation marks a new partnership between the two parties, which will allow Soundgarden fans around the world to hear the final songs that the band and Chris were working on. The two parties are united and coming together to propel, honor and build upon Soundgarden’s incredible legacy as well as Chris’s indelible mark on music history – as one of the greatest songwriters and vocalists of all time.”

According to Rolling Stone, seven songs are lined up for release, all of which were written by Cornell in some capacity. They are: Cancer, Stone Age Mind (Cornell), Road Less Traveled, Orphans, At Ophians Door (Cornell/Matt Cameron); Ahead of the Dog (Cornell/Kim Thayil); and Merrmas (Cornell/Ben Shepherd).

As for what that material sounds like, very little information exists. In my interview with Cornell during the writing of the album, conducted in late January 2017, the frontman was fairly cryptic: “We have a lot of interesting songs… sort of similar in that nothing really sounds like anything we’ve done before, and there’s definitely new territory, but it definitely sounds like us.”

Two years later, as Soundgarden struggled to obtain Cornell’s final vocal recordings, Thayil offered more detail.

“Interestingly, there’s a psychedelic element, and there was more of a grooving, I’d say a little bit more, not ballad-y, but more guitar arpeggiations, like what you might hear on Fell On Black Days,” he revealed.

“And then we had maybe a couple of sad songs, and a couple of heavy songs that in general feel were – where we were at in the writing process – kind of mixed like [2012 reunion album] King Animal, but a little bit less of the heavy stuff. But it was still interesting, still quirky stuff.

“Once Matt, Ben and myself get a hold of those songs and finish putting down our parts, the songs will very likely become heavier, darker and maybe a bit trippier.”

A release date for the recordings has yet to be announced.

Legal wrangles between Cornell’s estate and the band have been ongoing since 2019, when Vicky Cornell sued the surviving members, accusing them of withholding royalties. As part of the suit, Vicky claimed Chris Cornell’s vocal recordings were made in his personal studio and there was no agreement they were intended for Soundgarden.

A second lawsuit followed in 2021, as Vicky Cornell sued Soundgarden over a “villainously low” offer for her stake in the band. Soundgarden responded by demanding they were allowed back into their social media accounts, which they had been locked out of by the Estate.

A temporary agreement over the accounts was reached in June 2021, which was branded “a productive first step towards healing and open dialogue” and paved the way for the final recordings.

“When it comes to Soundgarden, we didn’t bend too far towards radio-friendly,” Kim Thayil says. Nevertheless, the guitarist continues, “We did end up being radio-friendly, even with our weird tunings.”

Indeed, over the course of their career, the Seattle giants not only pioneered many of the elements of the sound that would eventually become known throughout the world as grunge, but also managed, courtesy of a highly developed and often idiosyncratic songwriting and guitar approach, to bring that sound straight into the center of mainstream culture, racking up platinum albums (among them 1991’s Badmotorfinger and 1994’s Superunknown) and monster radio and MTV hits (Outshined, Black Hole Sun, Spoonman), as well as influencing scores of rock and alternative bands that followed in their wake.

Now, Soundgarden has, very deservedly, received a nomination for the 2023 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, their second time on the ballot. And while their long legacy is set in stone, guitarist Kim Thayil says that it would still be a great honor to be inducted this year.

“When I first heard about the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, I thought, How do you quantify that?” Thayil says.

“But then I started hearing from friends who either were inducted or attended events, and they said, ‘Man, this is fun because of the enthusiasm the fans have for seeing a band they love and believe in having their achievements and merits recognized.’ If you’re a fan, it’s a validation of your choices and your appraisals in your musical tastes. So that changed my understanding of it, and made me realize it’s important.”

Thayil continues, “And now that Chris is gone [Soundgarden singer, co-guitarist and co-songwriter Chris Cornell passed away in 2017 at the age of 52], it’s even more important. It’s for Chris’s memory and the band’s legacy. And for our fans – for the love and commitment they’ve shown us for all these decades.”

In recognition of Soundgarden’s Hall of Fame-worthy career (you can vote for the band to be inducted here), Guitar World sat down with Thayil for a look back at the six-string moments that he believes helped to establish and cement the band’s singular and one-of-a-kind sound.

1. Hunted Down (Screaming Life, 1987)

“There's two things that come out of Screaming Life. And the first is the guitar solo in Hunted Down, which pretty much set the tone that there’s going to be some noise elements, some jazz elements, some aspect of cacophony and spontaneity that is going to be incorporated into the way I'm approaching some of our guitar solos.

“With that solo being kind of angular and slashing, I enjoyed how that fit in what would have otherwise been a short, riff-oriented, hard-rock pop song. It showed that our sensibilities were leaning a little bit toward some noisier and artier considerations.”

2. Nothing to Say (Screaming Life, 1987)

“The second Screaming Life example is Nothing to Say, which was the first song we wrote in drop D tuning. But it also exemplifies another aspect of Soundgarden, which is the heavy, drone-y, trippy riff that's contrasted with a more lullaby sort of nursery rhyme-ish, psychedelic thing in the verse, which we're playing up by the 12th fret.

“And then even another thing is the fact that we're incorporating extraneous sounds and noise from the guitar other than traditional fretted chords and scales. This is exemplified by the part where I'm playing the behind the bridge, between the bridge and the tailpiece, on the low E string, and getting a sort of harmonic effect. You'll see that turn up in other songs in Soundgarden's career.”

3. Flower (Ultramega OK, 1989)

“This is perhaps not a significant component to Soundgarden's song style or guitar style, but it was a unique one – and that’s the intro to Flower. Flower, by the way, is the second song we wrote in drop D, and it is the one single off of Ultramega OK. And the intro is me blowing across the strings.

“I’m playing my Guild S-100, and I’m using the bridge pickup setting, which is a little bit brighter. I've dropped the E string down to D, so there's gonna be some sympathetic resonance between the two D strings and the fifth string, the A. 

“The Guild has these microphonic pickups, so I can blow over the string and get this sort of sitar-like, sort of ambient effect. And it’s augmented by my use of a chorus pedal. I did that on the record, although it was a kind of a tough thing to pull off live without the guitar screeching or feeding back. And when I did do it live, it never failed to get reviewed as me playing guitar with my beard. [laughs] And I get it: Brown guy. Beard. Guitar. Guitar near face. Playing guitar with beard. No, I'm just too lazy to shave.”

4. Heretic (Deep Six compilation, 1986)

“Heretic was off the Deep Six album, which was not the first Soundgarden release, but it was the first recorded material that we released. It was a song we wrote early on, probably within the first few months of being a band, and it was a regular part of our set in ‘85, ‘86, ‘87.

“We must have released three versions: there's the Deep Six version with drummer Scott Sundquist, a B-side to Loud Love that we recorded with [producers] Steve Fisk and Terry Date, and another version we recorded with Jack Endino. 

“But all of these versions, to varying degrees, would emphasize that the guitar part incorporated three or four harmonics into the melody of the riff. And that was something that we would go on to utilize in, for instance, the song Limo Wreck, which Matt [Cameron, drums] wrote with harmonics. Chris incorporated some harmonics into The Day I Tried to Live. The ‘C’ section of Never The Machine Forever has harmonics.

“Now, we weren't the first band to incorporate harmonics into the actual musical riff. But it was definitely part of our style and identity. I think prior to that, people usually used harmonics in guitar solos, as an accent or a color part. But we very consciously used it as the musical head of the guitar riff.”

5. Tears to Forget (Deep Six compilation, 1986; Screaming Life, 1987)

“Also on Deep Six was the song Tears to Forget, which is a hardcore song that had two elements that I think distinguished it as being stylistically Soundgarden. One is the open-string drone. I would go on to continue to write songs using this kind of open-string drone. Eventually Chris would start writing songs with the open-string drone. And I think Matt and Ben [Shepherd, bass] probably did on occasion, too. But Tears to Forget was one of the first songs we recorded that had it.

“At points in the song, I have the E string open while playing the riff melody line on the A string. At other points I'm having the A string drone while I'm playing the melody line on the D string. And I probably have the D string droning at some point. So the entire song, I think, except for the chorus, has either an E, A or D string open while the melody riff is being played on the adjacent string. 

“Another important thing about Tears to Forget is that it created a buzz with the other bands on Deep Six. I remember the guys in Green River and the Melvins and Skin Yard were saying, ‘Hey, did you hear what Soundgarden did? In the Deep Six session, they committed a whole track to just feedback.’ Deep Six might have been recorded on eight track, and you’ve only got a few tracks for guitar. And one of them on Tears to Forget is the guitar just feeding back from beginning to end. We definitely did that on the Screaming Life version as well. We used it as songwriting element.

“And it would continue to be an element, even on the last album we released, [2019’s] Live from the Artists Den. The very last track is Feedbacchanal, where Ben and I, for the body of the song, are just feeding back and trying to create melodies and drones.”

6 and 7. My Wave, The Day I Tried to Live (Superunknown, 1994)

“I think it’s well-established how Soundgarden used alternate guitar tunings. But primarily, when people write about our alternate guitar tunings, they focus on the drop D, because the drop D thing that we started doing spread to Nirvana and Alice in Chains and Skin Yard and other bands. But we used a lot of tunings other than drop D. 

“One thing I think is super-interesting is the tuning Chris used for My Wave which I think is EEBBBE [not EEBBBB, as commonly reported online – Ed], and which is also used on The Day I Tried to Live. I used that tuning to write all of my color parts on those songs as well. And both of those songs were singles and videos from Superunknown.

“To me, I think that establishing radio hits and MTV videos with two songs, presumably pop songs, one in 7/4 timing that I think maybe even goes to another non-danceable time signature, I think that is paradigmatic of what Soundgarden was about, and a little bit iconic of how we would precede and ultimately incorporate ourselves into the marketplace.

“I mean, what right does something like The Day I Tried to Live have to be on anyone's radio playlist? You can’t dance to it. It's no fun at parties. [laughs] Well, we brought the music that was no fun at parties to your party!”

Audioslave’s Rick Rubin-produced debut, released in 2002, was a landmark effort for several reasons. For one, it ushered in the rise of the supergroup era, as Chris Cornell joined forces with Rage Against the Machine’s Tom Morello, Tim Commerford and Brad Wilk. But more importantly, it was an absolute monster of a rock record, teaming Zeppelin-esque swagger with grunge’s serrated edge and Morello’s off-the-wall guitar solos.

After a rocky start – the band split up and reformed before they even played a show – the group’s debut effort was trailed by the release of lead single Cochise, which was steamrollered into public consciousness by one of Tom Morello’s all-time great hooks, and one widely heralded as one of the best riffs of the 21st century.

Yet that riff had been waiting on the sidelines for six years before it finally wound up on Audioslave’s debut. Its first outing was never officially released, and it was under a Morello banner you might not be familiar with.

Formed in 1995 and named after the ’70s militant organization, Weatherman was an underground side-project featuring Morello alongside singer Vic Bondi, of Chicago politi-punks Articles of Faith. Very little else is known about the lineup, but its formation took place during the four-year wait between RATM’s debut and its 1996 followup, Evil Empire, which found the band’s members pursuing “different interests” in between recording sessions. Bondi later revealed Weatherman was funded by RATM’s record label, Sony, who were presumably hoping for something to release as they waited for Rage to finish their sophomore effort.

Although the project was short-lived, its impact would prove to be long-lasting: the writing sessions for the three tracks eventually committed to tape spawned a number of riffs that would later feature on the debut Audioslave record – chiefly Cochise, which was then known as Enola Gay, after the aircraft that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima.

Though the recordings never surfaced via official channels, they eventually leaked onto the web, enabling us to hear Morello’s dry run for his future supergroup.

Enola Gay begins with a fat low E and violent string scrapes before everything stops to make way for that pentatonic riff. Bondi’s lower-range vocal performance doesn’t match Cornell’s Whole Lotta Love-esque wail, but the verse is unmistakably Cochise.

The track’s chorus and solo are again very different to Audioslave’s effort, further embellishing on the low-key intro, but another familiar riff crops up to close – this time The Narrows, from RATM’s 1991 demo tape.

It’s a concept of riff recycling that provides a through-line from Weatherman to Audioslave. Another track from the sessions, Drop, serves up supersized drop-B riffs that would feature in ’slave’s What You Are and Shadow on the Sun. (Action Man, the final song from the sessions, has yet to have any of its irresistible grooves reused – watch this space.)

But it’s the Cochise/Enola Gay riff that’s gone down in history – and perhaps that’s in part because it reminds us of other classic head-bangers: over the years, fans have pointed out its similarities to Pantera’s I’m Broken, Led Zeppelin’s The Ocean and even Soundgarden’s Get on the Snake, not to mention Morello’s own riff for Your Time Has Come, which opens Audioslave’s 2005 followup, Out of Exile.

The track’s legacy, however, is entirely its own. Tony Iommi, one of Morello’s personal riff lords, named Cochise his favorite of the 21st century, and it ranks highly in lists to this day.

A regular show closer during Audioslave’s initial tenure, the track’s final performance took place on January 20 2017 during Prophets of Rage’s Anti-Inaugural Ball at LA’s Teragram Ballroom. It was the band’s first performance in 12 years and prompted talks of a reunion tour, but tragically Chris Cornell would take his life just four months later.

While the song’s origins lie elsewhere, Cochise has come to represent both the birth and the epitaph of Morello’s musical relationship with Cornell – and it all started with that riff.

“Cochise was the introduction to Audioslave, where Chris Cornell, Tim, Brad and I came together,” Tom Morello told Kerrang! in 2021. “Plus, it features one of my favourite riffs that I’ve ever written.

“It was Chris’s outrageously spectacular and terrifying voice, and his rock-god presence matched up with us three players. It was such a great way to show that band to the world.”

In a recent interview, Pete Thorn has discussed a long-lost session he recorded that was set to feature the unlikely pairing of Chris Cornell and Eddie Van Halen.

Thorn, alongside his online fame as YouTube’s go-to ‘tone connoisseur’, has an extensive resume as a sideman to the stars, having gigged alongside the likes of Don Henley, Melissa Etheridge and Cornell himself.

Speaking to The Mitch Lafon and Jeremy White Show recently, Thorn related a story of a little-known session from his days playing with Cornell that was intended to be a collaboration between the Soundgarden vocalist and Eddie Van Halen.

Thorn says Cornell and electric guitar icon EVH were friends and the singer suggested getting Van Halen involved on some acoustic tracks they were recording around the 2008 sessions for Cornell’s album Scream.

“[Chris and I were] in a parking lot listening to them in my car, I remember, and he looked at me and he said, ‘Hey what do you think if we got Eddie to work on this?’” recalls Thorn.

“And I was like are you serious? Because that was like a hundred percent ‘Yeah!’ I was so excited and he said, ‘Okay, you know, I’ll get in touch with him…’”

For all Thorn’s excitement about meeting the man he calls his “spiritual guitar godfather”, he reports Cornell never got around to making the call. Fortunately, mutual friend and amp whiz Dave Friedman rode to the rescue, mentioning the plan to EVH on a visit to the Van Halen man’s 5150 facility.

“45 minutes later he texted me and said, ‘Ed wants you to call him, here's his cell phone number,’” says Thorn. “So I left him a message and… he called me back and said, ‘Well how soon can you come up the studio and play me this stuff?’ …So we set up a date, I drove up the 5150, and he was just so cool.”

“I get out of the car and there he is, and you know he gives me a big hug and said, ‘Okay, let's go studio and take a listen…’ I was just like, ‘This is my hero’, you know? ‘This is awesome!’ He took me into 5150 and he was so humble and unassuming.”

Thorn tells White and Lafon that Van Halen recorded a contribution to the track but, sadly, the song “never got finished”, as Cornell didn’t get around to adding a vocal. However, the guitarist says that Cornell did perform the same acoustic version of Scream on his 2011 Songbook tour and EVH’s recordings are presumably still somewhere in the vault.

“It was just one of those things, you know,” says Thorn. “Unfortunately, I only heard it like once, going up there to listen to the work that he'd done on it. So somewhere at 5150 there's a 24-track reel with that on it and someday I'd love to [hear it again].”

It’s also notable, as the YouTube icon tells it, that Van Halen was still recording to tape, even in 2008, and reportedly EVH asked Thorn how he recorded.

“I said I recorded in Logic,” recalls Thorn, with a chuckle. “He said I use logic, too: that's why I record analog!”

Meanwhile, back in 2022, Wolfgang Van Halen continues to carry the torch for the family name, giving rare (and note-perfect) outings to Panama and Hot For Teacher onstage at the recent Taylor Hawkins tribute shows and working on a second Mammoth WVH album.

A 1979 Gretsch Chet Atkins Tennessean electric guitar once belonging to late Soundgarden frontman Chris Cornell is up for sale on Reverb.com.

The six-string – which has a rather sizable price tag of $395,000 (down from an original price of $500,000) – was heavily used by Cornell during his time with both Soundgarden and Audioslave, both in the studio and onstage. The guitar can also be seen in the music video for Soundgarden’s Rusty Cage.

In terms of specs, the guitar appears to be all-original, with a laminated rock maple neck, rosewood fingerboard and laminated Cherry-finished maple hollowbody. Electronics come by way of a pair of adjustable pickups and a versatile set of controls, including two discrete volume knobs for each pickup, tone selector and pickup selector switches and a master volume control.

The instrument also features an adjustable bridge with chrome-plated metal parts and a Gretsch Bigsby-style tailpiece.

As Reverb notes, despite its age and heavy usage, the guitar remains in “excellent condition," most likely due to the fact it was supposedly Cornell’s “favorite” and was often kept at his home.

