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В an exclusive excerpt from Kim Thayil's memoirs "« Screaming Life: Into the Super Unknown with Soundgarden and Beyond» , published in Guitar World magazine , The guitarist opens up about the tension that surrounded the creation of his 1994 masterpiece «Superunknown »", and admits that they were warned about the possible consequences...
Alive in the Super Unknown
When I first heard the demo version of the song Black Hole Sun Chris's rendition of it, I didn't like it. Well, I realized it was a good song, it just wasn't Soundgarden's style. If it had been written in the first six or seven years of our career, it might never have made it onto the album because it wasn't the kind of song that would be played live.
We'd all be like, "Oh, this is a pretty cool song, but I just can't imagine plugging in an amp and playing it at Ditto Tavern or Rainbow." It's not the kind of song we'd improvise on or come up with in rehearsal. So we'd probably put it aside.
I knew that Black Hole Sun There was potential, but it didn't fit with the band we were before. We were a band that wrote songs together, improvised, and interacted with each other on stage, presenting music that resonated with the audience.
Composition Black Hole Sun felt more like something Chris had created alone with his tape recorder. While he knew he had to write something that everyone would enjoy, it didn't fit our roots in live performance and improvisation. It was more composed and carefully crafted, which was becoming a trend for much of our new material, including what we wrote for Badmotorfinger .
Chris contributed significantly to the songwriting, but he made decisions more as a songwriter and engineer than as a musician. He wrote more for the studio than for the stage, and after the album's release, we had to figure out how to adapt the songs for stage performance.
On the one hand, this gave us freedom, allowing us to expand the range of material and songs we were creating. Thus, our creativity was able to expand beyond what we had never touched before.
But it also limited us because it compromised our musical artistry, which lay both in our relationship with the instruments and in our interactions with each other in real time, and effectively confined us to a small room (the studio) with pre-set parameters.
Although in the end I appreciated the song Black Hole Sun As great as it was, Chris knew some of his ideas would be rejected, and fortunately, it didn't discourage him. We're all sensitive to rejection. If we put effort into something we believe in, it can be painful when the band doesn't like it. It was hard for me to pitch a song and hear it wasn't liked, though we've all been there.
Chris, despite his prolific output, learned not to take criticism personally and to have no self-doubt. He took risks without worrying about how the band or the audience would react. If the band didn't like it, great – there were other songs. If they did, even better, because our best work is what everyone liked, and that's what resonated with the audience.
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When we started recording our next album in 1993 after Badmotorfinger , Chris found a kindred spirit in producer Michael Beinhorn. After working with Terry Date on our previous albums, we were looking for 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 would understand our sound and wouldn't radically alter our songs.
We loved his recordings. As always, we needed someone who could capture a good sound and offer a fresh perspective—we didn't need any songwriting or arrangement input, as we'd already rehearsed and prepared most of the material. We didn't realize that Michael's approach is much more hands-on; he uses the studio itself as an instrument, like Chris, creating songs right there.
Michael was able to direct and adjust Chris according to his production ideas. It was more difficult for him to do this with me.
However, as one, we all realized that Michael's approach—his Beinhorn-esque way of speaking, which eventually caused us to clash—ultimately alienated all four of us. Although, admittedly, we'd been warned. When it became known that he'd be producing our next album, musician friends called us and said, "Hey, man, you might want to think twice about hiring this guy." In our overconfidence, we thought, "No, we know what we're doing. We're pretty strong-willed and assertive, and no one would dare mess with us." But it seemed to me that he did.
Michael seemed to be driven by the idea that great art comes from conflict and tension, and it often seemed to me that he himself fueled this tension in various ways, creating friction and conflict within the band and between himself and other members.
He complained about what I did and how I did it, and he did the same with the rest of the group. He also had poor eye contact. He chewed on a straw and seemed to avert his gaze when talking to me, which indicated he was often lying.
Even the way it worked seemed inefficient and absurd. Imagine if you wanted to get from Seattle to Vancouver, British Columbia, you could simply drive straight on Interstate 5 and you'd be there. Or you could drive east on Interstate 90 to Detroit, cross the border into Canada, take the Trans-Canada Highway west, and end up in Vancouver, but that would be a circuitous, expensive, and time-consuming route.
It seemed to me that Michael always chose the roundabout, expensive, and time-consuming route. He seemed to have his own, comfortable way of doing things that didn't align with how we wanted to do things. It was very complex and contradictory, at times seeming a bit excessive and picky. Every member of Soundgarden experienced this.
One day, Matt arrived at the studio, and Michael had installed an incredible number of microphones on his relatively modest drum kit. It was outrageous. There were so many microphones that they were blocking Matt's ability to reach his drums. He exclaimed, "What the hell is this?" as he tried to step over all those microphone stands to get to his damn drum stool.
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I'd never seen Matt so angry. He started walking around the drum kit, pushing away unnecessary mics. We ended up removing half the mics Michael had placed on Matt's kit, leaving only one on each drum.
