Remaining Soundgarden members Kim Thayil, Matt Cameron, and Ben Shepard took part in the I Am the Highway tribute concert to Chris Cornell in January 2019. Thayil said in an interview with Kerrang! that playing the show not even years after Cornell's death was "a little bit uncomfortable" and "was picking at an open wound."
"The best thing about it was playing those songs again with Matt and Ben, and the next best thing was having our friends and guests join us," he said. "The rest was a little bit uncomfortable. It was sort of a clusterfuck. It was picking at an open wound, emotionally, and nobody was that thrilled to do it."
"It was the Soundgarden family together, doing what Soundgarden does and honoring and missing our beloved, departed member. That was important," he later added. "The rest of it – the celebrity nature, promotion and focus was bullshit. And we knew it was bullshit going into it."
Thayil also revealed in that same interview that he's working on new music, and has jammed with members of Fugazi and Faith No More.
"On the MC5 tour, during soundcheck and rehearsal, I would write and jam with Brendan Canty [drummer, Fugazi] and Marcus [Durant, Zen Guerrilla vocalist] and the other guys, Wayne [Kramer, MC5 guitarist] and Billy [Gould, Faith No More bassist]. There is more inspiration being in that situation and getting new insight into my approach to guitar and coming up with other ideas. Some of them have gotten better and I've written them down in some fashion. I'm definitely picking up a muse or two. There'll definitely be something in the future."
Read the full interview here.