According to the Reverb listing, hosted by River City Guitars of Spokane, Washington, the guitar – serial number 29279 – is “fully documented by the superior court of Washington for King County and is unequivocally by law confirmed to be Cornell’s."

River City Guitars says these court documents will be included with the sale of the guitar, in addition to a certificate of authenticity.

For more information, head to Reverb.com.

This 1979 Gretsch Chet Atkins Tennessean is the latest in a series of high-ticket guitars to be put for sale online. Last month, a rare, unbranded Japanese double-cut played by Jimi Hendrix hit the auction block for the second time, after failing to meet its reserve price the first time around.

George Harrison’s Gibson ‘58 “ransom” Les Paul – used as a bargaining chip to ensure the recovery of the Beatles legend’s stolen Lucy guitar – also recently sold for more than $300,000.

There are some veteran rock musicians who refuse to embrace modern technology when it comes to recording and creating vintage-tinged sounds. Former Screaming Trees guitarist Gary Lee Conner is not one of them.

As heard on his recent solo albums – particularly Trutheater, The Opposite of Christmas, and especially, Revelations in Fuzz – the awesome retro fuzz tones he was able to create today are quite possibly better than the sounds that helped propel Screaming Trees way back when… and there were rarely amps in sight.

Formed in 1984 in Ellensburg, Washington (about a two-hour drive south east from Seattle), the Screaming Trees also featured Gary’s brother Van on bass, and one of grunge’s great voices behind the mic, Mark Lanegan – meanwhile, two drummers kept the beat: Mark Pickerel for the first half of their career, Barrett Martin for the second. 

However, unlike grunge’s Big Four – Soundgarden, Nirvana, Pearl Jam and Alice in Chains – the Trees never managed to break through on the same commercial level, despite being one of the first on the scene to merge punk, garage, and psychedelia. 

After the band split shortly after the dawn of the 21st century, Lanegan continued on as a solo artist and as a member of Queens of the Stone Age for a spell, while not much was heard from Gary initially. But that all changed in 2010, when he began issuing solo albums on a regular basis, first under the alias “The Microdot Gnome,” but nowadays under his real name.

Conner spoke with Guitar World about what prompted him to launch his solo career, his radical gear shifts, and his feelings surrounding Lanegan’s passing earlier this year.

What have you been up to since the Screaming Trees’ split in 2000?

“I spent the first 10 years not doing much – although I recorded a lot of songs. That was pretty much before the internet was real good for releasing your own music. I was just kind of finding out about it. I sold a few CD-R’s, but finally about 2008, I got a royalty check – enough to buy guitars and computer gear. 

“And I got Cakewalk – that’s what I still use – and it’s free, too. And I started realizing I could make something that sounded pretty close to a studio album – or good enough for me – and put it on the internet. I recorded [2010’s 4D Sugarcubes] which I originally released under the name the Microdot Gnome, and then eventually decided to use my name for my solo stuff. 

“So I did that first record and used Cakewalk, and started using digital guitar amp stuff, like Line 6 stuff. Then over five years, I got more familiar with computer stuff and started using [IK Multimedia] AmpliTube. And in 2016, I put out an album called Ether Trippers, and I had Jack Endino mix that one. 

“That was about the time I was on Facebook quite a bit, and I realized there was a Screaming Trees interest on Facebook, and I started promoting my stuff on Facebook. And since about 2018, I’ve done that a lot.

“The only reason why I do it is because I love doing my own music. I do everything myself – I don’t have anyone play on anything; it’s all me. The music I do is not always completely retro, but that’s my main love over the years – psychedelic ‘60s. And there was a lot of good psychedelic music in the ‘80s, too. 

“And Bandcamp has been great, too – you can sell physical merchandise or your own digital stuff. I have everything streaming – you can go on Bandcamp and just stream my stuff from there.

“But like I was saying about the retro thing, I pretty much use everything digital – except the voice and the actual guitar. But I use AmpliTube for my guitar amps. It’s weird, because nowadays I’ve tried recording my amps, and I just can’t get them to sound very good. I even tried running cords 50 feet into another room and isolating them, and it doesn’t sound as good as what I do on the AmpliTube amp.”

Your 2021 solo effort, Revelations in Fuzz, has some great, retro guitar tones on it. That was all plugins?

“On that one, the one thing I always have trouble with is trying to use the wah through the MIDI. It’s not easy. For one thing, it has to record all these ‘nodes,’ and when you go back to punch in, you have to erase all those. It’s just confusing. 

“But on that, I had a Fuzz Factory [pedal, by Z.Vex] – it sounds a lot like the old [Univox] Superfuzz-type thing. And I went straight into the interface with that, without an amp – especially the solos on Revelations in Fuzz. This last one, I just used AmpliTube, because I kind of figured out how to use the wah pedal. I got an expression keyboard pedal, and just used that.”

Let’s discuss your latest album, Trutheater.

“I was going to release it a year ago, and then I got really busy doing some family stuff – I had to spend a lot of time with my daughter. I’m in San Angelo, Texas, so I spent a lot of time with her in Denton and didn’t have my stuff. I was writing songs but I didn’t have my recording gear. 

“And I put the title song out about a year ago on Bandcamp. Everybody releases a song, and then another song, and sometimes, it’s five or six songs before they put the record out. So, finally this summer I got working and bore down and got the album done.

“Usually when I record, I already have songs – I write them on acoustic guitar. A lot of times, I live with it in my head for a while before I write it all the way. Then I’ll put it down on an iPhone voice recorder, so I don’t forget it.”

What is your current guitar setup?

“Like I said, it’s mostly AmpliTube. I do have a really old Supro amp that’s nice. I got it at a Goodwill in Seattle in the ‘90s. And I’ve got a Vox amp about 10 years ago that I don’t really use that much – because I can’t turn it up in my house too much. 

“Guitar-wise, I really like Epiphones. I’ve got an Epiphone Wilshire [2008 reissue], which is a lot like the Wilshire I had back in the ‘90s. I don’t have hardly any of my old guitars left.

“I have one SG that I got later during the Screaming Trees. I used it quite a bit on Lollapalooza [in 1996]. It’s a ‘67 or ‘64 – the serial number is weird with those two years, because they’re real similar and it’s hard to tell which ones they are. But it got broke a couple of years ago by my cat! I managed to glue it back together. 

“I use a late 2000’s Epiphone Firebird quite a bit. And a Hagström Viking 12-string. 

“After the band, I moved to New York and then I moved to Texas, and I didn’t have a way to get stuff all over the country. Van has a ton of gear from the old days, but a lot of it got stolen.

“Like, my main guitar for years was a ‘72 Les Paul, and it got stolen. That was the one I traded with Chris Cornell for. When we were doing Uncle Anesthesia [which Cornell produced, along with Terry Date and the band], we bought him a silver Gretsch Roc Jet. 

“But the Les Paul was a really nice guitar – I used that for years, on albums and live. It was really heavy, but it played beautifully. It had gold hardware, too. If anyone ever sees it [you can contact Gary via his Bandcamp page], it got stolen in the mid-2000s. It had two little switches for the pickups, and I had drawn a sun on it with a gold ink pen. But it was coming off 20-something years ago. You never know… it might come back.”

Which Screaming Trees albums are you most proud of? 

“My favorite from the ‘80s is Invisible Lantern, which was probably our most psychedelic record. We were still working on 8-track in Ellensburg in Velvetone [Studio]. We wanted a really loud guitar and a really loud voice, and we really fought Steve Fisk to not have the drums as loud. 

“And in retrospect, I wish we could remix it, because the drums and the bass are really buried – which is what we wanted at the time. But we were limited with the 8-track. We didn’t do 16-track until Buzz Factory. I love all the old SST stuff. 

“Other Worlds was our very first thing and was pretty basic – I had only been writing songs on 4-track for about a year. If you listen to Other Worlds, Mark’s voice is like a little kid, high… he didn’t even know he could sing. It wasn’t until Clairvoyance where he was like, ‘Whoa. I guess I can sing!’”

How did Mark Lanegan’s passing earlier this year affect you? 

“I was surprised, really, because we always figured – especially after I heard that he’d made it through Covid – that he’d out-live all of us. We figured he was going to die 25 years ago at any second, from all the stuff he did. But he had such a great solo career and I always loved his voice so much. It was an honor to have him sing on all those old songs that I wrote.

“I had very little contact with Mark over the years. I talked to him about close to 10 years ago on the phone, because the band was thinking about getting back together and doing a tour – about the time our Last Words: The Final Recordings album came out. We ended up not doing it.

“And then his book [2020’s Sing Backwards and Weep: A Memoir] came out and it had a lot of bad stuff about me in it – a lot of it was probably true, because we didn’t get along. But what affected me about the book most – before he died – was when he said all the old stuff before we got to Epic was complete shit. He sure as hell didn’t think that back then. That’s the stuff I really love.

“But I heard he moved to Ireland, and he sent me a private message on Twitter, and a couple of different times just apologized for everything that was in the book. It was a really touching letter. He made amends with me, as far as that goes. 

“And he even said, ‘We should do something together.’ There were some old Screaming Trees songs that we’d never released that he wanted me to do for his next record and have me play on it. Which would have been cool. Just the gesture was really nice.

“I sent him a message around Halloween last year. He put out his last thing with Skeleton Joe, Living Dead. I messaged him on Twitter and said, ‘Man, that’s really cool. I’m glad you’re back’ – because this was after he’d had Covid. And he was just like, ‘Thanks man. I’ll talk to you later.’ And then a few months later, we heard he died.”

• Trutheater is available now via Bandcamp.

Toni Cornell, the daughter of Chris Cornell, and Pete Thorn appeared on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon last night (December 16) to perform the late Soundgarden frontman’s Grammy-nominated cover of Prince’s Nothing Compares 2 U.

Thorn, who performed with Chris Cornell on tours supporting his Carry On and Scream albums, appeared on acoustic guitar, while Toni Cornell’s confident vocals were further underpinned by a solemn piano and string arrangement.

The performance took place in honor of Chris Cornell’s pair of Grammy nominations, which were announced last month: Best Rock Album for covers effort No One Sings Like You Anymore Vol. 1, and Best Rock Performance for his take on Nothing Compares 2 U.

No One Sings Like You Anymore Vol. 1 was released in December 2020, and showcases some of Cornell’s final studio recordings, including covers of tracks by John Lennon, Janis Joplin and Guns N’ Roses. A followup album is reportedly in the works.

“There is a volume two,” Cornell’s widow, Vicky Cornell, revealed to 105.7 The Point’s Rizzuto Show in January (via Spin). “The thing with this volume one, though, that makes it special is that he mastered it, he sequenced it – this is all Chris from beginning to end. And the other one was mastered, not sequenced, volume two.

“Because he was just such a prolific writer, we’re blessed, because he has left us lots of music. Not in completely finished form, but there’s enough to work with, and the Cornell stamp is all over it. So that’s really special. So there’s a lot of music.”

Few fans of The Pretty Reckless were surprised when the band’s first album in five years, Death by Rock and Roll, debuted at Number 28 on the Billboard Hot 200 in February 2021 (the top-charting rock album that week). Anything less would have been a disappointment. 

Since releasing their first album, Light Me Up, in 2010, The Pretty Reckless have been on a steadily upward trajectory. They’ve scored four Number 1’s on the Mainstream Rock Songs chart, the most ever by a female-fronted band, and played high-profile tours with Soundgarden, Fall Out Boy, Halestorm, Evanescence and others. 

So the continued success of The Pretty Reckless is hardly a shock. What’s practically a miracle is that the band was able to survive a tsunami of tragedy and instability over the last few years and clamber back with their most personal, powerful album to date.

The flood of misfortune that threw The Pretty Reckless off course started after their highly successful and exhilarating 2017 tour with their heroes, Soundgarden. The last night of the run was in Detroit on May 17. After the show, frontwoman Taylor Momsen wanted to say goodbye to vocalist Chris Cornell. 

She knew Cornell didn’t hang out after shows and usually left immediately after Soundgarden’s set. So at the end of the concert, Momsen headed to the back door of the venue to greet the singer on his way out.

“I caught him before he left,” says Momsen over a Zoom interview. “We had a little conversation and he said, ‘It was fun touring with you guys. Let's do it again sometime.’ And then I gave him a big hug.”

Momsen pauses for a moment and softly coughs. “I still get shaky talking about it,” she says. “It was… It was all very normal. Then, I went to the parking lot and hung out with [Soundgarden guitarist] Kim [Thayil] and [drummer] Matt [Cameron] and had a normal, fun night. 

“We rolled out to the next city and when I woke up the next morning I went to the front lounge and everyone had their heads in their hands crying and they were looking at their phones in disbelief. That’s when I learned that Chris was gone.”

Momsen and her bandmates – guitarist Ben Phillips, bassist Mark Damon and drummer Jamie Perkins – did their best to bury their grief and continue touring for their third album, 2016’s Who You Selling For. 

They played summer radio shows in the U.S. and major festivals in Europe and wrapped up the year with a tour opening for Stone Sour. The Pretty Reckless took a break for the holidays and were looking forward to getting back into the rehearsal room when tragedy struck again – twice.

In January 2018, Perkins’ brother died in a car accident. But it was the death of the band’s longtime studio guitarist and producer Kato Khandwala (who also worked with Blondie, Paramore, Pop Evil and My Chemical Romance) that slammed the brakes on The Pretty Reckless’s career and led to Momsen’s three-month-long self-imposed exile from music and reality.

Khandwala, 47, had been like a fifth member of the band and played a major role in shaping their sound. He was also a close personal friend and his death from a motorcycle accident on April 25, 2018, shattered The Pretty Reckless, especially Phillips and Momsen. 

Phillips, who had worked on songs with Khandwala before meeting Momsen in 2009, felt lost and was unsure he would still be able to write without Khandwala’s guidance and friendship. 

“We really didn’t know if we could continue as a band,” Phillips says. “Kato and I always shared guitar jobs in this band; he was the second guitarist. It was very much an Angus/Malcolm Young situation. 

“I moved into songwriting so quickly when I was younger, and guitar became more of a vehicle for me to write than an instrument to really learn. And then I got into lead guitar and that became more important for me as a vehicle for creativity. Kato was totally supportive of whatever I wanted to do and always complimented that. For a while, I couldn’t believe he was gone. I still can’t.”

Momsen was equally devastated. Having left a career as a successful child actor to chase her dream of being a professional musician – trading in Hollywood sets for rock ’n’ roll stages – the instability and danger of rock was suddenly no longer alluring, exciting or escapist. It was real, raw and inescapably painful.

Even though Phillips is generally quiet and laconic and Momsen much more of an extrovert, the two have always been close. Yet after Khandwala died they separated for a while and dealt with their loss in different ways. 

Phillips tried to stabilize his environment by spending time with friends and family and regularly picking up his guitar to try out new ideas. By contrast, Momsen turned away from music, becoming unstable and self-destructive to try to obliterate the pain.

“I fell into this extraordinarily dark hole of depression for a long time,” she says. “I was devastated by loss and grief and trauma, so I just checked out. Even thinking about music caused too many painful memories. Everything brought up something that I wasn't ready to deal with, and things turned dark very quickly.”

Looking back, Momsen says her gradual decline started with Cornell’s death, though, at the time, she hid her pain as best she could. “I know now that I was not emotionally prepared to handle Chris’s death and that took me into the start of a tailspin of me falling apart,” she says. 

“The bookend of that was Kato, which was the real nail in the coffin. After that, I just said, ‘Everything I love is dead, so what's the point of anything?’ Since I was so depressed there was substance abuse, which is just a part of what came with all the loss, grief and trauma. I wasn’t suicidal. In the back of my mind, I knew I wanted to figure things out and get back out there, but I wasn’t ready yet.”

With Momsen MIA, Phillips started looking for a new producer with whom to collaborate. He immediately thought of Jonathan Wyman, a childhood friend who made records in Los Angeles and New York before giving up on the music business to move to Maine with his wife. 

Phillips had no idea if Wyman would be interested in jumping back into the fire, but when he called Wyman, the producer was intrigued about working on an album, especially with an old friend. But he wanted to work near his home, so Phillips flew to the East Coast and he and Wyman entered Halo Studios near Portland, Maine, and began to work on Death by Rock and Roll. 

Having plenty to express, ideas flowed like water from a stream, yet almost two years passed from the time the first drum track was recorded and the album was released.

At first, Momsen didn’t want to work with Phillips in Maine and couldn’t stand the thought of shaping songs with another producer. So she didn’t work on music at all. She didn’t even listen to it. The art form that had given her so much joy had become an unbearable source of pain, and in her hazy state, she felt betrayed and abandoned by what had formerly been her greatest passion.

“I really didn’t know how to get back to where I was, and I didn’t really know if I wanted to because I didn’t care anymore,” she says. “I had given up and become content sitting on my couch and kind of fading into nothing. And that's a very dangerous headspace to stay in for too long.”

After living in a self-imposed wasteland for a few months, Momsen inexplicably had a burning desire to listen to music again. She started where she first began – with the Beatles – and slowly evolved through Led Zeppelin, the Rolling Stones and others. The more she listened, the more she realized how much she missed hearing great songs. She also missed writing.

“It suddenly hit me that I had been depriving myself of what I loved most and I really needed it,” she says. “That naturally led me to pick up a guitar and try writing, and, as soon as I did that, the floodgates opened up.”

The process was therapeutic, and while many of the lyrics Momsen wrote were about loss, others were about embracing life. Similarly, certain guitar parts she played sounded sad, but many were aggressive and euphoric. And they kept coming and coming.

