After years of legal limbo and emotional uncertainty – and an induction into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame over the weekend – Soundgarden is finally finishing what will stand as their last album with the late Chris Cornell.
In a new interview with Bass Magazine, Soundgarden bassist Ben Shepherd has opened up about the process of making the record after years in legal disputes between the surviving band members and Vicky Cornell, the singer’s widow. For Shepherd, stepping back into the studio without Cornell has been both cathartic and crushing: “Matt‘s drums are pretty much done. Kim goes in and records for a week, and then I come in and record my parts, and we swap back and forth,” Shepherd explained.
“I’m having a hard time trying to practice the parts at home. It used to be easy for me because I could just plop on headphones or crank it on the stereo, but it’s all digital now so I have to re-figure out how to even rehearse to it. We’re making good progress and have a big portion of the album completed.”
“There’s one song that I need to talk to Matt and Kim about, but it’s ultimately done now. It’s always hard to decide when a track is officially finished in the studio, but as far as the rhythm section goes, we’re finished. Finishing this album totally makes me miss Chris more.”
Asked how the new songs are being shaped, Shepherd said the foundation was always Cornell‘s voice: “Yeah, we’re taking these ideas that we wrote with him and are finally recording them and completing them. These songs are already set — they’re what we have to work with — because of Chris‘ vocal tracks. We’re just filling everything out around them. Even Chris‘ scratch vocals are good enough to make an album; his voice was always remarkable. And thanks to these recordings, we can finally finish this record.”
When Shepherd finally laid down his first bass tracks, the weight of what they were doing hit him. “A few weeks ago was the very first time I got to go in and lay down some bass tracks. I was walking out of the control room to the kitchenette to set down my coffee cup, and they were playing back on a song, and I just stopped and thought, Oh my god — it’s really good to hear Soundgarden again.
“It went from rough takes and scattered ideas and all of a sudden Kim‘s guitars are on there with Matt‘s drums, Chris‘ vocals, and my new bass lines. It’s Soundgarden. It was such a cool feeling. The one word that summed it all up for me was ‘mighty.’
“Kim and I both thought there were no real rocking tracks on this album, but nope. We all got on there and once they got fleshed out, they’re way bigger and more powerful than we imagined. It’s all really exciting.”
Shepherd also offered a glimpse of what fans can expect sonically, saying the music is way harder than he remembers. Which makes sense, considering all Soundgarden‘s material is basically low-key fucking impossible to play.
“The first song we did together, the mighty one — seems when you first hear the demo, it’s not powerful at all. And then when you start playing it you’re like, Holy hell! I blistered my hands trying to play those parts. I was like, Thanks, Cornell. He and Kim always throw some wild riff in there that you have to nail. It’s just intuitive for them. I’ve always been amazed by those two, and that song is just whomping. These songs have been flooring me with how powerful they are.”
“I’m having trouble with the timing of the song we’re working on currently. It’s a laid-back track, not a driving, powerful thing. It’s really melodic and trippy. I told our producer, Terry Date, that I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do because I didn’t know what Matt heard for it, and I wanted to leave it open.
“Luckily Matt showed up to the studio after leaving Pearl Jam and he broke down that there is a tiny beat thrown in there that makes the timing tricky. Once he showed that to me, it made sense, and I played a part that worked. I had a couple of different interpretations of what do to, but sitting down with Matt on drums really solidified it. That’s what I miss about the old days, when all of us would be in the studio together when everyone was tracking.”
The emotional toll of revisiting this music hasn’t been lost on Shepherd. Reflecting on Cornell‘s death, he said: “I always thought we were going to be weird old men sitting out in the cabin he owned in the woods, laughing about everything. He really wanted to meet my son Noah, and he never got to. He did get to meet him over the phone, which I have a picture of. Then when he died, the very first sentence my son ever said was, ‘I’m sorry.’ That touched me so deeply.”
“I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how the night before we left for the tour, I knew that something bad was going to happen. Something came over me, and I deeply felt like I couldn’t do it. I went around and said goodbye to my family. I could feel it. We were making the same mistake we always did, which was interrupting making our record in the studio to go play some tour for some reason.”
He continued: “The other day it dawned on me again, on a deeper level, that the minute we’re done with this record and the minute I play my final note on it, does that mean we’re never going to do it again? What does this mean? Without Chris we aren’t Soundgarden. Who knows, maybe selfishly we’ll just keep tracking the record so that we can keep working on it and preserving the moment in time.”
Shepherd also spoke about the band’s Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction, acknowledging both the fans and the future: “I do love that it’s an honor for the fans and a nod to them. Our supporters finally get their say, and they deserve that. Ultimately, I’m doing this for them. I just never liked being put on a shelf.
“I mean, this isn’t over; as a band we’re still going, and we have more to say and more happening in the future. We’re not done just because we’re in the Hall of Fame — we’re still playing. This isn’t the end of the road for us.”
