Soundgarden guitarist Kim Thayil has unveiled an emotional excerpt from his forthcoming memoir, “A Screaming Life: Into The Superunknown With Soundgarden And Beyond“. Scheduled for release on June 9, the book includes a deeply somber chapter where the musician reflects on the tragic 2017 death of his iconic bandmate and frontman, Chris Cornell.
Chris Cornell passed away by suicide on May 18, 2017, in his Detroit hotel room, mere hours after Soundgarden performed a concert at the Fox Theatre. In an exclusive preview published by Rolling Stone, Kim Thayil details the immediate aftermath of the show and his feelings regarding the late vocalist’s state of mind during that fateful tour.
“It was just before midnight when I, post-show, went upstairs to the green room to meet some of our guests — two Orioles players and members of Dennis Coffey’s band. I’d mentioned to Chris earlier that they were coming, hoping he might want to say hello, but he had already left the venue. Matt, Ben, and I stuck around, had some beers, and hung out. The night felt off, though. There was something different about it. Maybe I was still adjusting to Jerome [tour manager] being gone from the tour, or maybe it was the strange vibe Chris had been giving off.”
Despite sensing an underlying tension, Kim Thayil noted that the band’s interpersonal dynamics had shifted over the years, leaving him unaware of the full extent of Chris Cornell‘s personal struggles and internal battles.
“I’d known Chris long enough to sense when something was amiss. It wasn’t just that he was tired—there was something deeper, though he didn’t feel comfortable opening up to me. We weren’t hanging out much during this tour. After sound check, we’d briefly talk about the set, songs we were writing, or ideas we were jamming on. But Chris traveled separately and lived on the East Coast, so we didn’t have much chance to connect outside the band. We’d been apart for years, between 1997 and 2009, and during that time, he’d remarried and moved away from Seattle. So I wasn’t fully in touch with what was going on in his personal life, his sobriety, or how he felt about his career.”
Drawing comparisons to his own past experiences with family members expressing suicidal ideation, Thayil emphasized that the singer never exhibited those specific warning signs to him. The sheer unpredictability of the tragedy made it profoundly difficult to process, especially considering the timing of the event decades into their career.
“Chris never made these kinds of statements to me. I never feared that Chris would harm himself in the way that my mom made me fear as a youth. He was the opposite of my mom. He wasn’t making these proclamations. He never did. Chris’s death and the manner in which he died were so unexpected. It seemed to me at the time to be so out of character in 2017. If Chris had done something like that when the band were younger in the late eighties or maybe even the mid-nineties, on the heels of the deaths of Andy Wood, Kurt Cobain, and Chris’s good friend Jeff Buckley, it might have made more sense. Decades later, at his age, and being a father, it seemed unfathomable. Not in 2017. Maybe in 1997.”
Reflecting on the heavy lyrical themes that defined Soundgarden‘s catalog, the guitarist admitted the pain of feeling like he missed crucial psychological indicators hidden within the music itself.
“I didn’t see it coming. The thing that hurts me the most is to be a close friend and colleague and not to have read things that perhaps, in retrospect, I should have read. That’s hurtful. I feel like I let Chris down by not seeing the look in his eyes, or not hearing a tone in his voice — not being able to read it. But it’s hard to read things like that, because you don’t get a lot of chances at it. You can only look in retrospect and go, Ah, here’s an indicator. There was nothing that was on my radar that I could read at that time. And then I looked at the paper trail and it was like f**k, the paper trail goes back to the beginning. His lyrics are just riddled with these kinds of introspective insights. Most of Soundgarden’s work sort of describes something less than sunshiney. That’s what I mean by ‘paper trail.’ This didn’t come out of the blue. I mean, I had conversations with Chris over the years about everything from love, or what is friendship, or death or suicide or the creative process. We were close enough in the early years that we talked about all these things. But talking about these topics wouldn’t necessarily raise alarms or concern. These were just conversations. We were a dark band, and Chris wrote dark lyrics that befit the music. If people think there was something overtly indicative in his words, then they have a crystal ball that I didn’t have.”
The upcoming memoir arrives following a monumental period for the group’s legacy, as Soundgarden was officially inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2025. Moving forward, the surviving band members are currently working in the studio to complete a final posthumous album, utilizing numerous vocal recordings and song concepts left behind by Chris Cornell.
Speaking recently with LifeMinute editor-in-chief Joann Butler, the guitarist detailed the ongoing collaboration involving himself, drummer Matt Cameron, bassist Ben Shepherd, and veteran producer Terry Date. The producer holds a deep historical connection with the Seattle group, having previously helmed their foundational early releases, 1989’s Louder Than Love and the landmark 1991 breakthrough, Badmotorfinger.
Thayil provided deep insight into the current state of the unreleased material, explaining that while the core writing was largely completed years ago, the band is currently focused on fleshing out the rough arrangements into full-scale studio tracks.
“This material has been in existence for over 10 years in some cases, 14, 15 years. It was in various stages of writing, sharing, learning, recording. So what we need to do is finish that process, and most of the process, most of the writing had been complete. So it’s mostly about recording. There were things that had been demoed by me, by Matt, by Chris, by Ben. But, again, demo. They’re very rough. They’re sketches. You start with a little pencil sketch, and you fill it in with whatever, chalks or oils or pastels. And that’s what we have to do, is finish the sketches. And we’re in that process,” he said.
Unlike a traditional album cycle driven by strict corporate deadlines, the guitarist noted that the current creative process is highly fluid, relying on the members’ ability to coordinate their schedules amidst other personal and professional obligations.
“It is atypical in the way we approach it. There isn’t a record label budgeting time and money, with a particular schedule. With everybody else’s obligations, professionally or with family or whatever, we have to find the time and coordinate amongst ourselves to address the work. And it’s being addressed.”
Emphasizing the massive emotional weight and responsibility tied to the project, Thayil stated unequivocally that the final record serves as a crucial tribute to their fallen brother.
“It’s very, very important to all of us. It’s important for the legacy of Soundgarden. It’s important for the legacy of Chris Cornell. It is doing right by our collective work. It is doing right by our partner and friend.”
Beyond the ongoing studio work, Kim Thayil was also asked about the possibility of the surviving trio eventually returning to the stage together. While stopping short of confirming any official plans, he openly acknowledged the deep, irreplaceable bond the three musicians share when performing their classic catalog.
”Well, we like playing together — Matt and Ben and I like playing together — and we know that if we want to enjoy the songs that we’ve played for decades, that that satisfaction of performing this material can only really happen with the three of us. It could only happen with the four of us. But since there’s three of us remaining, then we know that that is that window of opportunity for us to share with each other material that we’d performed on and wrote on together,” he concluded.