“Normally, when you write a record you're searching for inspiration and you never really know where that's going to come from, and that it can make it a very kind of torturous process because there's no real way to force it. You kind of just have to wait and pray that something strikes you. And in this case, inspiration smacked me in the face, like a brick all the time, and it just kept coming whether I wanted it to or not.”

Mostly, Momsen wrote on her Guild acoustic guitars and after she had a pile of new material she was happy with, she went to Maine and shared her new song ideas with her bandmates and Wyman. As helpful as Wyman was, his presence reinforced Khandwala’s absence, which led to a whirlwind of emotions from the musicians. Being back together opened old wounds. 

Their close friend was gone, and yet in a way, he was still present; they were using all his old gear, including Khandwala’s custom guitars, though Phillips also played his Gibson ES-335s and Les Pauls and Momsen played her Fender Telecasters and a John Lennon-style Rickenbacker. Ironically, it was Wyman who encouraged the musicians to slow down, take deep breaths and allow their emotions to work for them musically. 

“We were still definitely feeling bummed out, and Jon was very good at keeping his distance to the sensitivity of the situation,” Phillips says.

“At the same time, being very good friends with him gave him extra sensitivity and awareness of what we needed to do, and in the end having all that time opened up so many avenues we have not explored before. So it felt like this music was a gift and it was therapeutic to do – but at the same time it was torturous.”

Although Phillips and Momsen had an abundance of riffs and hooks heading into the studio, they had trouble assembling some of the passages into complete songs, which led to a frustrating but temporary creative impasse. 

Then, in July 2018, as Momsen approached her 25th birthday, she wrote the intensely personal 25, a semi-rock ballad driven by a repeating undistorted guitar line and marching drums before evolving into a roaring, full-throated chorus. 

As they worked on the tune, Momsen locked down the heaving rhythm and sang about the turmoil of young adulthood, and Phillips punctuated her riffs with echoing picked chords and a Beatles-inspired piano-inflected mid-section. The darkened room lit up. 

Around the same time, the songwriters crafted the album’s first single and title track, Death by Rock and Roll, a Zeppelin-esque tribute to Khandwala that swings like a prizefighter and features a scrappy wah-infused solo.   

“The name Death by Rock and Roll holds such weight and meaning to me that calling the song and album anything else would have felt wrong,” Momsen says. “The phrase itself comes from Kato. It was the battle cry we lived our lives by; it means live your own way and don’t let anyone tell you anything different. You know, rock ’n’ roll till I die. When Kato passed, it was something that kept ringing through my head. I couldn't get it out so I embraced it instead.”

By late summer, the band synched with Wyman (though Phillips and Momsen took co-production credit on the album) and the songs started coming more easily and sounding more natural. When nearly everything was written, The Pretty Reckless decided to bring in some guests. 

The most poignant appearances came from Soundgarden guitarist Kim Thayil and drummer Matt Cameron, who added their trademark playing to the rhythmically angular Only Love Can Save Me Now. For Momsen, calling the members from Soundgarden was an obvious choice.

“The way I approached them was kind of a joke,” she says. “I went, ‘Hey guys, do you want to play on this? ’Cause if you don’t, we’re just going to sound like we’re ripping you off.’ So they took a listen to it and thankfully they said they’d love to be a part of it.”

To lend a more authentic vibe to the song, The Pretty Reckless flew to Seattle to record it at London Bridge Studios, where Soundgarden tracked their 1989 major-label debut, Louder Than Love. And as soon as they started playing, the song gleamed with new life.

“You hear it and you know right away who’s playing,” Phillips says. “They come in so uniquely and so amazingly and they sound great. That, in itself, was an amazing experience. It was definitely a highlight in everyone’s life, but it was also very emotional for all of us and it was kind of a double-edged sword.”

Another highlight on Death by Rock and Roll came from Tom Morello, who had a roundabout connection with Momsen, having met her when he played with Cornell in Audioslave. The two became closer when they both performed on Soundgarden’s Loud Love at I Am the Highway: A Tribute to Chris Cornell in Los Angeles in January 2019. 

Momsen asked Morello if he would play on And So It Went, a song rooted in ’90s alternative rock that’s embellished with a lullaby melody break and chorus of singing children reminiscent of Pink Floyd’s Another Brick in the Wall (Part 2).

“We really connected with Tom, so I wanted him involved,” Momsen says. “But we didn’t write the song thinking he would play on it. We write songs we like and then ask ourselves, ‘Who can we take this to that will make it the best it can be?’ And if it’s someone outside of our core band I’ll make a phone call. 

“Tom was so correct for that song. We did our thing, and then he came in wailing like the guitar legend that he is, and the undeniable sound that is Tom Morello came in and brought everything to its full potential.”

When The Pretty Reckless finished tracking Death by Rock and Roll, Phillips felt emotionally drained and a little hesitant to unleash the music on the public. It was such a confessional project, featuring songs like the title track and Harley Darling, which were blatantly about or based on Khandwala. Though Phillips loved the music, it was hard for him to listen to it since the songs reminded him of his deceased friend.

“It’s hard to have a record come out that's missing one of its founding members,” he says. “So dealing with that is still a process for me. If I’ve learned anything it’s that I've got to get up every day, take baby steps and just don't look too far ahead in the future. For me, that’s the best way to try to accomplish the task at hand and hopefully get to love this album.”

Momsen relates to Phillips’ “baby steps” philosophy; however, she feels Death by Rock and Roll is a great accomplishment to be cherished for its sonic qualities and its authenticity, as painful as it can be to listen to.

“Sometimes it feels like a scar that’s always going to be there but doesn’t hurt the same way anymore,” she says. “It’s a part of me. Also, I know Kato’s presence is all over this album. 

"The songs were written from a place of missing him and what he gave to me as an artist while he was still here – and what he gave me as a person. And that stuff lasts forever. His memory is still here, and I think that's part of why I love music so much. Even if the artist or the person is no longer with us, the records live on for eternity.”

• The Pretty Reckless's Death by Rock and Roll is out now.

For the longest time, Kim Thayil ranked Screaming Life and Superunknown as his favorite Soundgarden discs. “I would go back and forth between the two, based on the material, the production and the feeling in the band at those times,” he says. 

Five years ago, however, while combing through material for the 25th anniversary of the band’s 1991 commercial breakthrough album, Badmotorfinger, the guitarist’s feelings began to change. 

“I spent a lot of time listening to the record again, and I got to review some beautiful animation ideas that Josh Graham, our art director, came up with. It all recontextualized the record for me; I started to hear drum and guitar parts that I hadn’t focused on before. It gave new colors to the material.”

Five years later, with Badmotorfinger marking its 30th anniversary, Thayil now considers it his favorite from the Soundgarden canon. “It's a very colorful record,” he says. “It's got depth and it's trippy. It's angular and colorful. I love it.”

Formed in Seattle in 1984 by Thayil, singer-guitarist Chris Cornell and bassist Hiro Yamamoto, Soundgarden pioneered an aggressively heavy and psychedelic sound that married the most walloping elements of heavy metal and punk, and the result soon became known as “grunge”. 

With the addition of drummer Matt Cameron (who joined in 1986), the group issued the Screaming Life EP followed by the full-length Ultramega OK on the influential Sub Pop independent label and became darlings of the college music scene. In 1989, they became the first of the area’s grunge bands to step up to the big leagues by signing with A&M Records. 

Their major-label debut, Louder Than Love, which contained grinding earth movers like Loud Love and Hands All Over, hit number 108 on Billboard and was hailed by both indie and mainstream press. Even a few big-time musicians took note, chief among them Metallica’s Kirk Hammett, who famously wrote the riff to Enter Sandman after hearing the album.

Leading into the planning stages for their fourth studio effort, the band had a definite sense that they were on the verge of something big. “We could feel increased attention on us,” Thayil says. “We were fortunate in that we received positive press for our previous records. 

“There were more people attending our shows; peers in other bands liked us. We felt as if we were communicating to the people we needed to reach. In our audience, could see ourselves. We weren’t trying to pander in any way.”

The group once again opted to work with the Seattle-based producer Terry Date, who had guided them through the Louder Than Love sessions. “We felt comfortable with him,” Thayil says. “He helped us navigate the major-label BS – dealing with budgets and record company folk. With Terry producing us, we felt like we were in a protective bubble.” 

However, the Soundgarden that set out to record Badmotorfinger was a dramatically different band than on the previous album: Yamamoto had recently left, and his replacement, Jason Everman, proved temporary. Arriving for the sessions was bassist Ben Shepherd, a veteran of various punk bands and a well-liked presence in the Seattle music scene.

“With Ben in the band, our number of songwriting combinations increased in a multitude of ways,” Thayil says.

“We were totally excited to have him. His energy and creativity, his playing and songwriting – I consider him the MVP and the defining character of Badmotorfinger. That’s an easy argument for me to make. Ben’s sparks rubbed off on the rest of us. Chris hit a more prolific stride than he’d ever had before, and we wrote in a way that perfectly suited the new lineup.”

All of those factors came together beautifully on Badmotorfinger. In terms of artistic reach, it saw the band aiming higher than ever and hitting every mark. Everything sounded bigger and grander, more aspirational but still sensationally unhinged, and the songwriting had matured in a spectacular way. 

Rusty Cage and Outshined were the MTV hits that sold the album, but further in there were ambitious and arty tracks like Somewhere, Slaves & Bulldozers and Mind Riot that went down just as smoothly as the singles. For Soundgarden, who had built tremendous goodwill among their fanbase while staying true to their ideals, it was the perfect album to break them to the masses – immediately accessible without feeling conventional. 

But as the record was released hot on the heels of Pearl Jam’s Ten and on the same day as Nirvana’s Nevermind, the timing couldn’t have been more fortuitous. Suddenly, Seattle was ground zero of a cultural zeitgeist, and Soundgarden were smack dab in the thick of it.

“Right before we released the album, you could feel things were ready to explode,” Thayil says. “There were so many bands that we knew and loved – Mudhoney, the Screaming Trees, Tad… There was Mother Love Bone, but sadly we lost [singer] Andy [Wood]. Pearl Jam were coming out with their album, and we were all anticipating [Nirvana's] Nevermind. 

“These bands were from our community, and now they were being shared with everybody. There was definitely an energy happening in town. You could feel it.”

On previous albums, Soundgarden tested out new material live. That wasn’t the case with Badmotorfinger, right?

“Right. In the past, each album was a studio interpretation of songs we had played live in clubs and venues – in some cases, for years. With Badmotorfinger, I believe all of it was interpreted first in rehearsals and then in the studio, and performed live for the first time when we started touring on the record. 

“The one exception might have been Room a Thousand Years Wide, which we released as a single on Sub Pop. We might have gotten that out there during a gig. But this was now a distinct shift in our songwriting dynamic. Songs weren’t honed and filed through live performances; they weren’t tested and refined. We weren’t able to identify songs that were fun to play or whether the crowds loved them. We had to anticipate that.”

Did you have to submit demos to the label before going in to record?

“It was protocol for them to hear what we were planning on recording. It wasn’t like we had to sell them on our songs. On Louder Than Love, they heard some material and would discuss radio potential. 

“We didn’t want to think about that kind of thing. There might have been a few demos they heard for Badmotorfinger, but they didn’t want to interfere with us too much. And after Nirvana broke, the label just left us alone. They knew they had no idea what was going on. Nobody anticipated Nirvana going through the roof, but the attitude became, ‘OK, there’s a huge audience for this music.’”

What was the veto process for material within the band? What happened if somebody came in with a riff or a song and another guy said, “I’m not feeling it”? 

“That happened a number of times. Some songs got recorded but maybe people didn't jump on them initially. Maybe the riff or the instrumental part wasn't getting through, but a year or two later it would turn up in rehearsal. Or it might sit around until the next album cycle.

“If Chris had written Black Hole Sun around Screaming Life or Ultramega OK, we would've said, ‘That is an insanely great song, but it’s not appropriate for where we're at right now. It would just be a conspicuously weird thing here. Maybe try to sell it to somebody else.’ 

“But it came about at the time it did, for Superunknown. I think for the most part, that's usually how things happen. They come about an appropriate time, because that's where you've grown.”

You recorded much of Badmotorfinger in California. What went into that decision?

“We got advice from other bands. We discussed the benefits to staying home and having the familiar comforts versus getting away from everything and experiencing something new. Terry suggested working at Studio D in Sausalito, so we went down there and recorded a lot of basic tracks. There was a progressive hippie vibe happening there. I remember playing catch with a Nerf football. [Laughs]”

Let’s talk about some of the songs. The use of a wah as an audio filter really made the opening riff to Rusty Cage so distinctive. How did that come about?

“A couple of things happened there. We were using the Cry Baby a bit more. On Louder Than Love, I started farting around with it on solos. Then Chris used it. He was really interested in getting weird sounds, and he played with it to get that kind of filtered tone. 

“My memory of the demo for Rusty Cage is that the sound was there. He would bring us a demo and we’d go through changes; mostly because I'd add a guitar solo and I'd write some guitar parts to give depth to certain sections. Ben would usually have free rein to come up with bass lines. Because it was so fast and so specific rhythmically, Rusty Cage remained basically unchanged in terms of bass and rhythm guitar, and there were no guitar solos. 

“It had a cool linear progression – it didn't repeat verse and chorus too much – so we figured there was no room for a guitar solo. It was like, ‘Let's not waste it. There's enough going on with guitar. It's fast. It's got a lot of action. It doesn't need one.’ 

“My sense is that Chris worked it out and tracked that filter intro. He wrote the call-and-response intro thing. When we played live, we just played it with straightforward, heavy guitars, but on the demo and when we recorded it, we definitely used a wah to kind of get that weird sound of the rhythm guitars.”

You played a great solo on Outshined, but I understand you weren't too pleased when it was cut out of the video.

“That was kind of an irritating discussion. We'd write a song for the album. Chris would often have three verses and three choruses. He wrote songs that were at times unbearably long without being jammy; like maybe the Allman Brothers might have a really long song because there's some great Duane Allman slide solos and twin-guitar exchanges. We had lengthy verses and stuff, so they were often cut down for radio or an MTV version.

“I remember our A&R guy, Bryan Huttenhower, was in the studio trying to come up with a single edit, and Chris came in to work on it. They figured they'd have to take out some verses or lyric lines. They came to get me and said, ‘We can't find a place to take anything out of the verse or the chorus.’ 

“And I said, ‘Well, there's three verses. You can take one out.’ But Chris, I think correctly, said that he didn't want to do that. He thought the song, the story and the lyrics developed. You couldn't remove a hunk of lyrics and have the song make sense as he intended.

“Finally, they said, ‘Well, if we take out the guitar solo, we can shorten it.’ I was like, ‘You're kidding. Then it'll be misrepresenting a guitar band or a rock band. It'll sound weird.’ Well, we listened and I was like, ‘God, fuck. You've got to shorten it, I get it. If that's it, that's it. It's not the real version.’ So I went with it, and I rationalized it to myself saying, ‘This is not the real version. The fans are going to buy the album.’”

You and Chris used tunings that went beyond drop D. You would tune the low E to a B, and on Somewhere the tuning was E-E-B-B-B-B.

“I think Ben came up with that. There were a couple songs that Matt and I wrote on which we dropped the E, and the A was dropped to G. It was natural for us to challenge and impress each other… I don't know if we were trying to differentiate ourselves. We were just this collection of weird personalities and characters.”

What about the song Mind Riot, on which you tuned each guitar string to an E?

“Chris came up with that. I think that was from a conversation he had with [Pearl Jam’s] Jeff Ament, possibly during the Temple of the Dog period. I think Jeff jokingly said, ‘Could you imagine tuning the guitar to all Es? Wouldn't that be crazy? That'd be dumb.’ 

“And Chris thought, ‘What would happen if you did that?’ So he tried it and wrote a song with that. It's hilarious in that one case, how a musician might think it’d be a crazy and goofy thing to do, but a member of Soundgarden thinks, ‘Hell yeah, let's do that.’ Of course, Chris could get a song out of a weird tuning like that. 

“I think it’s certainly reflective of the kind of band we were. Ben would come up with something sideways, and then Chris, Matt and I would try to straighten it or turn it more sideways or diagonal. And the same thing – Chris would come up with something unique and interesting, and then we might add something to bring in a psychedelic or rock element to twist it more. Things got filtered, or things were rejected because it didn’t sound like us.”

What were your main guitars for Badmotorfinger? Were you primarily using your Guild S-100s?

“Yeah, I was still using the Guild S-100, but because a lot of the songs had different colors in them, Chris would have to offset my sound – or vice versa, I had to offset his sound. If he used a Gibson humbucker and had a kind of warm sound, it would be similar to the S-100. 

“Then I might have used a different bridge position, or I might try a single-coil guitar or vice versa. Because I was using the Guild a lot, Chris might have offset it with a Fender or something so we weren’t getting the same tones and colors on a song.”

In addition to guitars, would you and Chris choose different amps to complement each other’s sound? 

“We would try different things for different sounds. Very often, I would come back to whatever amp I started with, and I’d just adjust the tones and volume. There’s always a risk in doing that – for me anyway. I respond more as a player than as a listener. I react to the responsiveness of the strings and the neck. If that isn't there, then it's not me.”

You were using Peaveys, Music Mans and Mesa/Boogie amps. Does that sound about right?

“Yeah, probably. We endorsed Peavey for a while, so we were using that. And the Music Man was something I had used since my late teens back in Chicago. 

