A final Soundgarden album is coming, but we’re not likely to hear anything from it this year, and certainly not before the Seattle band’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction on Nov. 8.
“There’s not a set release date or anything as of yet,” drummer Matt Cameron, who will become a two-time inductee after getting in with Pearl Jam during 2017. “There were a couple schools of thought, like, ‘Hey, let’s put out a single.’ I think eventually we decided we want to make sure the whole thing is completed before we start releasing singles. I’m excited for people to hear it.”
Cameron, who announced his departure from Pearl Jam on July 7, is understandably excited about his Rock Hall distinction. “It’s a huge honor,” he acknowledges. “I haven’t really wrapped my head around it, and it’s not lost upon me that it’s pretty real to get in there two times. I’m feeling great about everything.” He has happy memories about the 2017 ceremony, including David Letterman’s induction speech for Pearl Jam as well as watching Yes perform and meeting original drummer Bill Bruford, one of his heroes. “Overall it was a pretty amazing time,” Cameron recalls. “It wasn’t really too stressful for me other than to make sure the performance was dialed in, because it was a big TV event. But other than that, it was a great evening.”
Getting into the Rock Hall with Soundgarden, however, will mean something different to Cameron, who joined the group in 1986 and was part of all of its recordings.
“They’re both huge honors, of course,” he says. “For me, personally, I helped build Soundgarden from the ground up, and I helped create the sound, I think, a little bit more than I did with Pearl Jam, which was definitely more of an established thing that I came into. So in that sense (Soundgarden’s induction) is a little more meaningful for me as an artist and musician and songwriter to go in with a band that I helped (to) establish itself.”
And while Soundgarden hails from a decidedly alternative scene that hasn’t always given credence to established institutions such as the Rock Hall, Cameron says that “there was never really a reluctance to acknowledged this honor. I think we’re always happy to be recognized by any established entity in the music industry…It felt like even from the early days, fellow musicians noticed what we were doing, and the music industry definitely took notice, so…it was nice to be recognized by the Grammys and whoever else.”
Soundgarden’s induction follows two previous nominations, in 2020 and 2023. The group finished sixth in the fan vote with 233,205.
Cameron is sending the Yamaha drum kit that he used to record the first three Soundgarden albums, as well as his first Keplinger snare drum. Soundgarden is planning to perform at the ceremony in Los Angeles — which will be aired live via Disney+ — but has not yet announced how the late Chris Cornell’s vocals will handled. “I think that’s above my pay grade,” says Cameron, who last December performed at a benefit concert for Seattle Children’s Hospital — billed as Nudedragons — at which guitarist Kim Thayil and bassist Ben Shepherd were joined by Seattle vocalist Shaina Shepherd (no relation). He did, however, reveal that original bassist Hiro Yamamoto, with whom he recently performed in Seattle, will be involved in the ceremony, while an inductor is still being determined.
“It’s just been really exciting to gather up all these people we worked with over the years that helped us create the band, create our legacy, and it’s going to be a really great night,” the drummer predicts.
In the meantime, Cameron, Thayil and Shepherd are working to finish the eight remaining songs they started working on with Cornell before he committed suicide after a performance in Detroit during May of 2017. “We’re definitely over halfway done with it,” Cameron says. “Kim is in the process of finishing his guitar parts; he wants to make sure they get exactly the way he wants them.”
Soundgarden — whose most recently release, 2012’s King Animal, was its first new album in 16 years — began working on the material back in 2015; finishing them was delayed until legal issues between the band and Cornell’s widow Vicky Cornell could be settled.
“Emotionally it’s been extreme highs and extreme lows,” Cameron says of working on the material. “Hearing (Cornell’s) voice on these powerful hard rock songs is the most empowering thing in the world for me. Then I listen to his voice soloed up when I’m working on stuff, or if Kim or Ben is working on something, and it all comes back to the fact that he’s not with us and he left us in a way that has so many questions. It’s been gut-wrenching but at the same time very empowering.”
The Soundgarden album is just one of the endeavors Cameron’s been up to since, and before, announcing his departure from Pearl Jam — which he says was amicable. “I definitely gave them a lot of notice,” he notes. “I’ve spoken with Jeff (Ament) and Stone (Gossard) a little bit…It’s been fine. Hopefully we’ll get back together at some point and have a beer or something.”
He maintains, as he did in his original announcement, that “I’m at a point in my life where I want to redirect my time and energy in a way that is a little bit based on what I want to pursue as an artist at this point.” That includes a new band, Is This Real?, in which he’s serving as frontman and guitarist; it began as a Wipers tribute but is “also recording original music I’ve been writing over the years,” with an album of mostly original material I’ve been writing over the years” expected in the near future.
He and Thayil, meanwhile, continue to work in the all-star 3rd Secret (with Nirvana’s Krist Novoselic, Void’s Jon “Bubba” Dupree and others), with hopes of possibly taking that band on the road.
“I was having some issues with (Pearl Jam’s) three-hour shows and constant touring and stuff,” Cameron adds. “That’s definitely an art form unto itself, to be able to do those types of shows…I’m at a point now where I want to do a face-melting 70-minute set, and that’s kind of what I’m focusing on right now.”
