During a new interview, Soundgarden’s Kim Thayil named the metal bands he listened to in the ’80s when his band was first starting out.
The guitarist appeared as a guest on the Turned Out a Punk podcast to discuss his upcoming new memoir A Screaming Life: Into The Superunknown With Soundgarden and Beyond.
Because Soundgarden formed in 1984 before the term “grunge” had been used to describe the sound of the bands in the Pacific Northwest — and because their music was more eccentric and progressive than the rock that was popular at the time — they were sometimes referred to as a metal band, which wasn’t something they particularly agreed with themselves.
Well we liked Metallica but that was different. The thrash scene kind of had — they crossed over with the punk scene very much so and it was independent and it wasn’t as radio friendly or MTV-oriented or pop-oriented. We were already into Metal Church and I was acquainted with Trouble and Exodus, so we had those records,” Thayil recalled.
The rocker said that it was Mark Arm of Green River (and later Mudhoney) who turned him onto Metallica’s debut album Kill ‘Em All and Exodus’ Bonded by Blood. Arm pointed out to Thayil how fast Kirk Hammett’s guitar-playing
So that aspect of metal was perfectly fine. On one hand you got this band that’s definitely on the metal scene like Trouble, then you got this band coming out of the punk rock indie scene like Saint Vitus. And they’re both kind of doom oriented. And there’s that element in what we’re doing. There’s definitely some stoner rock doom stuff that we impacted with that scene. We did a lot of different kinds of stuff,” he continued.