“I kept using the Music Man throughout the early days of Soundgarden until it broke. I wasn't in the habit of frequenting music stores for repairs or to find used amp heads, so that’s how we ended up using Peaveys and eventually Mesa/Boogies. 

“I remember we went to the Peavey factory. We learned from the guys there that a lot of their customers at the time preferred a certain percussiveness and brightness to their amps, and it was because of the popularity of Metallica. We weren’t so concerned with that because that’s what our drummer did. We’d do pretty radical amp settings to get the sounds we wanted. Sometimes we’d turn off the treble to get it to sound warmer.”

What was your reaction to the album after you finished it and received your reference CD? 

“It’s my personality to be the guy who says, ‘I love it, but…’ Ben, too. Chris and Matt were like that, to varying degrees. I hear echoes in my head of Ben saying, ‘We should have done this. We should have done that. This part bugs me…’ I would have those thoughts in my head, as well.

“I confess that I would play things live a little looser and free – sloppy at times – to my satisfaction. In the studio, sometimes a solo would lose its fluidity because a producer wants you to be in the pocket or to emphasize a drum sound. I remember it would get frustrating. Terry Date might say, ‘It’s a part that has to fit this way,’ and I would think, ‘Damn, I don't play like that live.’”

What was your attitude when the album was about to be released? Were you excited? Scared? A little of both?

“There was certainly a degree of anxiety. I think we were most anxious – or really, I was – because it was our first album without Hiro. He was an easy songwriting partner of mine. He would write all these riffs on bass, and I'd flesh them out. I would write guitar riffs that would stack on top of his bass ideas. So now he was gone and we had this new guy and different relationships in songwriting. And this guy was great, but it was different. It was us without Hiro.

“It was a new lineup and new material that hadn’t been tested live. The songwriting dynamic and my songwriting presence as a guitarist in a guitar band was now changed. How adaptable would our audience be? How adaptable would the band be to how this worked? 

“But at the same time, I felt very confident of the strength of the material, because it varied from a unique arrangement for a song like Rusty Cage, which I think is probably one of Chris's two or three best songs ever, and then the psychedelic elements of Searching with My Good Eye Closed. Plus, there was my debut as a lyricist...”

Yes, on Room a Thousand Years Wide.

“Matt wrote the music to that, and I loved it so much. I said, ‘I’ve got to write lyrics for this,’ because I just loved the instrumental. I had some anxiety about that. But then you had what sounds like a three-chord punk-rock song with Face Pollution, which has this crazy, Zappa-esque middle section that Ben wrote. There was so much strength and variety on the album, and we felt really good about the colors we were presenting.”

It’s been 30 years since the album came out. Does it feel like the time went by in a blink of an eye?

“That’s totally what it feels like. When I was 10 and I needed perspective, I would think back to a decade before I was born, so that’s 1950. I would be like, ‘Wow, that was a long time ago!’ To go back 30 years before I was born, 1930, that’s, like, ancient to me. There was no TV or color movies. It’s prehistoric. 30 years is a big interval, especially in popular culture. It’s a weird thing to wrap your head around.”

Mastodon’s new album, Hushed and Grim, is a staggering achievement: every second of its 86:30 runtime is crammed with arena-shaking riffs, haunting clean passages and sky-scraping solos, courtesy of ever-bankable guitarists Bill Kelliher and Brent Hinds – but there are a few special guests onboard, too, including Kim Thayil, who lends his unmistakable leads to ethereal ballad Had It All.

Now, in a new interview with Total Guitar, Kelliher has detailed Thayil’s involvement in the track, and how the Soundgarden guitarist dialed his playing into its themes of loss, which deal with the death of longtime Mastodon manager Nick John.

“I’ve always looked up to Kim,” Kelliher says. “He started coming to our gigs in Seattle and we became friends.

“I knew there would be a lot of room for him to solo on Had It All. He wanted to get it right and asked, ‘Do you need something like this or that?’ I wanted to send him the whole album so he could get a feel for the sadness and emotion.

“I said to him, ‘You guys lost Chris [Cornell], just channel that!’ because that’s what the song is about. Losing our manager, someone who we were very close to. Kim did a great job – his solos are out there and nobody plays like him.”

In the years following Chris Cornell’s passing in May 2017, Thayil has toured with MC5 supergroup MC50, performed Soundgarden material with Brandi Carlile, and served up a sizeable lead on The Pretty Reckless single Only Love Can Save Me Now. Had It All marks his latest guest solo spot.

Elsewhere in the Total Guitar interview, Kelliher reveals how the record’s other guest soloist, Marcus King, ended up tackling The Beast.

“Brent’s been playing with Marcus a lot on the side, doing shows and covers,” he explains.

“He’s a young up-and-coming blues guitarist and to my ears, they sound very similar. Marcus did a stab at a couple of solos on the record and I couldn’t really tell who was playing!”

For more on the new Mastodon album, pick up a copy of the latest issue of Total Guitar magazine, which also features a rundown of the 50 greatest Beatles guitar songs, interviews with Santana and Trivium, plus tabs of songs by Free, Biffy Clyro, Extreme and Passenger.

The nominations for the 2022 Grammy Awards have officially rolled in and – though the Justin Biebers and Ed Sheerans of the world got their fair share of nods as one would expect – there's plenty of other guitar greatness that's been recognized across the board.

Notably, H.E.R. – who earlier this year scooped up the Grammy for 2021 Song of the Year with I Can't Breathe – has been nominated for the Album of the Year award for Back of My Mind and Song of the Year again for Fight for You (a song that, mind you, already won H.E.R. an Oscar back in April).

The signature Stratocaster-toting guitarist and singer/songwriter was also nominated for half-a-dozen other Grammys – Best R&B Performance and Best R&B Song for the Damage, Best R&B Album for Back of My Mind, Best Traditional R&B Performance and Best Song Written for Visual Media for Fight for You, and last but not least, Best Contemporary Christian Music Performance/Song for Hold Us Together (Hope Mix), her collaboration with Tauren Wells.

Back in March, we cited H.E.R. high in our list of 12 guitarists who changed the game over the previous 12 months, and we're certainly glad the Grammys feel the same way. 

• How to watch the Grammys 2022

Elsewhere, the nominees in the rock, metal and alternative categories were an intriguing mix of the old guard and the new.

Reliable stadium-fillers Foo Fighters, AC/DC and Paul McCartney all picked up multiple nominations – the Foos for Best Rock Performance, Song and Album, AC/DC for Best Rock Album and Performance, and Macca for Best Rock Song and Album.

Posthumously, Chris Cornell received a pair of nominations, for Best Rock Album (No One Sings Like You Anymore Vol. 1) and Best Rock Performance for his cover of Nothing Compares 2 U.

Weezer, Kings of Leon and Wolfgang Van Halen's Mammoth WVH also received Best Rock Song nominations, while Black Pumas were recognized in the Best Rock Album and Best Rock Performance categories. The latter category was also rounded out by a nomination for Deftones, for the nine-string-driven Ohms.

Deftones were also nominated for Best Metal Performance, a category that was rounded out by nods to Dream Theater, Gojira, Mastodon and Rob Zombie.

Guitar-heavy LPs from Fleet Foxes, Halsey, Japanese Breakfast, Arlo Parks and St. Vincent made up the nominations for Best Alternative Music Album, while Snarky Puppy's Mark Lettieri – rounding out a year that saw the release of his PRS signature guitar, the Fiore – received a nomination for Best Contemporary Instrumental Album, for his Deep: The Baritone Sessions, Vol. 2 album.

Some top-tier guitar-slingers also made it into the country, roots and bluegrass categories. Billy Strings received nods for Best American Roots Performance (for Love and Regret) and Best Bluegrass Album (Renewal) and Jason Isbell (speaking of folks who got a signature guitar in 2021) was nominated for Best Country Solo Performance, for All I Do Is Drive.

Modern country superstar Chris Stapleton cleaned up as well, with nods for Best Country Song and Album, and Best Country Solo Performance for You Should Probably Leave. We assume though, that this isn't the recent You Should Probably Leave performance that Jimmy Fallon sat in on.

We haven't even gotten to blues yet, either. Between the two of them, the Best Traditional and Contemporary Blues Album awards saw nominations for blues artists both established (Joe Bonamassa, The Black Keys and Steve Cropper) and up-and-coming (Christone “Kingfish” Ingram, Cedric Burnside and Shemekia Copeland). 

Finally, as we've noted, there's plenty of engrossing guitar work on the Billie Eilish and Taylor Swift albums that between them received a number of marquee nominations.

Let's face it, the Grammys don't ever please everyone with their nominations (we would've loved to see some recognition in the jazz categories for Julian Lage and his 2021 masterpiece, Squint, for instance), but if you come looking for the guitar in this year's categories – in any and all forms – you won't be disappointed.

For a full list of all 2022 Grammy nominees, head on over to the Grammys website.

A handful of previously unseen pictures from Chris Cornell’s final photoshoot are set to be sold as NFTs.

The collection of images, titled The Last Session, was captured in 2017 by award-winning Hollywood photographer Randall Slavin – a close friend and collaborator of the late Soundgarden icon.

Slavin’s monochromatic shots, which were taken at his own studio, were shelved for years following the tragic death of Cornell later that year on May 18, and are now being sold as non-fungible tokens with the blessing of Cornell’s widow, Vicky.

The auction, which is being hosted by NFT auction platform Cryptograph, will see the sale of two separate items, titled Until We Disappear and White Roses For My Soul To Keep, which will go towards supporting Phoenix House California – a charity that Cornell himself once championed. 

While Until We Disappear is described as a single portrait shot from the photoshoot, White Roses For My Soul To Keep compiles every frame taken from the day-long session into one seamless digital piece of work.

On the upcoming auction, Vicky Cornell said, “Randall is like family. I’m so grateful that Chris’s last photoshoot was captured by not only an amazing photographer but a true friend. Phoenix House continues to do such crucial work especially during these times.”

Slavin added, “Chris Cornell was a powerful, beautiful person and someone I was fortunate to work with and I’m very excited to immortalize these images as an NFT.

“I wanted to take that idea of a journey of a photoshoot and bring it alive,” he continued. “I thought of old flip-books or old film scripts and how still images played fast can bring a subject to life.

“Doing that with this photoshoot with Chris brought movement and it brought Chris to life and that’s why I love this NFT – it takes the still images and brings Chris Cornell to life.”

Phoenix House is a leading, life-affirming non-profit organization that specializes in providing drug and alcohol rehabilitation services to individuals and families alike in the form of over 150 programs.

The auction is scheduled to go ahead later today (August 5) at 1pm EST.

For more information, head over to Cryptograph.

After months of legal tussles, the surviving members of Soundgarden and Chris Cornell’s estate have reached a temporary agreement over the band’s social media accounts and website.

As of Tuesday June 15, guitarist Kim Thayil, bassist Ben Shepherd and drummer Matt Cameron, along with managers Red Light Management, have regained access to the group’s Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts, and SoundgardenWorld.com.

Up until this point, the trio had been operating on social media under the handle Nudedragons, an anagram of Soundgarden that was used for the band’s secret reunion show at the Seattle Showbox in 2010.

In a joint statement, both camps wrote: “The agreement marks a productive first step towards healing and open dialogue, and the parties wish for the social media accounts to celebrate the Band’s accomplishments and music while continuing to honor Chris’ legacy.”

“Through our joint social media efforts and our temporary agreement, my family, along with the surviving members of Soundgarden, hope to celebrate Chris and his music out of mutual respect and love,” said Vicky Cornell in a separate statement. “We all recognize the profound pain caused by Chris’s tragic loss and the path it has taken us down.”

The band followed up on the official announcement with a message posted to its social media accounts, which encouraged civil discourse and “no more comments about wives, children, exes, significant others, siblings, parents, great aunts, 2nd cousins… etc of any of the current or former band members”.

In addition, the band asked fans not to “post discussions or inane conspiracy theories casting blame for harm to Chris Cornell”, who died while on tour in May 2017.

The agreement marks the first reconciliation in a bitter legal battle that as recently as February saw Vicky Cornell brand the band’s buyout offer of $300,000 as “villainously low”.

It could also mark the first step towards the release of a final Soundgarden album – ownership of Chris Cornell’s vocal recordings for seven unreleased tracks has remained in dispute since 2019, although Vicky Cornell had more recently indicated that “all of Chris’ music, including Soundgarden, will see the light of day.”

As part of Mental Health Awareness month and beyond, Guitar World will be hosting a series of interviews and features with artists addressing and raising awareness around themes of mental health, particularly as they relate to musicians. Below, we present the first of these interviews.

Last July, with the world on lockdown, touring at a standstill, and increasing numbers of people experiencing mental health challenges, Lily Cornell Silver launched Mind Wide Open, an Instagram series in which she interviews musicians, actors, artists, and mental health professionals. The program is now in its second season, and featured conversations with the likes of Eddie Vedder, Duff McKagan, Fantastic Negrito, Taylor Momsen and Ann Wilson.

Mind Wide Open is more than a pandemic outreach project or a way to connect with the music community. Those things were important when Silver planned the series, but her target audience is much wider. She hopes to reach those dealing with pre- and post-pandemic mental health battles, educate listeners who don’t understand grief, depression, anxiety, and other conditions and advocates for accessible mental health services for everyone, no matter one’s socioeconomic situation.

Silver, now majoring in media studies and psychology, is no stranger to the mental health crisis. She has been in therapy since age seven for various challenges, and four years ago she lost her beloved father, Chris Cornell, to suicide. Those experiences inform the direction of Mind Wide Open, where she interviews her guests with empathy and courage.

“I’ve had the privilege of access to mental health resources,” she says. “I’m lucky to be in this position, and I’m aware that one of the most fundamental things that needs to change is the limited access to those resources.”

Her goal is to present candid discourse with her guests. “Infusing these conversations into our day-to-day lives and inner circles is what will de-stigmatize mental health issues,” she says. “Creating spaces where we're able to talk about it in an unfiltered, vulnerable, and honest way contributes to ending the stigma.”

How did you know you were ready to do this? 

“It came less from a place of feeling ready and more from a place of, circumstantially and time-wise, feeling it was needed in the world, and in the U.S. specifically, for conversations around mental health, grief, loss, and suicide to be opened up, because people, myself included, were floundering, and I wasn't seeing conversations being had as much as they should have been.”

Hosting an IGTV series and podcast in which others tell you what they experience is a lot to carry when you are still in that place of grief and trauma.

“When it comes to grief, traumatic loss, and mental health in general, you go through periods of time when you're able to talk about it, and the next day you can’t. I don't know if I'll ever get to the place where I’m able to consistently talk about it every single day and not feel overwhelmed. It’s day by day.

“That's the timeline of grief. It's nonlinear. If people wait to talk about their grief and mental health when it doesn't affect them anymore, no one is ever going to have the conversation. Part of it is accepting that advocacy work is a very messy thing, and that's okay. That's how it's supposed to be.”

Are the interviews cathartic?

“Definitely. It goes back and forth between being healing and amazing to being overwhelming and feeling like it’s too much. Depending on who I'm talking to, sometimes it can be triggering. It very much depends on my own emotional state.

“Every year, around anniversaries, I'm in a heightened state of emotional reactivity. It's harder for me to talk about it, harder to form coherent thoughts, and that affects every part of my life. I get frustrated with myself: 'Why do I feel like I'm regressing? Why do I feel like suddenly it's so much harder and feel like it just happened?' My therapist always says, 'Your body remembers, and your body will feel it before your brain does.' Being aware of it and knowing that that's what I'm going through is important.”

How do you prepare for your shows and podcasts? Where do you draw the line in terms of subject matter?

“You don't have to air every single part of your private life and your emotional journey. Everyone has things they don't want to be front-page news. There's such a stigma around mental health that there are things we feel we can't talk about, and sometimes that's the thing someone wishes you would ask.

“I was a junior in high school when my dad died, and going back to school, so many people had no idea how to speak to me. They didn't want to bring up my dad, they didn't want to bring up where I'd been when I'd been out of school for a few weeks, and I wish someone would have talked to me about it. I wish someone had addressed it.

“I go into every interview with a pre-conversation and say, 'Is there anything you do or don’t want to talk about?' Everyone has areas of their life that they're not willing to delve into. Another weird thing about celebrity culture is that people feel entitled to every part of a celebrity's life, but everyone is human, everyone has parts of their life that are private to them. No-one is entitled to all of the information about somebody's life.”

What part does social media pressure play in mental health? 

“The music industry is a unique but prominent example, and obviously that's where most of my foundational knowledge comes from when it comes to mental health. I've talked a lot about why mental health is such a ubiquitous issue in the music industry. Much of that is because artists tend towards sensitivity. What they create is so personal and raw and emotional, and to have that scrutinized as a thing for consumption, versus as a piece of art that they put their heart into, is in and of itself a damaging thing.

“I was very deliberate in wanting to put this series on Instagram as a social media platform, because there is a lot of consumption of unhealthy and damaging things for mental health on social media. If I can put something on people's feeds that is real, raw, vulnerable, and takes away that need for comparison, or something that people see themselves in, versus wishing they looked like something or someone else, then social media can be positive in that regard.

“There's so much that comes up on our feeds that we can't control. I've taken deliberate steps to limit what I'm consuming to things that make me feel good and make it safe and non-damaging.”

Something so important in the work you do is addressing grief and mental health. Too often we’re told to 'get over it and move on'. 

“When my dad died, I was in such a state of shock, which is normal for traumatic loss or loss of any kind. But I was high-functioning – I was applying to colleges, taking the SATs, working in the music industry, and doing a bunch of stuff – and I was praised for that, which made me feel like, 'This is how I should be grieving. This is how I should be showing up.'

