‘We were going off the cliff’: Soundgarden’s Kim Thayil on inventing grunge – and losing Chris Cornell and Kurt Cobain

As he publishes a memoir, the pioneering guitarist talks about rejecting spandex and hair metal, his fears for breakthrough hit Black Hole Sun – and completing nine unfinished Soundgarden songs Kim Thayil has always felt like an outsider. For example: the Soundgarden guitarist has lived in Seattle, a city infamously addicted to coffee, for more than four decades, but only started drinking the stuff himself during lockdown. “I was pretty against-the-grain to my Seattle friends, who always want...

By Stevie Chick