Soundgarden - Superunknown · Riffology: Iconic Rock Albums Podcast

Chris0:11 A Riffology.

Neil0:14 Oh, that was. That was a bit led deputy. Was it was a bit.

Chris0:16 Yeah, yeah.

Neil0:18 A bit like monk chant. Chanty monks.

Chris0:19 Chanty monks. Gregorian chance.

Neil0:22 They probably got a better name than chanty monks.

Chris0:24 Gregorian.

Neil0:25 Gregorian.

Chris0:26 Gregorian chance.

Neil0:30 Welcome. That was a joke. Was a bit. Mighty Bouche.

Chris0:33 Yes, it was, wasn't it?

Neil0:34 Yeah.

Chris0:35 I like the Mighty Bitch.

Neil0:36 I love that. You know, when I was deep into writing code during the Artemis missions for tracking, and I was like, properly down that. The rabbit hole of doing that, and we had loads of people on the site, like a million people on the site. Was really busy. Really great. Properly in there. And then you sent me that video of Noel Fielding as the moon, but Aldrin stood on

Chris1:01 walking on my face. Yeah.

Neil1:03 So funny. I like him a lot. I've been to Brighton this week.

Chris1:09 I like Brighton.

Neil1:10 It's a long way.

Chris1:10 Yeah, it's a long way. I tell you what I don't like about Brighton.

Neil1:13 Right. What do you not like about getting there?

Chris1:14 And the M25 I don't like.

Neil1:16 Yeah. I didn't like that. There's a few things. So I've got a few things to talk about.

Chris1:20 Yeah.

Neil1:21 Right. So firstly, because I went to my old car.

Chris1:23 Yeah.

Neil1:24 That means I have my compact disc player. Yeah. And I was really excited about choosing my compact.

Chris1:28 Oh, yeah.

Neil1:29 I think.

Chris1:30 What did you go for? 12, this one. Did you put Super Known in?

Neil1:33 I haven't got it.

Chris1:33 Oh, got it.

Neil1:34 No, I haven't got this one. But I took. I took. Oh. But I took a bunch of like. Of like my. My favorite stuff down. I took all the old 90s stuff.

Chris1:43 Really.

Neil1:43 So there's like, Ride the Lightning, I've Raining Blood. I took down Appetite for destruction.

Chris1:51 Yeah.

Neil1:51 Bush 16 stone Bon Jovi these days.

Chris1:54 Yeah. Great album. That's the best.

Neil1:56 Lots of that kind of stuff. Right. And. And so really pleased with myself. It was great. Four and a half hours.

Chris2:03 Yeah.

Neil2:03 Loved it. Just you swapped my compact disc every now and then and it was having a great time. Got to Brighton, did. Did Brighton things, which was good, actually. Or I'll talk about that quickly as well. While I was in Brighton, I was at a conference and I was doing. Speaking.

Chris2:17 Yeah.

Neil2:17 At the Brighton Dome.

Chris2:18 Yeah. And I made a building.

Neil2:20 I made. Have you been in it?

Chris2:22 I looked at it from the outside and went, I would love to go in there.

Neil2:25 I made a comment while I was there.

Chris2:27 Yeah.

Neil2:28 It's a bit old. Like, you know, there's like, old buildings.

Chris2:31 Like, it's like. It's like It's. Yeah.

Neil2:35 And you think this has had loads of money spent on.

Chris2:37 Yeah, yeah.

Neil2:38 It's not like that. It's just a bit old and it's quite cool.

Chris2:42 Yeah.

Neil2:43 But it's just. Anyway, I like it.

Chris2:45 I like. Because I like it when you've got, like, new buildings and new houses and suddenly there's this, like, Gothic church.

Neil2:51 Yeah. It feels like 70s. Yeah. It's not. It's got this, like. I'm sure it goes back longer than that, but I think some of the. I think the decor and, you know, the carpets and things.

Chris3:01 Yeah.

Neil3:03 And anyway, I was. I made this kind of comment and I was like, you know, it was,

Chris3:07 you know, spend some money on it.

Neil3:09 Yeah. Could do with the. Could do with the refresh and. And it could do with a spruce up. And one of the sound crew said, I'll have you know, I kept a straight face while he said this to me. In the 1970s, the Eurovision song Contest was held here. And I was properly. I mean, you know, I. I was just properly like, oh, in the 1970s, isn't it banging up? That's great. And. And the other weird thing, I made another gag. So when I got up, I was. I was like.