“It wasn't until nine months later that I started falling apart. I was in my senior year of high school, and the people around me didn't understand. We live in such a grief-illiterate society that people were like, 'It's been nine months; why can you not function? Why can you not turn in your homework? Why can you not show up to school every day?' I was finally at the point where the shock was wearing off and I was processing what had happened. 

“When you grieve, you go through waves and different phases. I still go through periods where something comes up and I am thrown into emotion, and I feel embarrassed because I'm like, 'It’s been ‘this number’ of years since whatever it was happened. I shouldn't be upset about it anymore.' I'm embarrassed to tell my mom or my boyfriend that this came out of nowhere, and I don't want people to think I'm doing it for attention. But people feel that way because we don't talk about the parts of grief that happen years afterwards. 

“Grief stays with you forever, and it is not limited to losing a person. You can grieve the loss of a pet, an experience, a period of your life, so many things. It’s something you process for the rest of your life. I appreciate that question, because I find myself having to explain grief to people through the lens of my own experience. Grief is not something we talk about openly, so it's an opportunity for me to educate people and hopefully help them gain a deeper understanding.”

You advocate for mental health and grief awareness, yet you feel embarrassed for falling apart.

“Right, and I understand that sometimes when I feel shame or embarrassment, it’s the conditioning I've had through my life and through growing up in a society that conditions us to have a two-week period where we get to decompensate, and after that you need to be on an upward trajectory.

“I can hold both things at once and know that I'm allowed to experience grief as it happens for me, and recognize that I've been conditioned to believe that I shouldn’t have big emotions and decompensate around it for years afterwards.”

Would you agree that terminology plays a part in creating stigma? Even the term “mental illness”, rather than “mental health”, plays into the stereotype of what people envision when they hear those words.

“We are conditioned to view mental health and mental illness as something reserved for a certain group or a certain type of people. What I try to convey is that every single person struggles with mental health at some point, and if by some chance they don't struggle with it personally, they know someone who does.

“That's why stigma doesn't make sense to me, because mental health is a spectrum; it can look like so many different things. It's not always the most extreme version, but the most extreme version also deserves attention and care, and doesn't deserve to be stigmatized. 

“I do think terminology plays an important role in our societal conditioning. Terms like 'crazy' and 'psychotic', and saying things like, 'Oh, I’m happy and sad; I'm so bipolar,' or 'I’m upset that my kitchen is dirty; I’m so OCD,' absolutely add to the stigma around people who actually struggle with those conditions. This terminology has been ingrained in us because of our mental health illiteracy and our grief illiteracy as a society.

“As we talk about mental health more openly and have a greater understanding of these things, hopefully people will recognize how terminology and vocabulary either add to that stigma or help dismantle it.”

Will mental health awareness continue when people who dealt with it during the pandemic begin to feel better?

“I think the pandemic has blown the lid off a lot of issues that we can no longer continue to ignore. I don't think it's possible to go back to a place where we can pretend that people aren't struggling and suffering and that there isn't oppression. These are things we're going to have to continue dealing with, and coming out of this pandemic, it’s something that, unfortunately, more people will be in a position to understand.”

You advocate for social justice, which ties into mental health and grief in many ways. How do you approach these important conversations?

“I will never understand what it’s like to be Black, to be a Person of Color, or experience what they have gone through – not just in the last year, but for hundreds of years. These issues are more prominent in the media, but they are nothing new.

“What I can do is use my platform to have people who have had those experiences speak on them and educate others. This goes back to empathy, understanding that you can’t understand, and that it’s time to truly listen. The only way things will change is if we have these open, honest conversations. We have to genuinely take in what others have to say and listen to how we can best be of service.”

Who are your dream guests?

“Billie Eilish and Selena Gomez. I've been a fan of Billie Eilish since the SoundCloud days. She is my generation’s version of what my dad and other musicians in Seattle were doing in the 1990s – that raw vulnerability and intense emotion. Singing about that openly and putting it into your art changed the industry. I love that she is an advocate for mental health and talks about her experiences.

“I'm also such a fan of Selena Gomez and all the work she does in the mental health space. I had the privilege to play a very small role in her Rare Beauty makeup line. The Rare Impact Fund has made an incredible pledge to donate so much money to mental health resources and funding. It's amazing to see people do tangible stuff like that, and I would love to talk to both of them.”

• For more information, head to mindwideopenproject.com.

Mental health resources

• Backline
• Music Health Alliance
• Young Black Minds Matter
• National Alliance on Mental Illness
• The Trevor Project
• Help Musicians (UK)
• Young Minds (UK)

Note: this article is also featured in Australian Guitar #142, which is out now wherever great magazines are sold! Click here to read more about what’s in this jam-packed issue!

Despite the LP’s notably bleak title, Death By Rock And Roll is actually what saved The Pretty Reckless from an early grave. After the sudden death of close friend (and timeless grunge icon) Chris Cornell on May 18th, 2017, the New York hard-rockers were shaken to the core. Anyone in their position would be – Cornell committed suicide mere hours after fronting a gig with Soundgarden, for which The Pretty Reckless served as its opening act. They were some of the last people Cornell spent time with, and the significance of as much sent the band into a deep depressive spiral. 

In particular, frontwoman Taylor Momsen hit rock bottom hard and fast. Songwriting was the least of her concerns – especially when less than a year after Cornell’s passing, The Pretty Reckless’ longtime collaborator and go-to producer, Kato Khandwala, was killed in a motorcycle accident. 

Drugs and isolation defined the next couple years of Momsen’s life, until a random glint of creative motivation sparked up. Momsen clung onto the morsel for dear life, pouring her agony out on paper less in the form of structured, aforethought lyrics, and more in a desperation-fuelled stream of consciousness. Little of it made any sense, but in time, Momsen was able to salvage key lines and thematic nodes with which to build the framework of an album.

The end result is not only a monolithic rebirth for The Pretty Reckless, but easily their most impassioned and intense body of work to date. At face value, Death By Rock And Roll is an operatic epic packed with hugely emotive, musically towering cuts that condense and amplify everything the band does best. Beyond that, it’s effectively what pulled Momsen back from the brink of her own demise. 

With the record out and generating inhuman levels of praise, Australian Guitar caught up with Momsen to dig a little deeper.

Especially given how chaotic the journey up to this point has been, how do you feel now that you’ve finally been able to unleash this beast into the wild? 
It’s surreal, honestly. We finished the album a little over a year ago, but we’ve been sitting on it due to the world’s circumstances – the fact that it’s finally out almost doesn’t feel real. It’s crazy, in the best way possible. I’m so happy to be able to share it, and people can finally listen to it. I’ve been holding onto it for dear life for the past year, and now it’s suddenly out there in the world! It’s like sending your child off to college and going, “Okay, do me proud! I hope I raised you well!”

I love how the record ebbs and flows between these really big, balls-to-the-wall rock ’n’ roll moments, and some more atmospheric, sometimes orchestral-based sections. Was that flow between the highs and lows something you wanted to really dial in on? 
Yeah, for sure. I don’t know exactly how calculated everything is, but this record came from a lot of places. We went through a lot of loss in the past few years, and this record is really the culmination of all that. I got very down as a person, I fell into a very dark hole of depression and substance abuse and everything that comes along with grief, and I wasn’t sure how I was going to get out of it. 

But to make a very long story short, and as cliché as it may sound, it was very literally music that saved my life – writing this album is what really kind of pulled me back to life. It was very cathartic, in the way that I almost didn’t have to think when I was putting pen to paper. I feel like I didn’t even write this record, the record wrote itself. It just kind of poured out of me, whether I wanted it to or not. And that’s a rare occurrence as a writer. I put everything I had into it, and I’m extraordinarily proud of it. 

And I think we took a lot of… I don’t want to say risks, but there’s a lot of sonic evolution on this record, and I really do think we took a big step forward with it. Dare I say it: this might be the best album we’ve ever made.

Do you feel like you can hear that catharsis, and the raw passion you put into this album, when you listen back on it? 
Absolutely! I think it’s undeniable, from the songwriting alone to the performances on the record, that we were able to capture a sense of energy and humanness that you simply can’t fake. We were capturing a moment in our lives that couldn’t be duplicated if we’d tried – we were living it, and that kind of purity – that kind of vulnerability – is something so rare. So to capture that on tape… It was certainly challenging at times, but I think it made for an extraordinarily special record.

Early in the tracklist, there’s an obviously really important track for the band, and definitely one that stands out on the record too: “Only Love Can Save Me Now” with (Soundgarden’s) Matt Cameron and Kim Thayil. What can you tell us about how that song came together? 
That song was written from the lowest of lows. Like I said, I was in a very dark kind of headspace, and I think that song in particular was born out of desperation. I’d hit a point where I was so low, and I was just looking for anything to kind of save me. Love is such a powerful force in the world – whether that’s love from other people, or y’know, our love of music… Whatever you equate love to in your own life, that’s what it’s about. It was a very personal song for me to write. 

And then when we came to recording, it was actually one of the last songs we did for the album. When I finished writing the song, I sent a demo off to Matt and Kim, who are very dear friends of mine, and obviously exquisite musicians –
and I knew they would bring this incredible sense of weight and power to it, which no-one other than them could. 

The whole experience of recording it was just amazing: we flew to Seattle to record at London Bridge Studios, which is where Soundgarden recorded
Louder Than Love back in the day, Pearl Jam made Ten and Alice In Chains made Dirt – the list of iconic records made there goes on and on. 

I’m a very firm believer that places are kind of like people, they hold memories in the walls, and so just walking into that studio was incredible. You could feel the vibe; you could feel the energy of all the records that had been made there previously. And to be there with Matt and Kim, y’know, walking around the studio and having Kim point to every picture on the wall or every little note that’s still hanging up there, telling a story about it… It was just incredible. 

And then to hear the song coming to life for real, in realtime, was just absolutely magical. The first time Matt hit his snare and with the first note that Kim strummed out, the song just exploded out of the speaker. It’s by far one of my favourite songs on the record. I’m not supposed to say that because they’re all my favourite, but that song in particular is very special to me, and making it was definitely a career highlight.

Chris Cornell’s family has reached a confidential settlement with the doctor who cared for the singer and guitarist at the time of his death.

Cornell died on May 18, 2017, and his death was ruled a suicide. Shortly after, his family issued a statement that questioned a coroner’s report that he took his own life.

“Without the results of toxicology tests, we do not know what was going on with Chris – or if any substances contributed to his demise,” the statement read.

In 2018, Cornell’s widow, Vicky Cornell, and her two children, Toni and Christopher Nicholas, sued Dr. Robert Koblin for malpractice, stating that the multiple medications he had been prescribed had impaired the singer’s cognition. Now, the suit has been settled.

A report in Rolling Stone outlines the original suit, which alleged that Koblin prescribed Cornell over 940 doses of the anti-anxiety drug Lorazepam between September 2015 and May 2017.

Additionally, Rolling Stone states that the suit claimed that Koblin also prescribed Oxycodone but didn’t conduct appropriate follow-up, and that the doctor didn’t warn Cornell, “an addiction-prone individual”, about possible side effects of Lorazepam which include impairment of judgement and rational thinking, diminished impulse control and increased risk of suicide.

Terms of the settlement, which was reached last month, remain confidential.

At the same time, Vicky Cornell has been engaged in an ongoing legal battle with the surviving members of Soundgarden, with the band members recently accusing Cornell of locking them out of the official Soundgarden social media accounts and website.

The legal battle between the surviving members of Soundgarden and Vicky Cornell, widow of late frontman Chris Cornell – continues on.

Last week we reported that, according to court documents, Soundgarden had received an offer worth $16 million from an unnamed third party seeking to purchase the band's recorded music catalogue. 

Cornell, in turn, alleged that the band offered to purchase her stake – which she inherited from her late husband – for the “villainously low figure of less than $300,000”.

The lawsuit revealed that Cornell had offered the band $21 million for their own shares, which they had turned down. According to Cornell’s lawyer, Marty Singer, this was “not because they wanted to preserve their life’s work but because they know that they will make even more off of future exploitation of the music that Chris wrote and the legacy that he created (which has lined their pockets for years)”.

Soundgarden guitarist Kim Thayil, drummer Matt Cameron and bassist Ben Shepherd have now responded to Cornell’s lawsuit, stating that the buyout offer “demanded by the Estate has been grossly mischaracterized and we are confident that clarity will come out in court.”

They continued, "All offers to buy out our interests have been unsolicited and rejected outright.

"For more than a year, Soundgarden’s social media accounts have been hijacked; misleading and confusing our fans.

"Being a band from Washington State since 1984, we are proud of Soundgarden’s musical legacy, work and career. We look forward to completing the final Soundgarden album."

This is only the latest development in a string of disputes between Vicky Cornell and Soundgarden. In December 2019, Cornell sued the band, claiming they were withholding hundreds of thousands of dollars in royalties which were owed to her and her family. The dispute also involved copyright issues regarding seven audio recordings made by Chris Cornell before his death in May 2017.

Thayil, Cameron and Shepherd countersued in response, calling her complaint an “offensive recitation of false allegations and accusations”.

The band members also claimed Cornell had used funds raised by the I Am The Highway: A Tribute To Chris Cornell benefit concert for “personal purposes for herself and her family”.

Cornell's legal team responded with threats of legal sanctions, calling the band's actions “shameful and objectively frivolous”. The band agreed to voluntarily dismiss the claim regarding the charity concert.

Vicky Cornell – the widow of Chris Cornell – is once again suing Soundgarden, claiming she received a “villainously low” offer for her stake in the band.

According to court documents seen by Rolling Stone, Soundgarden received an offer worth $16 million from an unnamed third party seeking to purchase the band's recorded music catalogue. 

Cornell says the band offered to purchase her stake – which she inherited from her late husband – for the “villainously low figure of less than $300,000”.

Speaking to Rolling Stone, Cornell's lawyer Marty Singer said, “The band’s contention that this dispute is somehow not about the money for them is absurd and hypocritical. Of course this is about money and their greed.”

Cornell had offered the band $21 million for their own shares, the lawsuit reveals, however they turned the offer down. The reason, Singer said, was “not because they wanted to preserve their life’s work but because they know that they will make even more off of future exploitation of the music that Chris wrote and the legacy that he created (which has lined their pockets for years).”

A statement from a representative for the band says, "The surviving members of Soundgarden submitted to the Cornell Estate four months ago a buyout offer of the Estate’s interests in Soundgarden calculated by respected music industry valuation expert Gary Cohen.

“Since then, the band members have continued to try to settle all disputes with the Cornell Estate and in their several attempts to settle, the band members have elected to offer multiple times more than the amount calculated by Cohen. This dispute has never been about money for the band. This is their life’s work and their legacy.”

Cornell has requested the courts determine a price for her assets that – in addition to the value of Soundgarden's master recordings – is based on future merchandise sales, potential tours with a new singer, possible hologram performances and “deep-fake renditions of Chris’ vocals drawn from extant recordings by artificial intelligence that could mint brand new Soundgarden hits”.

This is only the latest development in a string of disputes between Vicky Cornell and Soundgarden.

In December 2019, Cornell sued the band, claiming they were withholding hundreds of thousands of dollars in royalties which were owed to her and her family. The dispute also involved copyright issues regarding seven audio recordings made by Chris Cornell before his death in May 2017.

Surviving Soundgarden members Kim Thayil, Matt Cameron and Ben Shepherd countersued in response, calling her complaint an “offensive recitation of false allegations and accusations”.

The band members also claimed Cornell had used funds raised by the I Am The Highway: A Tribute To Chris Cornell benefit concert for “personal purposes for herself and her family”.

Cornell's legal team responded with threats of legal sanctions, calling the band's actions “shameful and objectively frivolous.” The band agreed to voluntarily dismiss the claim regarding the charity concert.

Julien Baker has tackled one of Chris Cornell’s most iconic songs, Soundgarden’s Fell on Black Days, in a new performance on Seattle’s KEXP at Home.

At 42:54 in the video above, Baker strips back the song’s explosive powerchords for a delicate fingerstyle arrangement on her Yamaha acoustic-electric, swamped in delay from her expansive pedalboard.

Of her history with Cornell’s work, Baker says, “I’m a huge fan of all things Cornell and all of his iterations, but I am just particularly super-onboard with Audioslave. And I think that is because they have more of a visceral memory to me, because it was happening when I was growing up.

“I recently was doing a dive back into Soundgarden, and I heard this song, and it was just flooring. I think there are so many cuts off the Soundgarden records, it’s like, every song is so good and so complex, in a way that I feel like doesn’t – maybe it does get represented – but, you know, there’s so much more there underneath the seminal grunge band icon.

“His writing has always just been particularly haunting to me, but also it’s something that I feel very deeply. But it’s a beautiful song.”

The performance also sees Baker take up keyboards and her trademark Fender Tele for full-band arrangements of Faith Healer, Song in E and new single Hardline.

Baker’s new album, Little Oblivions, is out on February 26 via Matador Records – we’ll have more from the pedal-keen singer-songwriter on GuitarWorld.com very soon…

NAMM 2021 isn't taking place in the physical realm this year, but you'll find all the hottest January gear launches in our guide to the biggest guitar, amp and pedal releases of 2021 so far.

There’s no physical NAMM show this year, but that doesn’t mean Gretsch is holding any of its most desirable guitars for 2021 back – not by a long shot.

This year’s high-end offerings are highlighted by a trio of luxuriously finished limited-editions – a Falcon, Penguin and Tenny – plus a new Players Edition take on the Jet, and a Vintage Select Edition inspired by a ’90s alt-rock legend.

