Metal Anarchy

During an interview with Allison Hagendorf, Soundgarden’s Kim Thayil, Matt Cameron, and Ben Shepherd offered an update on their final album with the late Chris Cornell. Notably, the band are “pretty close” to finishing the effort.

Thayil said the following about working on the upcoming record with producer Terry Date:

“One of the cool things about Terry, is he never imposed his production style or sound on any bands. He would learn from the bands. And one of the things he would assert when he took a job was, ‘I want this to be a co-production thing.’ And it’s, like, ‘Well, that fits just perfect with the kind of band we are.’ There are a lot of producers out there who have a particular style — for instance, you think about Phil Spector and the ‘wall of sound’. It’s, like, okay, well, that’s his thing. But producers had that kind of role in the ’60s and, to some degree, the ’70s, but with the way bands are post-1977, they have a sense of what they’re writing and what they wanna sound like, and the producers should simply facilitate that. And Terry’s that guy. I mean, you listen to records he’s done, and it’s very different from certainly what he’s done with us. There isn’t a signature Terry Date thing. It is him helping the band be the band.”

Cameron also addressed a previous comment regarding the differences in songwriting:

“There’s very familiar elements in some of this new music, but, yeah, there was a couple songs that felt like it was kind of a new chapter or it could have been a new chapter. So it’s really exciting to hear that. It’s bittersweet, of course.

But, yeah, I’m really excited for people to hear it, have our fans hear it. It’s fun for us to be working on it. And sometimes listening to it, it’s overpowering. But, yeah, I’m super proud of the music that we did put together. And we’re pretty close [to finishing it]. And, yeah, it is nice having Terry on board with us, for sure.”

Shepherd went on to say that the songs sound stronger than the initial demos:

“I was going to get coffee down the hall from the control room, and Nate and Terry were playing it back — Nate’s our assistant engineer on it. It was, like, ‘Holy hell. That SOUNDGARDEN. It’s so cool to hear it again.’”

Thayil added:

“Yeah, it’s like we had these various demos, and you had a particular quality. And it was, like, ‘Okay, how do we flesh this out?’ And then we start doing it, and it’s, like, ‘This sounds different.’ It’s almost like you can pinpoint before and after. It’s, like, ‘Now it’s SOUNDGARDEN.’”

[via Blabbermouth]