Chris3:46 I was keen. Anyone that ever says, I'll have, you know, like, that's it. It's like, right, this is going to be great. Whatever comes out next is going to be absolutely brilliant.

Neil3:54 It was good. And they were. To be fair, they were lovely and looked after me, but it was. They did make me giggle. And the second thing, when I was on for the keynote in the morning, right, So I was on, like, quarter past nine, as people are, like, filtering in and, you know, doing the welcomes and stuff, right? So I go up on stage at, like, quarter nine and just. Just meander around. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it's. But it's like a. It's like. It's like a horror. It's like a, you know, like a concert hall, essentially.

Chris4:22 Yeah.

Neil4:22 So go there. And the guy, they're doing sound checks and stuff and I'm quite quiet, right? So they go out there, the guy's doing the sound check and the sound guy goes, do you want to. How loud you want to be? And I was like, just looking like the voice of God, right? Just. I want to be so loud that they, like, defecating. And he was like, in. The sound goes like, like what? Defecate. I want them to defecate. Anyway, so. So we did that and then. And then.

Chris4:47 That reminds me of Silverstone I have to tell you the Silverstone story.

Neil4:51 The light, the, the lighting guy came in and he says, do you want the lights on? And they're going, yeah, I do want the lights on. So they put on the state. You know when you're doing like a stage play and they do the stage lights? Yeah, they did that. And as a speaker, I'm looking. Oh, my God. Honestly, I thought my retinas had burst and the guy was going. Too much. Yeah, just a bit, son. Just a bit. Could wind back. You think about. It was. It was weird, a weird place. If it was more like the kind of place these days that you'd get like Jimmy Carr doing something, doing some stand up, than a dude hand waving about technology. Tell me about a man defecating at Silverstone.

Chris5:30 Oh, no, I might have told you the story already if I haven't. It's a good one. I like it already if I have. Yeah, let's just pretend.

Neil5:37 Let's do it.

Chris5:38 So ordinarily, yeah, I have a bit of a blowout weekend.

Neil5:42 You do it at Silverstone. You go out with, with Uncle Dave House, don't you?

Chris5:45 Yeah. So we go down there and we, we. We play some music. We just play daft covers. Really.

Neil5:49 Yeah.

Chris5:50 There, Play, Play some music and then have a party.

Neil5:54 Was that, that was the video last year where, where, where the pyrotechnics man had gone.

Chris5:58 That's the story.

Neil5:59 And, and he didn't. He like, just.

Chris6:01 It was.

Neil6:01 It looked like a war zone.

Chris6:03 It was just pyrotechnics like, story. I have told you the story. In fact, I've sent you video evidence of the story.

Neil6:07 I saw the video evidence of it.

Chris6:08 Yeah. Yeah. So the man who does all the tech, like, chose me of, of the people in the band. You don't talk to me about things like that. So band member to talk to about. So like, all right, I'm your pyro guy. Like, what? What do you want? And I went, all of it.

Neil6:24 Yeah, just all of it.

Chris6:26 All. All of it.

Neil6:27 Constantly what I'm hearing is whatever. Whatever means I don't need to make a decision. Yeah, do that.

Chris6:35 So. So. So he did. He did for the whole set. There was streamers, there was nuts like CO2 cannons, whatever they're called. There was like fire. There was like haze everywhere.

Neil6:46 Rammstein continent. It was just bogged. It was just stuff going off and

Chris6:51 everywhere, like playing Teenage Dirt back. It was wonderful.

Neil6:57 I saw the video of it. It's just insane.

Chris7:00 The thing is, because, because Dave, who Was doing the singing. He was. Stood next to them, next to the lights and stuff. So he didn't tell him. He didn't know. He didn't know it was happening. So every now and then there's just these. Like, he could just see him step back, like, oh, my God, what's going on here?

Neil7:20 That reminds me, you know, when I. I shot the last. The last few dates of the Slayer tour before they retired, or semi retired, I suppose. And anyway, as we were. We. We were going there, what they. They used to kind of gather all the photographers like. Like. Like a herd of cows. They would kind of gather you and they're like, no, you can't go anywhere. And this time they had a guy came to speak to us and he said. He said, there's some aggressive pyrotechnics in this show. He said now, he said, here's what's going to happen. We're gonna. We're gonna drop. The curtain's gonna drop. The band are gonna come out and then there'll be some extremely big flames. You are not to go.