Read on and prepare to drool…

Gretsch Vintage Select ’89 Jet

Gretsch’s PR claims this new model “resurrect[s] a classic late-’80s design that rocked the forefront of the Pacific Northwest grunge movement” – and to us, that can only refer to one guitarist: Chris Cornell.

For Soundgarden’s landmark 1994 album, Superunknown, Cornell relied on just three guitars, one of which was a 1989 Gretsch G6128T Duo Jet.

According to producer Michael Beinhorn, this Silver Sparkle model was the sole guitar used on Black Hole Sun, although Cornell played a Gold Sparkle model in the track’s iconic, trippy video.

This new model pays homage to that guitar with Gold Sparkle, Silver Sparkle and Black finishes, and period-correct specs.

That includes chambered mahogany construction, a maple set neck, 12“-radius rosewood fingerboard, G-arrow knobs, Bigsby vibrato, Adjusto-Matic bridge and Gotoh tuners.

TV Jones TV Classic Plus bridge and Classic neck pickups are also onboard to replicate the Filter’Tron sound of the era, too.

The G6129T-89VS (Gold Sparkle and Silver Sparkle), and G6128T-89VS Vintage Select ’89 Duo Jet with Bigsby (Black) are available from March 2021 for $2,599.

Gretsch G6136T Limited Edition Falcon with Bigsby

Far beyond White Falcon, this limited-edition model’s Two-Tone Copper/Sahara Metallic finish is a real stunner, while a pair of TV Jones Ray Butts Ful-Fidelity pickups promise sounds as good as its looks.

There’s also 1959 trestle bracing for classic hollowbody performance, as well as a no-load master tone and master volume with “Squeezebox” paper-in-oil caps, string-thru Bigsby B6CP tailpiece, pinned “rocking” bar bridge with ebony base, bone nut, Grover Imperial locking tuning machines, jeweled G-arrow control knobs, a gloss urethane finish, chrome hardware and silver vintage thick plexi pickguard with Gretsch and Falcon logos.

The G6136T Limited Edition Falcon with Bigsby takes flight from February 2021 for $3,599.

Gretsch G6134T Limited Edition Penguin Koa with Bigsby

One of the most distinctive Penguin models we can recall, the G6134T boasts a natural-finished koa top with matching figured headstock, topped off by tortoiseshell body and neck binding, mother of pearl Neo-Classic thumbnail inlays, jeweled arrow control knobs, a tortoise pickguard and gold hardware.

Beneath that gorgeous top lies a chambered mahogany body, as well as a pair of TV Jones TV Classic pickups based on ’50s Filter’Trons.

Other features include a set mahogany neck, 12”-radius ebony fingerboard, Bigsby B3 tailpiece, rocking bar bridge with pinned ebony base, and Grover Imperial tuners.

You can pick up the G6134T Limited Edition Penguin Koa with Bigsby from April 2021 for $3,299.

Gretsch G6119TG-62RW-LTD Limited Edition ‘62 Rosewood Tenny with Bigsby and Gold Hardware

Rosewood top, back and sides are where this model gets its incredibly lengthy name, and its teaming with TV Jones TV Classic humbuckers promises a distinctive tone that will make its presence known in any mix.

In a nod to vintage specs, parallel tone bars connect the guitar’s top and back, while there’s also the classic three-position tone switch and Gretsch “Squeezebox” paper-in-oil capacitors for further authenticity.

Elsewhere, you get a “rocking” bar bridge with pinned rosewood base, Bigsby B6G vibrato tailpiece, 12”-radius rosewood fingerboard with 22 vintage small frets, gold G-arrow control knobs and Grover Sta-Tite open-back tuning machines, aged white binding with black purfling, aged pearloid Neo-Classic thumbnail inlays, and a rosewood headcap.

The – deep breath – G6119TG-62RW-LTD Limited Edition ‘62 Rosewood Tenny with Bigsby and Gold Hardware lands in March 2021 for $2,599.

Gretsch G6228TG-PE Players Edition Jet BT with Bigsby and Gold Hardware

The first Players Jet BT model with Bigsby tailpiece and gold hardware, this latest Jet offers a select 1.85” chambered mahogany body with maple top, promising a “smooth attack and extended bandwidth”.

Tim Shaw was on hand for the Jet’s Gretsch Broad’Tron BT65 pickups, while the guitar is spec’d up to the nines elsewhere, too, with lowered neck set, full-access rolled cutaway and tapered heel, no-load master tone pot with Squeezebox paper-in-oil capacitor, master volume with treble bleed circuit and individual pickup volume controls.

The G6228TG-PE Players Edition Jet BT with Bigsby and Gold Hardware is available in Cadillac Green, Midnight Sapphire and Walnut Stain finishes from March 2021 for $2,599.

For more info on all the new releases, head on over to Gretsch Guitars.

No more digital or physical ink needs to be spilled about how 2020 has been a trying, at-times horrific year that has tested all of us in a multitude of ways – we all know.

It has been amazing, however, to see how guitar players of all backgrounds, musical inclinations, and levels of popularity have risen to the occasion of this dreadful year, and provided us with a dizzying variety unforgettable riffs, solos and tunes that gave 2020 the feel of one of those terrible movies gifted with an incredible soundtrack. 

The last of our weekly round-ups of guitar tracks reflects this across-the-board ingenuity, with the transcendent pairing of one of pop’s biggest stars with one of America’s great rock bands, a savage, curveball-laced crusher from Sylosis, Chris Cornell’s sizzling cover of a Harry Nilsson classic, and a solo-heavy reimagining of Gorillaz’s Feel Good Inc.

So, whether you’re cooped up due to the weather or orders from the government, kick back for a few minutes and enjoy some of 2020’s final killer six- (or seven-) string offerings. 

Taylor Swift & The National – coney island

Whether you’re a fan or not, Taylor Swift’s evolution from teen country phenom to chart-dominating pop A-lister to occasional rapper (when not recruiting rap’s own cream-of-the-crop as collaborators) to her latest incarnation – a weaver of hushed, indie/folk-informed mini-masterpieces – has been breathtaking to watch. 

evermore, her second album of 2020, finds her working with the same crew of collaborators that brought this summer’s folklore to life – The National guitarists Aaron and Bryce Dessner and Jack Antonoff (with some additional guest spots from Bon Iver). 

For the mesmerizing highlight coney island, Swift rounded up not only the Dessners, but the rest of The National with them, for a song that impeccably plays to the strengths of all parties involved. 

Biting and brutally efficient with her words, Swift is in phenomenal form, her beautifully measured vocals a perfect match for National frontman Matt Berninger’s rich baritone. The band paints a stunning picture behind them, adorned with delicate percussion and piano, and intricate webs of delectable acoustic work from the Dessners. 

Something about having this many masters-of-the-craft in a room together screams 'too many cooks,' but coney island's the farthest thing from it – a testament to just how singular and creatively fruitful the unlikely pairing of Swift and Dessner has been. (JM)

Sylosis – Worship Decay

Josh Middleton is a man with his fingers in multiple metal pies. When he’s not announcing tasty new signature guitars with ESP, you’ll either find him manning the lead guitar fort with British metalcore titans Architects, or fronting modern-day thrash dominators Sylosis, the latter of whom this week dropped a brand-new track. 

Now, with a title like Worship Decay, it’s hard to imagine it’ll be anything other than savagely heavy. And while this presumption may be absolutely correct, the track continually throws curveballs, introducing a volley of fresh riffs to keep you on your toes. (SR)

Chris Cornell - Jump Into the Fire

Last week saw the surprise release of the late Soundgarden icon’s final album, No One Sings Like You Anymore, which plays host to a diverse range of covers from John Lennon to Guns N’ Roses and Prince.

Jump Into the Fire – a surprisingly faithful rendition of Harry Nilsson’s 1971 classic, minus the wig-out middle section – sees Cornell venture into the same kind of classic-rock territory that he flirted with on 2007’s Carry On with tracks like Your Soul Today.

Brendan O’Brien’s crisp production makes this a more successful marriage, however, as Cornell wrings larger-than-life overdrive tones from his 335, accompanied by his eternal wail. (MAB)

Renforshort - Feel Good Inc. feat Mateus Asato

When grunge-pop bassist Renforshort announced that she was teaming up with neo-soul wizard Mateus Asato for a new single, it was inevitable that something special was going to happen.

The result: a guitar-heavy reimagining of the Gorillaz classic Feel Good Inc., filled to the brim with Asato’s trademark tones and techniques, Renforshort’s dreamy vocal textures and a production value that packages it all up into three-and-a-half minutes of guitar-pop perfection.

A typically tasty solo sees Asato at the peak of his powers, hammering on and off to maximum effect and using the length of the fretboard to flex his impressively constructed melodies. The two make quite a formidable team. (MO)

Soen – Monarch

Ahead of their upcoming album Imperial, Swedish prog metallers Soen have released Monarch, accompanied by a rather ssspectacular music video. You’ll need to watch it to fully appreciate that admittedly weak pun.

Amongst its wondrous melodic and tight arrangements sit a plethora of tasty guitar lines, from its instantly hooky main riff to textured ambient cleans. At its climax, guitarist Cody Ford lets loose with a solo that’ll have you reaching for your air guitar and pulling some questionable guitar faces as you’re swept up in the shred. (SR)

Emma Ruth Rundle & Thou - Hollywood

The unexpected pairing of post-rock mage Emma Ruth Rundle and sludge-metal merchants Thou yielded some of the best riffs of the year, so we’re overjoyed to hear that the collaboration doesn’t end there: a companion EP, The Helm of Sorrow, is due out in January, and Cranberries cover Hollywood is the first, punishing taste.

True, its down-tuned chug doesn’t feature any of the single-note riffs that made up the highlights of its forebear, but Hollywood is powerful in its dogged pursuit of heaviness, and stays true to Thou’s long history of faithful covers – albeit with the strings tuned way down and the gain ramped way, way up. (MAB)

Hällas - Carry On

Swedish retro-rocker storytellers and champions of epic '70s throwbacks Hällas have this week released a new video for their song Carry On –  a track that featured on their third album Conundrum in a trilogy of installments earlier this year.

Driving us through Carry On with a four-on-the-floor, pumping bass part and deliciously melodic and harmonic interplays between the two guitars, the video gets up close and personal with the band, who have brought out the quirky shirts and let their hair down. 

Drawing on their adventure-rock powers, the band follow a catchy chorus hook with an infectious space-rock riff that sees the guitars unite to form a duo of psychedelic greatness, complemented by the synth that transforms the classic-rock composition into an epic cosmic journey. (MO)

Jason Bieler and The Baron Von Bielski Orchestra – Bring Out Your Dead

On his second solo single, Jason Bieler – or more accurately, Jason Bieler and The Baron Von Bielski Orchestra – teams up with two players who are no stranger to the odd metal riff: Devin “Hevy Devy” Townsend and Megadeth bassist Dave Ellefson.

Characteristically operatic, the trio join forces to unite Queen-esque vocal harmonies with drop-tuned metal riffage, and it works a treat. Oh, and there’s a pretty fantastic descending lead passage that’s well worth a listen in there, too. (SR)

Nighttime Boogie Association - The Path We're On

Matt Cameron is one of guitar’s great unsung talents, and you can put that down to the fact that he’s ever-so-slightly better known for his skills behind the kit with Soundgarden and Pearl Jam.

Now, the man behind the monster riffs of Mailman and The Fixer has joined forces with fellow drum god Taylor Hawkins to form – band name of the year alert – Nighttime Boogie Association.

The Path We’re On is the pair’s lead-off single, and sees Cameron handle guitar duties alongside fellow Seattlite and Melvins sludge lord Buzz Osborne, while Hawkins tackles vocals and keys.

The track’s groove is unmistakably Cameron – its shifting time signatures and syncopated measures display all the hallmarks of his sinewiest Soundgarden head-twisters, while the wide-open chords point towards a more overt ’70s rock influence. We’re keeping our fingers crossed for more. (MAB)

Whether you consider it lucky, unlucky, or don’t give a shit about superstition, it’s hard to deny that 13 is a pretty impressive number when it comes to the amount of albums one has put out. Especially in the case of a band like Sevendust, who continue to one-up themselves – and their signature searing and commandeering alt-metal sound – with each new release. 

Blood & Stone is no different, shaking things up with the beautifully balls‑to‑the-wall riffs, maniacally monstrous singalongs, and the occasional unexpected plot-twist (like a cover of Soundgarden’s “The Day I Tried To Live”, presented in tribute to the late, great Chris Cornell).  

As we learned chatting with lead guitarist Clint Lowery, the key to Sevendust’s enduring success is their refusal to stagnate – for as long as their hands can lift their instruments and their vocal chords can muster the lyrics, they’re keen to keep reinventing the wheel, then promptly smashing it to pieces.

It’s not often that a band’s 13th album will be their best, but this is just an absolute ripper. This far into your career, how do you manage to keep things feeling fresh and exciting, not just for the fans but for yourselves as artists?
Oh man, that’s always the challenge. To be honest with you, we never expected to go past two or three records, y’know? But one thing I think has kept us on our toes, and kept the chemistry alive and the thrill still there, is just the relationship we have with each other – there’s a very strong mutual respect that we all have for each other. I mean, we’re brothers – we fight, and we do all the things that people who spend a lot of time together do, but at the end of the day, we adore our fans.

Sure, music is our livelihood – it keeps the lights on and keeps food on the table – but at the end of the day, we still get those chills when the lights go down and we hear the crowd start to cheer. I honestly see every one of the guys, at some point, get pepped up on that stuff. So it’s cool. We still dig it! And we’re going to continue to do it for as long as we all dig it.

So is this the definitive Sevendust album? 
I think it definitely has all of the ingredients that makes up our sound. We always accomplish that on some level: sometimes we stray a little bit towards the melodic side and sometimes we go a little heavier, sometimes we go a little more odd or a little more technical – but at the end of the day, it always just comes down to Lajon [Witherspoon] being a soulful singer, Morgan [Rose] being very persuasive… 

And we’re from the South, y’know? There’s a flavour to that which is hard to describe – it’s just an attitude, I suppose, just like you have an attitude in punk rock, or in hip-hop, or in the blues. W have that vibe; we have a culture, and a presence that you know can only come from the South.

Do you find that you’re still discovering new ways to present yourself as a guitarist? 
Yeah, I mean, there’s always a new trick that you’re trying to add to the arsenal. There’s always a discovery to be made. When I was younger, I played all the time – I played for eight hours a day, just bullshitting constantly, so I discovered those things quicker. Now I’ll play the guitar just to write, for the most part – I don’t really practise for soloing or anything like that. But occasionally I’ll stumble upon some kind of movement that excites me. 

At the moment, I’m doing these things with slide techniques and string-skipping – that’s my flavour of the month. And then in the studio, I’ve really gotten into layering, and trying new ways orchestrate how I’ll layer guitars – making sure they don’t fight for frequency, making sure they all have a place in the mix… I love doing that stuff, I could do that all day!

What guitars did you have in the studio this time around? 
I always have the PRS Custom 22 that I’ve named Bruce Lee; it always has to make an appearance. PRS sent it to me years and years and years ago – probably around the time of our second record [Home], and I fell in love with it there and then. It has its own soul, man. So that’s always been one of my favourites to record with.

I used a lot of the PRS baritone guitars as well – they’re what I call the war horses for the type of music we play. There’s a couple of songs in drop G# sharp, so I need that longer scale neck and that chunkier sort of built. So we used those a lot for the main parts. And then for the colour, I was messing around with some other guitars, like a PRS Star, just to kind of get more of a thin, nitty kind of tone.

You guys were initially scheduled to tour Australia with Steel Panther back in May, which obviously didn’t happen; but the last word we got was that you’re back on for February 2021. Is that still the plan? 
I was actually thinking about that yesterday, I’ve been meaning to reach out to them about it. I talk to the Steel Panther guys quite a bit, but I haven’t heard any updates – I don’t if it’s canned or if it’s going to go through, or what the situation in Australia and New Zealand is as far as allowing people in. You guys have handled the pandemic a lot better than we have, so I don’t know if they’d even allow us in. 

As far as I know, we’re still on – but you know how it all is, and how it’s all been unfolding – they keep pushing things back, so would it surprise me if they postponed again? No. But as of right now, everyone seems to be optimistic.

Are there any songs on the new record that you’re especially keen to bust out? 
I put together a setlist that we’re going to do for a livestream coming up, and I have to say, a couple of the songs on this record are the ones I’m most excited to play. There’s a song called “Dying To Live” that I really, really love. We’ll play about three or four songs off the new record, because it’s a really exciting record for us and we want to celebrate it as much as we can. 

Usually we’d only play about one or two songs from a new record – maybe three, at the most – just because we have other songs that we have to get to. But we’re going to play a lot of these new ones. Obviously we’ve got to play “Blood From A Stone”, and the Soundgarden cover that we did [“The Day I Tried To Live”]. And then there’s a few others on there that I really want to do – there’s one called “Alone” that I’m super excited to rip out.

Do you write many of your parts with the live show in mind? 
I was talking to Morgan about this the other day, and I think in the future, we’re going to make much more of a conscious effort to. After doing this for so long, you get a sense of how things are going to go. After watching a song perform well and really translate to a crowd, you learn what kinds of tempos, fills and riffs are going to be attractive to the audiences. 

And y’know, sometimes it doesn’t go as planned – sometimes you think, “Aw, this song’s gonna be great,” but then you play it and nobody really cares about it. But it’s usually the case that we know our audiences well enough that we can predict what they’ll be into, and we’ll take advantage of those things when it comes to putting a set together. 