Michael certainly understood music, but from a keyboard player's perspective. He seemed completely unaware of a guitarist's interests or needs, or at least mine. Michael could work with Chris because the guitar wasn't yet his voice; it wasn't a means of self-expression. To some extent, Chris was a blank slate, and Michael could direct and shape him according to his production ideas.
We were very happy with the album, but its success came in spite of, not because of, the conflict with Michael.
He had a harder time working with me in this regard. 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, I felt, spent an inordinate amount of time trying to tweak sounds I didn't like, forcing me to endlessly repeat takes.
I felt like it was a waste of time, and when it started to get in the way or distract me from playing guitar the way I wanted to, I'd say, "I don't want to do this.".
Finally, I couldn't take it anymore, flipped him off, grabbed my coat, and stormed out of the studio. As I walked to my van, he chased me, scolding me, but I flipped him off again and told him to "get Steve Vai" before heading home. It was the lowest point in my relationship with Michael. Ben had his share of conflicts, too—he'd either spit out the control room window or throw the microphone at him. Michael, however, was too afraid of Ben to confront him.
Chris was 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 recorder." Michael showed him how, and Chris insisted that Michael and lead engineer Jason Corsaro leave the room. He allowed another engineer, Adam Kasper, to stay in case he needed anything technical. It was hilarious.
I just don't think Michael built a relationship with us that would allow us to reach our full potential. We tried our best despite him, and sometimes despite his influence. Let's just say it felt like during the recording process Superunknown He didn't make any friends in Soundgarden. None of us kept in touch with him after that.
In my opinion, this process was unnecessarily difficult and tedious, although the album itself turned out great. We were very happy with the album we recorded with Michael Beinhorn, but its success came despite, not because of, the conflict with Michael. And while it still sounds like us, the atmosphere has changed thanks to the production and mixing.
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The most significant change is perhaps Black Hole Sun , which is more like a piano composition performed on a guitar. Its structure and arrangement differ from tracks like Beyond the Wheel or Power Trip . But I wouldn't say that Superunknown - It's a huge departure from the usual style - it has a different sound than Badmotorfinger , but this is quite logical in the context of the group’s development and trajectory.
Creating Superunknown So, by focusing on what we could do in the studio in terms of different sounds and effects, we had to, so to speak, reinvent ourselves to present the songs to our fans. It felt a little awkward because it didn't fit with the type of band I thought we were and still are from the beginning.
I don't think Chris realized that my guitar sound and style was my voice and the key to Soundgarden's uniqueness.
We were no longer just a rock band, easily playing new material as it appeared on the album. Now we had to adapt the material created for the album to the type of band we perform live with. Initially, however, Chris wanted to try to more accurately reproduce the sound Superunknown .
He spent a lot of time and effort trying to recreate these timbres and sounds. He bought a bunch of rack-mounted digital effects and a pedalboard that allowed him to turn presets on and off. He worked with his guitar tech to create all the presets. I didn't understand this approach at all. It was at odds with what we were doing.
I thought, «Fuck it. Why? This doesn’t feel natural.» There was something about it that reminded me of Electric Light Orchestra; it didn’t fit with Soundgarden. Instead of trying to recreate the sound of the songs in the studio, I decided we should interpret them for our live shows.
I don't think Chris understood that my guitar sound and style were my voice, and the key to Soundgarden's uniqueness. Even though Chris played guitar, he didn't have the experience to make it his voice. His voice was, well, just his voice. At that point, Chris was using guitar primarily to record song ideas on his four-track or eight-track tape recorders, so his understanding was more from an engineer's perspective than a guitarist's.
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Before we went on tour to support Superunknown , he spent a lot of time preparing to recreate the studio sound on stage. I'd show up to rehearsal, and he'd have this sophisticated digital pedal with preset effects for different songs. He'd switch between effects to Hands All Over or Loud Love , then turned on the rotoscoping effect for the verse Black Hole Sun and the Leslie effect for the chorus. It started to seem very banal.
My attitude toward all of this was starting to become a bit dissatisfied. Chris would show up a few hours before rehearsal with his guitar tech to set up presets, and when I showed up, he'd say, "Aren't you going to do any of this?" I already had more pedals than I needed, so why bother using digital gear? I'd just be distancing myself from the guitarist and becoming someone else. I didn't like that.
Chris probably took it as an insult to his actions. I think he felt like he was doing the work himself, and that the others weren't putting in as much effort. But we felt like he was trying to create something we didn't need, and that wasn't us.
I admit, I didn't want to change the way I played or the way I wanted the guitar to feel in my fingers, because that's the kind of guitarist I'd been for the last eighteen years. It was my voice. It wasn't just what was coming out of the amp. It was what my fingers were doing on the fretboard. I didn't see any need to change anything, even for the sake of Black Hole Sun.
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Excerpt from the book «Screaming Life: Into the Ultra-Unknown with Soundgarden and Beyond» Kim Tile. Copyright © 2026 Kim Tile. Published by William Morrow, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers. Reprinted with permission.