Chris8:03 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Neil8:04 In front of. Yeah. That kind of stuff.

Chris8:07 Right.

Neil8:07 Yeah. And, you know, photographers are like, we're idiots. So the guy. The guy did that. The curtain dropped. Everybody walked out the can. And then.

Chris8:14 No eyebrows.

Neil8:15 Everybody was just like ducking down. And it. What. It was like. I don't know how to describe it. It was. It was hot. I mean, it was like. Yeah, yeah. If you open the oven door.

Chris8:25 Yeah.

Neil8:25 And you get like a face of hot. It wasn't like. It wasn't like that. That's like a bit wet.

Chris8:30 Oh, yeah. Okay.

Neil8:31 This was like a dry.

Chris8:33 Wow, right?

Neil8:33 Like hot. You. This was like scary. You know what I mean? It felt like pain while it was there. It only lasted for maybe 2, 3 seconds, but enough to. Everybody was kind of turning and facing. And then, you know, then, you know, Slayer started. We all just started shooting, but there you go. That's what it was. Smelled funny as well, did it? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Chris8:51 Like, funny. Like fully fuel.

Neil8:53 Yeah. Just smell. I don't know. You know, sometimes when you go on a plane, yeah. You can smell a little bit of like.

Chris8:59 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Neil8:59 It's not a bit like that.

Chris9:00 All right. Okay.

Neil9:01 I don't know what they put in them.

Chris9:03 Plain fuel.

Neil9:04 Playing field. The man. Do you know, I've got properly off piece now.

Chris9:09 That's really, you know, that's really like us.

Neil9:11 I know. It is. It is terrible. I was at the. I was at the Birmingham Arena I might be Metallica. I can't remember. It was a big band at Birmingham Marina, and we were shooting from the sound desk, and they'd got a load of pyro, and one of the. The guy that was herding us came up to see us, and you could smell the. The pyro smell. This was like a sound checker. And it smelled a bit weird.

Chris9:35 Yeah.

Neil9:35 And I asked him, and he went, oh, it's like napalm or something. It's what? And he says, oh, well, they. They. It gives you a better color. So they put, like, orange juice or something. I'm like, you're making. You're totally making this up.

Chris9:50 Right?

Neil9:51 And then everyone's like, no, no, it's totally normal to put, like, napalm in. I'm sure it isn't. I'm sure napalm designed to, like, stick to people and burn this. I'm pretty sure it's not what they're using. It is. Yeah. All right, whatever. If you know what's in it, right, and tell us. Yeah. Don't tell me it's napalm.

Chris10:10 Yeah.

Neil10:11 I cannot believe that anybody's putting like. Like, stuff from, like, the Vietnam War. And anyway, that's what it is. This is Riffology.

Chris10:21 Hello. Ten minutes in again.

Neil10:22 Yeah, I. I'm. I'm Neil.

Chris10:24 I'm Chris.

Neil10:24 And this is a show about music. Believe it or not.

Chris10:30 Super known. We're doing it. Can I just say, before we say anything else.

Neil10:33 Yeah.

Chris10:34 This is one of the greatest albums ever made.

Neil10:36 You love this, don't you?

Chris10:36 Oh, my God.

Neil10:38 This one for me is. I totally missed. I didn't miss this at the time.

Chris10:43 Yeah, yeah.

Neil10:44 Like, everybody was just gushing over it, and I was listening to a bunch of other different stuff I was saying,

Chris10:48 but I didn't find it.

Neil10:49 I would have been like, you know, Exodus and. Yeah. Testament and. Yeah. I was in a different. Totally different area. And then. And then a lot of my friends really liked this, kind of. So, yeah, I had a bunch of friends that would have been like, Alison Chains and Tower Garden and that kind of Pacific Northwest stuff, this Seattle sound. And then I remember this one. Like, friends would be like, you gotta listen to it. You gotta listen to it. Yeah, you've got. You gotta listen to it.

Chris11:15 Yeah, you'll love it.

Neil11:16 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You like Black Sabbath. You'll love this. And I was just like, you don't tell me what to do. And I just didn't. I was almost like, just. No, I'm. I. I'm not. You know, it's not my. I'm not listening to it.

Chris11:29 Yeah.