We definitely want to keep the energy alive, so the first thing we think about when we’re writing a setlist is what kind of songs will get people moving. But when we’re writing the songs, the live show doesn’t even enter our minds – we want the song to serve the song, first and foremost.

The Chris Cornell Estate has officially released the final solo project the late Soundgarden singer was working on prior to his death, a 10-track covers album now entitled No One Sings Like You Anymore.

The album was recorded by Cornell in 2016, who performed all instruments along with Brendan O’Brien, who handled production and mixing duties.

It sees Cornell tackle tracks by John Lennon, Harry Nilsson, Electric Light Orchestra and Janis Joplin, and features previously released singles Nothing Compares 2 U (Prince) and Patience (Guns N’ Roses).

While much of the record’s backbone is in the vein of Cornell’s Songbook acoustic tours, the arrangements are embellished by drums, electric guitars and string sections, reminiscent of the production on Cornell’s final album of original material, Higher Truth.

“This album is so special because it is a complete work of art that Chris created from start to finish,” says Vicky Cornell.

“His choice of covers provides a personal look into his favorite artists and the songs that touched him. He couldn't wait to release it.

“This moment is bittersweet because he should be here doing it himself, but it is with both heartache and joy that we share this special album. All of us could use his voice to help heal and lift us this year, especially during the holiday season.

“I am so proud of him and this stunning record, which to me illustrates why he will always be beloved, honored, and one the greatest voices of our time.”

No One Sings Like You Anymore is available to stream now – the full tracklisting is as follows:

1. Get It While You Can – Howard Tate/Janis Joplin
2. Jump Into The Fire – Harry Nilsson
3. Sad Sad City – Ghostland Observatory
4. Patience – Guns N’ Roses
5. Nothing Compares 2 U – Prince
6. Watching The Wheels – John Lennon
7. You Don’t Know Nothing About Love – Carl Hall
8. Showdown – Electric Light Orchestra
9. To Be Treated Rite – Terry Reid
10. Stay With Me Baby – Lorraine Ellison

There has been no word on the status of the Soundgarden album that was in the works prior to Cornell’s death, which continues to be subject to a dispute between the singer’s estate and surviving band members.

In the past week we’ve seen Eddie Van Halen and smashed Kurt Cobain electric guitars nab impressive sale prices at auction. But not every instrument attached to a rock icon manages to sell – especially when it has an outsized price tag attached to it. 

Auction house Gotta Have Rock and Roll recently offered up Eric Clapton’s 1954 “Slowhand” sunburst Fender Strat, heavily used by the guitar great between 1979 and 1985. The stage and studio hardtail model had a starting price tag of $1 million – more than the $959,500 Clapton’s coveted “Blackie” Strat sold for back in 2004.

Likely as a result of the excessively high reserve, the Slowhand guitar did not receive a single bid at the auction (a similar fate befell a Yamaha dreadnought used and signed by Jimmy Page, which was offered with a $90,000 starting price).

One guitar that did find a new owner at the Gotta Have Rock and Roll auction, however, was Chris Cornell’s well-worn Candy Apple Red 1966 Jazzmaster, which he used on Soundgarden’s seminal 1994 album, Superunknown.

The Jazzmaster sold at its starting price of $125,00, falling short of its $175,000-$250,000 estimate.

Which makes it something of a steal for the new owner, as the guitar is attached to serious grunge history. According to producer Michael Beinhorn, Cornell played just three guitars on Superunknown: a Gretsch Duo Jet, double-cutaway Gretsch Silver Jet and the Jazzmaster, which he used on single Fell on Black Days.

“It was one of the best-sounding Jazzmasters I’ve ever used in my life,” Beinhorn told Music Tech.

Cornell also played the Jazzmaster during live performances in 1993 and 1994, where it was tuned to EEBBBB to perform My Wave and The Day I Tried to Live.

The guitar was lost in Cornell’s divorce to first wife Susan Silver, and subsequently ended up with his childhood friend, Chris Bond, who supplies a letter of provenance with the sale.

These weren’t the only instruments up for sale at the Gotta Have Rock and Roll auction. Also on the block was a Chuck Berry-signed and played 1967 Gibson ES-345, Bruce Springsteen Fender Tele from his River tour and a Jimi Hendrix-owned 1966 Gibson Melody Maker. Like the Clapton Strat, all of them failed to sell.

Chris Cornell may not be synonymous with the Fender Jazzmaster, but the classic offset played a pivotal role in the creation of Soundgarden’s iconic Superunknown album – and now that very guitar is up for sale.

Listed by Gotta Have Rock and Roll auctions, the well-worn Candy Apple Red 1966 Jazzmaster not only appears on the album, but was also used for live performances during 1993 and 1994, where it was tuned to EEBBBB to perform My Wave and The Day I Tried to Live.

According to producer Michael Beinhorn, Cornell played just three guitars on Superunknown: a Gretsch Duo Jet, double-cutaway Gretsch Silver Jet and a Fender Jazzmaster, which he used on single Fell on Black Days.

“It was one of the best-sounding Jazzmasters I’ve ever used in my life,” Beinhorn told Music Tech.

The guitar was lost in Cornell’s divorce to first wife Susan Silver, and subsequently ended up with his childhood friend, Chris Bond, who supplies a letter of provenance with the sale.

According to Gotta Have Rock and Roll, the Jazzmaster’s serial number 114706 matches the court documents from the couple’s divorce.

The guitar is listed with a starting bid of $125,000, and expected to sell for $175,000-$250,000.

For more information on the auction, which begins on November 25, head over to Gotta Have Rock and Roll.

The same auction is also playing host to Eric Clapton’s 1954 non-tremolo Fender Stratocaster, which has been listed for a cool one million.

Toni Cornell, the 15-year-old daughter of Chris Cornell, paid tribute to her late father during the Lolla2020 Virtual Festival with an impressive vocal performance of a song from one of her father’s Seattle compatriots, Pearl Jam’s Black.

She was joined on the socially distanced cover by a group led by Pete Thorn on 12-string acoustic guitar. Thorn also served as a member of Chris Cornell’s solo band in the mid 2000s and played on his 2009 record Scream.

You can check out the performance above.

The Lolla2020 Virtual Festival kicked off on July 30 and runs through August 2. It features newly recorded performances alongside archived Lollapalooza appearances from the likes of Paul McCartney,  Metallica and Jane’s Addiction. 

You can follow the virtual festival on the official Lollapalooza YouTube channel.

Recently, Chris Cornell’s estate released a surprise studio recording of the late Soundgarden frontman covering Guns N’ Roses’ Patience.

The release was produced and mixed by regular collaborator Brendan O’Brien, and coincided with what would have been Cornell’s 56th birthday.

“His birthday seemed the perfect time to share this and celebrate Chris, his voice, music, stories and art,” said a statement on Cornell’s Facebook page.

Chris Cornell’s estate has released a surprise studio recording of the late Soundgarden frontman covering Guns N’ Roses’ Patience.

The release was produced and mixed by regular collaborator Brendan O’Brien, and coincides with what would have been Cornell’s 56th birthday.

“His birthday seemed the perfect time to share this and celebrate Chris, his voice, music, stories and art,” said a statement on Cornell’s Facebook page.

“It is true a man is not dead while his name is still spoken… and, through his art, an artist’s soul still burns just as bright as ever upon all those that look up to him and his memory. Releasing music that was special to Chris keeps a part of him here with us - his heart and his soul. His love and his legacy.”

Soundgarden supported Gun N’ Roses on the Use Your Illusion tour in the early ’90s, with Axl Rose hailing Cornell as the best rock vocalist at the time. Guns N’ Roses regularly covered Soundgarden’s Black Hole Sun in the months following Cornell’s passing on May 18 2017.

Cornell was working on a covers album with Brendan O’Brien prior to his death. It’s unclear how far along the recordings were, but the appearance of Patience could point towards the release of additional tracks from the sessions.

The final Soundgarden album, which Cornell was also writing and recording around the time of his death, is currently subject to a dispute between the singer’s estate and surviving band members, with Cornell’s wife Vicky Cornell suing over rights and royalties.

Standard guitar tuning, in which the strings are tuned, low to high, to E A D G B E, has been extensively explored and mined for riffs, licks and chord voicings by generations of guitarists.

While its familiarity is beneficial, in terms of the numerous fretboard shapes and patterns you’ve invested so much time in learning, that can sometimes work against you, as it can be a creative challenge not to keep playing all those same ingrained chords and licks from habit.

In this lesson, I’ll present a broad overview of 11 alternate tunings that famous guitarists have employed to great effect in some of their most well-known and celebrated recordings, which can serve as inspiration for your own playing and songwriting endeavors.

Guitar tuning essentials

A few words about tuning in general: always use an electronic guitar tuner for any foray into an alternate tuning (and for getting back to standard tuning), but first make an effort to tune by ear, tuning the strings to each other using reference pitches, which may be fretted notes, open strings or any available natural harmonics at the 12th, seventh or fifth frets. (Don’t use fourth-fret harmonics, as they’re slightly flat.)

Try to do this quickly and efficiently and zero-in on the precise target pitch before both notes die out. (Think of tuning by ear as playing golf and always try to get a “hole in one.”)

After you’ve made your best effort at tuning your strings by ear, use your electronic tuner to verify the accuracy of the results and to fine-tune as needed. Oftentimes, strings you haven’t even touched 'drift' slightly sharp or flat, due to the changing overall tension and pull on the neck that results from other strings being tightened or loosened. This issue is more common and acute with an electric guitar, with its less massive and thus more flexible neck joint, compared to that of an acoustic.

A unison - a note doubled in the same octave - is the easiest reference pitch to tune to by ear, but an octave, perfect fifth or perfect fourth may also serve this purpose, if you’re experienced enough to know what to listen for.

Being able to tune by ear is a critical listening skill and an important part of your development as a guitarist and musician, and making an effort to do this on a daily basis is a very beneficial, ongoing exercise in ear training. But, again, like an accountant using a calculator, always finish the job with an electronic tuner, as playing out of tune is completely unacceptable to a listener in any situation, no matter how casual!

1. Drop D

This is the most widely used alternate tuning in many styles of popular music, especially rock and metal, and it’s certainly the most convenient to get into from standard tuning. Simply tune your low E string down one whole step (the equivalent of two frets) to D, so that it matches the pitch of your open fourth string, or 'middle D', one octave lower (FIGURE 1).

I find that the fastest and easiest way to tune to drop D is to sound the natural harmonic at the sixth string’s 12th-fret and tune it down to match the pitch of the open fourth string in unison. Zero-in on the pitch match by carefully listening for a gradual slowing of the “beating,” or pulsating, sound until it stops, or becomes imperceptibly slow.

Drop-D tuning offers a deep, pleasingly resonant sound for riffs built around a first-position D chord, using all six strings, and also makes for a compact, movable root-fifth-octave power chord shape, formed with a single finger, typically the index, barred across the bottom three strings, which provides a perfect foundation for 'stacking' a variety of 'taller' and more harmonically sophisticated chord voicings upon the basic power chord, a few of which are illustrated in FIGURE 2.

Well-known examples of songs that make great use of drop-D tuning include Everlong by the Foo Fighters, the Beatles’ Dear Prudence, Spoonman and Black Hole Sun by Soundgarden, Tool’s Aenima, Them Bones and Dam that River by Alice in Chains and Nirvana’s All Apologies, the latter three songs all being in drop-D tuning transposed down one half step (low to high, Db Ab Db Gb Bb Eb).

2. Double drop D

Used famously by Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page in Going to California, Neil Young in Cinnamon Girl, Robbie Krieger in the Doors classic, The End (pitch-shifted approximately 50 cents, or a quarter-tone, flat) and Puddle of Mudd’s Wes Scantlin in Drift and Die, double drop-D tuning is, as its name suggests, like regular drop D, but additionally has the high E string tuned down to D (see FIGURE 3).

A convenient way to get a reference D pitch to tune your high E string down is to sound the D natural harmonic on your fourth string’s 12th fret. But if you find that tuning a regular note to a harmonic like this is too difficult to hear and judge due to the difference in tone, you can instead use the D note on your B string’s third fret as a reference pitch. You’ll just need to pick and hold both that note and the open high E note, then reach over to tune the latter down to D with your pick hand.

With three open D strings - low, middle and high - this tuning is great for crafting drone-y riffs and accompaniments in D major or D minor and presents opportunities to easily finger lush-sounding chord voicings, like those shown in FIGURE 4.

And having your middle four strings still tuned normally can be a big plus too when it comes to embellishing a chord shape with “extensions” or playing melodic riffs using familiar shapes.

3. DADGAD

A widely used tuning among masters of fingerstyle acoustic guitar, such as Pierre Bensusan, Phil Keaggy, Martin Simpson and Mike Dawes, DADGAD takes double drop-D a step further, by additionally lowering the guitar’s B string a whole step, to A (see FIGURE 5).

The result is an ethereal and unresolved-sounding Dsus4 chord, with three open D notes in different octaves, two As and a G, the latter of which guitarists often use as their main melody-playing string in this tuning, with the other strings often serving as open-string drones and convenient same-fret octave shapes.

Probably the most celebrated example of a song in DADGAD tuning is the Led Zeppelin classic Kashmir. In this iconic track, Jimmy Page made brilliant use of open strings in conjunction with shifting two-note fretted shapes, especially during the song’s signature descending sus4-3 chord riff heard between the verses, for which he simply moved alternating two-finger shapes down the fretboard to lower positions while incorporating ringing open strings as common tones in each voicing, as shown in FIGURE 6.

Page had previously used DADGAD tuning for White Summer (with the Yardbirds) and Black Mountain Side, the latter transposed down a half step (low to high, Db Ab Db Gb Ab Db).

Another well-known song performed in DADGAD tuning, in this case with a capo at the third fret, is the Soggy Bottom Boys’ arrangement of I Am a Man of Constant Sorrow, which was featured prominently in the 2000 film O Brother, Where Art Thou? And fans of the television series Sons of Anarchy are well familiar with the show’s opening theme song, This Life, which features swampy guitar parts crafted by Velvet Revolver guitarist Dave Kushner and performed by Curtis Stigers & the Forest Rangers in DADGAD tuning, with a capo at the fourth fret.

4. Open D

Lowering the open G string, the sus4, from DADGAD tuning, by a half step, to F#, results in a deep-and warm-sounding open D major chord and tuning, voiced, low to high, D A D F# A D, or root, fifth, root, major third, fifth, root (see FIGURE 7).

Due to the strings’ relaxed tension and signature interval stack - a root-fifth-octave power chord on the bottom three strings and a first-inversion major triad (3-5-1) on the top three - open-D tuning is ideal for playing slide on acoustic guitar, with its thick, tight strings. This was one of blues legend Elmore James’ favorite tunings, which he used famously on Dust My Broom and other songs.

The Rolling Stones’ Keith Richards employed open D tuning in a non-slide context on the original studio version of Street Fighting Man, barring his index finger across all six strings to create a movable major barre chord shape, which he then embellished harmonically and melodically with two-finger ‘extensions’ to create rich-sounding major add9 and sus2-4 voicings, like those illustrated in FIGURE 8.

Nearly three decades later, Jerry Cantrell employed open D tuning, transposed down a half step (low to high, Db Ab Db F Ab Db) rather resourcefully in the Alice in Chains song Over Now, similarly employing his fret-hand index finger to form shifting full major barre chords across all six strings, to which he then added single-note embellishments, on one string at a time, with his other available fingers.

5. Open E

Once solidbody electric guitars, with their slinkier strings, became popular in the mid-twentieth century, many great slide players, such as Duane Allman and Derek Trucks, adopted open E tuning – low to high, E B E G# B E – as their primary tuning for slide playing. (Trucks plays in open E pretty much exclusively, even when not using a slide.)

Open E tuning has the same signature interval stack as open D, only a whole step higher, as if you placed a capo at the second fret in open D tuning, and its open strings give you what would normally be a first-position E chord in standard tuning, as shown in FIGURE 9.

Open E tuning feels tighter than open D, which increases the pull on the neck, causing it to bow more than it would in open D tuning, or even standard tuning, and you run a higher risk of breaking a string in open E tuning, especially on an acoustic guitar.

Despite these potentially problematical issues, open E tuning has also been explored and exploited by acoustic players in such folk and rock classics as Little Martha by the Allman Brothers Band (both Duane Allman’s and Dickey Betts’ guitars were tuned to open E for this acoustic duet), Jumpin’ Jack Flash by the Rolling Stones and She Talks to Angels by the Black Crowes.

And singer David Lee Roth wrote and played the acoustic guitar intro to the Van Halen song Ice Cream Man in open E tuning, transposed down a half-step (low to high, Eb Ab Eb G Bb Eb).

FIGURE 10 shows a few particularly nice chord voicings in open E.

6. Open G

Another popular altered tuning among acoustic and electric guitarists, for both its appealing sound and relaxed feel, in terms of string tension, is open G: low to high, D G D G B D (see FIGURE 11).

Keith Richards wrote the riffs to some of the Rolling Stones’ most beloved and enduring songs in this tuning, such as Honky Tonk Women, Brown Sugar, Can’t You Hear Me Knockin’, Start Me Up and Tumbling Dice, the latter performed with a capo at the fourth fret.

Jimmy Page put open G tuning to great use in Dancing Days, That’s the Way and Bron-Y-Aur Stomp, the latter two on acoustic guitar, transposed, respectively, down a half-step – low to high, Db Gb Db Gb Bb Db – and a whole step, to what may alternatively be thought of as open F (low to high, C F C F A C). The Black Crowes’ Rich Robinson employed open G tuning, down a half step, on Jealous Again to craft the song’s catchy, rocking and very Stones-like electric guitar riffs.