Neil11:29 And it took me forever. And it was actually Chris Cornell's solo stuff.

Chris11:36 Yeah.

Neil11:36 And I remember listening to that in like an audio. Like a hi Fi sound test, essentially.

Chris11:43 Yeah.

Neil11:44 And my mate Russ had put that on. I was, oh, God, this sounds phenomenal. And he was like, dude, if you like that, you try. Try this. And then we. We put on tracks of super unknown. And it was at that point I was like, do you know what this is? There's just something like. I don't know, it's like. I've always really loved Black Sabbath and this was. For me, there is. I mean, it doesn't all sound like Black. I mean, the press were really weird about. The press were like, oh, you know, it sounds like, you know, a lot like Black Sabbath. There's a whole weird, bizarre corner of the Internet that thinks this is a Black Sabbath album.

Chris12:18 Right. Okay.

Neil12:20 Bizarrely.

Chris12:20 Yeah.

Neil12:21 They wrote it and, like, sound God and discovered it and just copied him. And there is a. There is a very, very Black Sabbathy vibe with it. It is kind of.

Chris12:34 Yeah. It's the sort of doomy, sludgy bits.

Neil12:36 It's. For me, it's like. There's bits on here that are just so slow and. But like. Like, I was like. Like a concrete block hitting you. It's just. It's just phenomenal.

Chris12:51 The thing is, for me, when I remember hearing it and going, oh. I didn't really have the palette for it because I was listening to it at the same time. I was listening to very, very ordinary things.

Neil12:59 Right.

Chris13:00 So, like, your Green Day, your Offspring.

Neil13:02 Yeah. Was the same year, wasn't it?

Chris13:04 Yeah, yeah. So I was sort of into all that.

Neil13:07 Yeah, of course.

Chris13:10 So this, like, with this weird time signatures with its, you know, really low

Neil13:13 tuning and it's weird.

Chris13:15 It's really. There's some really odd stuff you wouldn't

Neil13:17 expect from it, like. Like a. A grunt. A band that was lumped in with grunge.

Chris13:24 Yeah.

Neil13:25 I don't know that. I just still doesn't sound like a grunge band to me. This doesn't. I love the fact. I love the fact that they've won a Best metal Grammy they were nominated for. But what is. This is not.

Chris13:36 But they can't. I mean, they're lumped into alt metal, grunge, whatever. They're lumped into a lot of stuff.

Neil13:43 Yeah.

Chris13:43 But you go, it's not. It's just wrong.

Neil13:45 None of those things.

Chris13:46 It's great rock music.

Neil13:47 It's really like that, you say. Sludgy, dark.

Chris13:50 Yeah.

Neil13:51 Old rock, isn't it? Yeah. I mean, if we think back to. We did Ugly Kid Joe last week. That's unplaceable.

Chris13:58 Yeah.

Neil13:58 That didn't fit anywhere. And this, I mean, this doesn't either. But I mean, it's again, a thing I hadn't really realized is just how long they've been together. 10 years. When this got released, they got a fairly significant back catalog. By this point they'd been around. They were, they were around before Sub Pop. They were, they were, they were, they were like, they, they created the Seattle scene almost, right? They were, they were around before it. They were like the Elders almost.

Chris14:29 Yes. Yeah.

Neil14:30 And then, and then when this record came through, you had Nirvana just on the edge of their, you know. Well, I mean, they were, they were out touring at this point vaguely. I mean, we talked about that when we did In Utro. Their band were like, you know, not really functioning at this point. And then, and then we had Kurt Cobain's death later in the, in the year. But. Yeah, which all overshadowed this record, I think. You know, I think although this did really well. I think it's like 23 million, something like that. It's a big, it was a big selling record, but I still think it was overshadowed a little. Yeah, it was, it, it wasn't. I mean, ultimately they were the elder band. Yeah, they've been around 10, 10 years. For longer. I think actually this, for me, listening objectively now, I think this stacks up better than the Nirvana record, you know, musically, I think. Yeah, more interesting. I think there's more layers to it. I think it's. I don't know, I, I. And actually I think it's probably stood the test of time a little better. Certainly. The Nevermind. I think maybe In Utros.

Chris15:36 Yeah.

Neil15:36 You know, more interesting.

Chris15:38 But, you know, it feels more. This is going to sound quite strange, I think, but it feels more east coast than it perhaps.