Like open D and open E tuning, open G offers a pleasing major-chord note stack across all six strings at any given fret, with a triad on the top three strings that likewise makes it great for both slide playing and chord riffing, with notes added to the index-finger barre by the other fingers.

But open G has a distinctly different character than open D or E, due to its different voicing structure, with a low-to-high intervallic spelling of fifth, root, fifth, root, third, fifth. This gives you a root-position major triad – 1-3-5 – across the top three strings and the fifth of the chord on the bottom, below the fifth-string root note.

Interestingly, Richards opted long ago to remove the sixth string from his open G-tuned Fender Telecaster and play his riffs on only five strings, with the lowest one, now the fifth string, tuned to G, always giving him the root note of the chord he’s playing. This arrangement allows him to strut and dance around on stage and perform his riffs live with almost reckless abandon, without ever having to worry about inadvertently sounding any unwanted sub-root notes.

FIGURE 12 illustrates a few nice chord moves in open G tuning.

7. Open A

Open A tuning (low to high, E A E A C# E) is to open G what open E tuning is to open D – the same thing a whole step higher and, similarly, for many players, its electric guitar counterpart (FIGURE 13).

With the strings unfretted, open A tuning gives you a voicing identical to a first-position A chord in standard tuning, with the D, G and B strings all raised a whole step to E, A and C#, respectively.

Delta blues legend Robert Johnson played in open A tuning often, on songs like Cross Road Blues, Traveling Riverside Blues and Come on in My Kitchen – although, since some of his recordings were sped up in the mastering process (intentionally or not), his guitar may have actually been tuned down a half step on some of these songs, to open A flat (low to high, Eb Ab Eb Ab C Eb) or a whole step, to open G.

Many other blues masters have made great use of open A tuning on electric guitar in several of their songs, for both their slide playing and non-slide fingerpicked riffs. Well-known examples include John Lee Hooker’s Boogie Chillen and Johnny Winter’s Mean Town Blues.

Jimmy Page employed open A (in this case, with a slow phase-shifting effect) for his swampy slide-guitar tour de force, Led Zeppelin’s In My Time of Dying, as did Jack White on the White Stripes hit Seven Nation Army, which, interestingly, is in the key of E minor, not A major.

8. DGC-GCD (The Rain Song tuning)

Like DADGAD, this is an enigmatic-sounding tuning that has an unresolved quality to it, in this case giving you what may be thought of as a Csus2/D (Csus2 over D) chord (FIGURE 14).

I can only think of one famous song that uses this unusual tuning, but it’s a masterpiece that’s definitely worth learning if you’re an altered-tuning enthusiast and adventurous songwriter/composer, The Rain Song by Led Zeppelin.

FIGURE 15 illustrates a few of the shimmering chord voicings Page employs in this song. Note the liberal use of open-sting drones, unisons, octaves and parallel movable shapes.

9. Open C6

Another tuning that Jimmy Page made brilliant use of is open C6 (low to high, C A C G C E), for which the A, G and high E strings are all tuned normally, the low E and D strings both drop down to C and the B string goes up to C, as shown in FIGURE 16.

The guitarist employed this tuning on two acoustic Led Zeppelin classics, Friends and Bron-Yr-Aur (both recorded during the Led Zeppelin III sessions).

In Friends, Page took advantage of the familiar two-finger strummed octave shape on the A and G strings to play stand-out melodies up and down the fretboard in conjunction with the three ringing open C strings, similar to FIGURE 17.

Marcus Mumford employed open C6 tuning on two of his band Mumford & Sons’ biggest hits, I Will Wait and Little Lion Man, the latter song performed with a capo at the fifth fret.

10. Open C (Chris Cornell tuning)

Our next tuning is one employed by the late, great singer-songwriter and guitarist Chris Cornell for two of Soundgarden’s biggest hits, Burden in My Hand and Pretty Noose.

It’s a variation on open C tuning (low to high, C G C G C E), for which the B string, instead of being tuned up to C, is instead tuned down to G, in unison with the G string, as shown in FIGURE 18. This unison doubling makes notes played together on those two strings at the same fret, or open, really stand out.

FIGURE 19 illustrates a few of the unique chord voicings Cornell employed with this tuning in Burden, some of which he also used in Pretty Noose.

11. EEEEBE tuning

The 11th tuning is unusual but worth checking out. It’s what’s often referred to as Bruce Palmer modal tuning, named after its inventor, the late Buffalo Springfield bassist Bruce Palmer, who was also a talented guitarist.

With this tuning, the low E, high E and B strings are tuned normally. The A string then goes down to match the low E, the D string goes up to E, and the G string goes down to E, in unison with the “middle E” string. The result is a drone-y, mystical-sounding E5 chord (FIGURE 20).

Stephen Stills employed this tuning to great effect to craft his sitar-like acoustic guitar parts in the classic Crosby, Stills & Nash song Suite: Judy Blue Eyes, as well as those in 4+20 and Carry On with Crosby, Still, Nash & Young.

In Suite: Judy Blue Eyes, Stills used his normally tuned B and high E strings as his main melody-playing strings, with the bottom four strings employed primarily as accompanying unison and octave drones, as in FIGURE 21.

Interestingly, Stills employed this same tuning scheme, transposed down two whole steps (!), in Love the One You’re With, with his acoustic guitar tuned, very unusually, to C C C C G C, low to high. (You’ll want to use thick strings for this tuning.)

Hopefully, this list of altered tunings and the artists and song examples cited above have given you some useful points of reference and creative inspiration to experiment with twisting your guitar’s tuning pegs to these nonstandard settings.

There are, however, many more altered tunings than these 11 that countless world-renowned guitarist-singer-songwriters have employed, including some used in well-known songs by artists like Joni Mitchell, John Rzeznik of the Goo Goo Dolls, Coldplay’s Chris Martin and Smashing Pumpkins mastermind Billy Corgan.

When experimenting with altered tunings and searching for new sounds, a good approach is to drop or raise any one or two strings and listen to what happens when you go to play familiar chord shapes. You may encounter some awful sounds along the way, but you’re just as likely to discover a few gorgeous, majestic chord voicings that could spark the writing of a fresh-sounding original song.

Gibson has officially released its limited-edition Chris Cornell Tribute ES-335 electric guitar, after the model's launch at the I Am the Highway: A Tribute to Chris Cornell concert back in January.

Features on the Chris Cornell Tribute ES-335 include aged Lollartron humbucking pickups, clear 'no number' Top Hat knobs, Olive Drab Satin finish and a mother-of-pearl Chris Cornell ‘signature’ peghead inlay - plus, of course, a Bigsby vibrato.

Gibson previously partnered with the Soundgarden and Audioslave frontman to work on his original ES-335 Artist Model.

The Chris Cornell Tribute ES-335 is available to order now for $3,999, with worldwide availability on September 3. Head over to Gibson for more info.

Soundgarden lead guitarist Kim Thayil once called Black Hole Sun the band’s Dream On, but this brooding, psychedelic rocker is no ordinary power ballad. Composed by the band’s frontman, Chris Cornell, the song uses 11 of the 12 notes in the chromatic scale in a highly effective manner that makes perfect melodic sense without any dissonance.

Contrasting guitar textures - upper-register arpeggios with warbling rotating speaker vibrato on the verses and heavy, overdriven lines and power chords on the choruses - reinforce the composition’s drama and tension without relying on the obvious “soft/loud” approach often overused by Soundgarden’s grunge counterparts.

One lesser-known detail of Soundgarden’s Superunknown album is that Cornell recorded almost all of the rhythm guitar parts himself while Thayil’s role was exclusively devoted to playing lead. According to producer Michael Beinhorn, Cornell used only three guitars: a Gretsch Duo Jet, a double-cutaway Gretsch Silver Jet and a Fender Jazzmaster, with the Duo Jet being his sole instrument for Black Hole Sun.

Most of Cornell’s guitar tracks were recorded using a Marshall JMP 50 half stack and Mesa-Boogie Dual Rectifier Solo half stack blended together. On Black Hole Sun, the Marshall provided brighter tone with defined string attack, while the Mesa delivered darker tone with bigger body and bottom-end girth, and both amps were set to moderate levels of overdrive.

The song’s most distinguishing tonal characteristic is the warbling vibrato on the verse’s guitar part, which was created using a Leslie Model 16 rotating speaker cabinet driven by the Marshall head. The rotating speaker effect gives what would otherwise be a sparse- and small-sounding part plenty of texture and body to fill the sonic space and engage the ear, and it enhances the trippy mood of Cornell’s cryptic lyrics.

GET THE SOUND, CHEAP!

● Gretsch G5230T Electromatic Jet
● Blackstar HT-5R MkII
● Boss CE-2W

TONE TIP: Use the CE-2W’s vibrato setting (far right) with the Rate and Depth controls each set to 7-8 to duplicate the Leslie’s distinctive warble.

ORIGINAL GEAR

GUITAR: 1989 Gretsch G6128T Duo Jet with ceramic-magnet Filter’tron humbuckers (bridge pickup), master volume: 10, bridge volume: 10, master tone: 10

AMP: Late-Seventies Marshall Model 1987 JMP 50-watt Lead head (Presence: 4, Bass: 5, Middle: 8, Treble: 6, Volume I: 7, Volume II: 5, Input I top left, jumper from Input I bottom left to Input II top right) with Marshall Model 1960 4x12 angled cabinet with G12H 30-watt Greenbacks; 1993 Mesa-Boogie Dual Rectifier Solo head (Orange/Vintage channel, 6L6 tubes, Master: 7, Presence: 2, Bass: 6, Mid: 6, Treble: 5, Gain: 5, Orange Gain switch: Variable High Gain, Rectifier switch: Vacuum Tubes, Power switch: Spongy) with Mesa-Boogie 4x12 with Celestion Vintage 30s.

EFFECTS: Leslie Model 16 rotating speaker cabinet (fast setting)

STRINGS/TUNING: Strings/Tuning: Ernie Ball Regular Slinky .010-.046/Dropped D (D, A, D, G, B, E)*

PICK: Dunlop Tortex 1.00mm

WIdely regarded as one of the greatest rock singers of all time, Chris Cornell fronted some of the most unique and successful bands of the modern era, namely Soundgarden and Audioslave.

Between (and in some cases, during) those projects, Cornell also penned pieces for film soundtracks (Singles, Great Expectations and Casino Royale, among others) and issued a trio of solo albums, resulting in an impressively diverse body of work.

After 2011, Cornell began taking much of this massive song catalog, including a few Temple of the Dog songs and some creative covers, and delivering it in two-and-a-half-hour solo acoustic (guitar/vocal) shows, as documented on his live Songbook album.

As much joy as this brought Cornell—to the point where “solo acoustic artist” became a cherished part of his musical identity—feelings of being trapped in the format began feeling more “nostalgic” than newly creative.

Enter Higher Truth, Cornell’s first ever all-acoustic studio record—a platter influenced by Nick Drake’s Pink Moon, Bruce Springsteen’s Nebraska and Daniel Johnston’s Songs of Pain, but ripe with modern production. So for this lesson, let's take a look at some of Higher Truth’s future classics! Cornell penned “Josephine” for his wife-to-be; as the proverbial ink dried, he sang it over the phone (while on tour) as a marriage proposal.

Played fingerstyle, capo-2, the song’s emotional intro features tasty hammer-ons and pull-offs in open position, similar to FIGURE 1. Note the use of thumb fretting on the low F notes in bar 2, which facilitates a pull-off to the open G string within the chord, a feat not possible if using a conventional F barre chord fingering. “Murderer of Blue Skies” opens with Cornell’s acoustic guitar and voice, but soon blossoms into an epic production, all interlaced with a fingerstyle arpeggio riff, similar to that shown in FIGURE 2.

This passage features upper-register common tones—notes shared among chords on the top two strings—and an interesting rhythmic device known as hemiola, which in this case creates a “three-against-two” phrasing scheme, as three-note groupings are played an even eighth-note rhythm. The drop-D-tuned gem “Worried Moon” tells the tale of a man down on his luck and forced to sleep outdoors, with only the moon for company.

For the song’s verses, Cornell thumps his low D string throughout, often in alternation with the open fourth string, in support of a melodic passage (bars 1-2) and arpeggiated texture (bars 3–6), not unlike FIGURE 3.

When it comes to writing rock songs, Cornell was king of the unexpected chord change—exotic progressions tracing back to Soundgarden’s “Black Hole Sun,” developed to new heights on 1999’s Euphoria Morning and employed in new album cuts like “Higher Truth.” Following its opening D-to-F#m change, FIGURES 4a–c present three clever ways of navigating around a basic C chord, moves all employed within the song’s first verse!

We’ll close this lesson with a nod to Cornell’s “Nearly Forgot My Broken Heart” mandolin riff, akin to FIGURE 5 (arranged here for guitar, capo 5). Initially conceived as a country tune, the song quickly ventured into new territory—sonic terrain highlighted by an electric guitar solo, played by Cornell himself!

Soundgarden, along with the Chris Cornell Estate, UMe and Artists Den, have announced a lineup of events and new products titled Soundgarden: Live From the Artists Den.

The events will feature a reimagined experience of Artists Den's concert taping of Soundgarden at the Wiltern in Los Angeles on February 17, 2013, in support of their King Animal album. There will be stops in Los Angeles and New York as well as a special screening in Seattle. The new Live From the Artists Den features 21 songs never before released on a Soundgarden concert film, including 17 making their first appearance on a live album.

You can watch a trailer for the new film above.

Soundgarden: Live From The Artists Den will be released in a variety of formats on July 26. The limited-edition Super Deluxe box will feature the complete 29-song concert film in 5.1 surround sound and stereo on Blu-ray, and more than 30 minutes of bonus interviews with the band, in addition to four black 180-gram audiophile LPs, 2CDs, a 40-page photo book, four band member lithos, and replica artist all-access pass and ticket stub from the original show. Additional products scheduled for release include: 4LP 180-gram audiophile black vinyl, limited edition 4LP color vinyl (each disc will feature a unique combination of splattered colors), Blu-ray and 2CD. Digital live album and digital live video will be available for preorder on May 31.

Speaking about Live From the Artists Den, Soundgarden guitarist Kim Thayil said: "We were very proud and excited to document the performance of our new material from King Animal and to celebrate with each other and our fans."

On behalf of the Estate, Vicky Cornell said: "This live show was really special, and I know how much fun Chris had that night. The idea of giving fans the opportunity to experience it in its entirety is something I'm proud to share with them."

In advance of the album release, Artists Den will present Soundgarden: Live From the Artists Den immersive events of the full 29-song show in New York and Los Angeles, as well as an additional screening in Seattle. The stops in New York and Los Angeles will each showcase 12 HD camera angles customized for an immersive multi-screen viewing experience. A live remix of the original multitrack 48-channel audio will be presented in L-ISA Immersive Hyperreal Sound, an ultra-high-resolution audio technology from L-Acoustics. The 360-degree real time mix synced to on-screen footage and further complemented by a light show.

Tickets for the Soundgarden: Live From the Artists Den immersive events will go on sale today, May 16 at 5 p.m. EDT / 2 p.m. PDT as an exclusive bundle which includes the 2 CD.

The events and screening are being held at the following venues:

June 17 - Los Angeles, CA - The Wiltern (Immersive Event) 
June 18 - New York, NY - Brooklyn Steel (Immersive Event) 
June 23 - Seattle, WA - The Showbox (Screening Only)

Pre-orders and tickets for Soundgarden: Live From the Artists Den are available here.

The 61st Annual Grammy Awards took place at Staples Center in Los Angeles last night, February 10. Among the guitar-based artists who took home statues were Greta Van Fleet, High on Fire, St. Vincent and, posthumously, Chris Cornell.

Greta Van Fleet were awarded a Grammy for Best Rock Album, with their From the Fires EP beating out offerings from Alice in Chains, Ghost, Fall Out Boy and Weezer.

High on Fire’s “Electric Messiah” won the Best Metal Performance Grammy, coming out tops in a category that also featured Deafheaven, Trivium, Underoath and Between the Buried and Me.

In the Best Rock Performance category, Chris Cornell won for his song “When Bad Does Good.” Other nominees included The Fever 333, Arctic Monkeys, Greta Van Fleet and Halestorm.

Finally, the Best Rock Song Grammy went to St. Vincent, for “Masseduction,” who was nominated alongside Ghost, Twenty One Pilots, Bring Me the Horizon, and, once again, Greta Van Fleet, in the category.

The full nominee list in the above categories was as follows:

Best Rock Album:

Alice in Chains, Rainier Fog

Ghost, Prequelle

Fall Out Boy, M A N I A

Weezer, Pacific Daydream

Greta Van Fleet, From the Fires

Best Metal Performance:

Deafheaven, "Honeycomb"

Between the Buried and Me, "Condemned to the Gallows"

High on Fire, "Electric Messiah"

Trivium, "Betrayer"

Underoath, "On My Teeth"

Best Rock Performance:

The Fever 333, "Made an America"

Arctic Monkeys, "Four Out of Five"

Chris Cornell, "When Bad Does Good"

Halestorm, "Uncomfortable"

Greta Van Fleet, "Highway Tune"

Best Rock Song:

Ghost, "Rats"

Bring Me the Horizon, "MANTRA"

Greta Van Fleet, "Black Smoke Rising"

Twenty One Pilots, "Jumpsuit"

St. Vincent, "Masseduction"

For more information and a full list of winners, head over to Grammy.com.