Neil15:49 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Chris15:49 Because obviously, like there was, There was the west coast thing going on. There was the Seattle thing going on. Yeah, but, but this feels more like it fits around the sort of New York, New Jersey world, like with, with, with what they were doing on the Chicago or, you know, that, those sort of, those sort of things. It's more, I think it's more akin, yeah. To the Pumpkins and that stuff than it is to, you know, the kind of.

Neil16:11 That's where they looked. Seattle.

Chris16:13 Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Neil16:14 But then the, the sound. But again, It's. It's an album that.

Chris16:18 Because it's trippier. That's.

Neil16:19 I think that's what I'm trying to get at.

Chris16:20 It's. It's a little bit more psychedelic.

Neil16:22 Not all of it is a bit.

Chris16:23 No.

Neil16:25 Bonkers and bits of froggy. Yeah, yeah. It's. It's like. I was just. I'm just gonna get the. The track list up. Right. Because.

Chris16:33 Oh. And just to say it's a proper album. It's like over an hour. There's 15 songs on here. Whatever.

Neil16:40 Yeah, it's hard. It's hard work. This is a long record for me, too.

Chris16:43 This is what. This is. A proper record is what. You know, if you put it out. Because they did the vinyl. Because we're looking.

Neil16:48 Yeah.

Chris16:48 And the vinyls now are double.

Neil16:49 Yeah.

Chris16:50 Like. Like four sides. But I think that's what an album should be. It's like. If it's any less than that, it's not an album.

Neil16:55 Do you know why I don't like doubles? I don't like having to change it over. Like, you get like three songs and I've got something like. I've just. Just sat down. Yeah. Change it over again. I like to have about five. Yeah, four or five. But like three or two. Even. Like some of the Pink Floyd doubles.

Chris17:13 Yeah.

Neil17:14 You had two songs. I mean. Okay. They're like six minutes of songs. You get like 12 minutes to sit down.

Chris17:18 Yeah. Oh, yeah. And all this or all the song lengths are proper as well.

Neil17:22 Well, I. I'm. I'm gonna pick you up a little bit on that because there are. There are quite. There are interludes. Right. There's kickstand.

Chris17:28 Yeah.

Neil17:28 And there's half.

Chris17:29 Yeah. And they're a couple of minutes. They're like two or three.

Neil17:32 I think it. I think they agonized over the flow of this.

Chris17:37 Yeah.

Neil17:38 If you. You. There are bits in there where you. There are. There are like, what feel almost like odd bits of music that just feel to me like they are taking you on a journey from the energy of one track to the energy of the next. Right. So they're kind of almost like bridges between the tracks. And I think. I don't know. You don't get that so much these days.

Chris18:04 No.

Neil18:04 Do you know what I mean? Everything's done to click. Everything. Standard timing. Not everything, but. You know. And it. This isn't. This is like odd timing signatures. There's like, different. Like. Some of it's drop C, some it's drop D. There's like some of. It's standard. It's a bit of a. Like a mishmash.

Chris18:23 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Neil18:24 But it flows. It's got this, like. You're never bored. It's never, like. You don't really get, like, too much of the same stuff. And then it's gone off and it's done something else or, you know, it's like, on really slow and really dark, you know, and then. And then it's kind of just like. Like it's. So you've got that. And then, you know, then. Then you kind of, like, back up into something quicker or almost like punky almost in places.

Chris18:52 And then.

Neil18:52 And then you've got, like, the.

Chris18:55 Which harkens back to the earlier kind of sound. Because the early sound kind of stuff was really punky.

Neil18:59 It was. But then you got, like, Fourth of July, which is, like, just bonkers slow and. Yeah, I mean, that. That does sound very Black Sabbathy. Yeah. And then it goes into half, which is, like, bizarre. It's not got Chris Cornell's vocals on it. And. And then. But then that really is taking you into, like, suicide. Right. And it's just. I don't know that it's so carefully thought through. I think this. And the order of the. The. The album is absolute. Like you said, it's an album. It's. It's. It's something that. I mean, not quite in the same way the Dark side of the Moon is because of the. The story arc that goes with it, but I think in the way it flows together, you know, song after song and. And the experience of each one.

Chris19:47 In a lot of ways, we were sort of the band that was difficult to swallow or define from the Seattle. Supposed. Seattle scene. I don't have put that much importance into other people's opinions, really.

Neil20:09 I couldn't think of good reason to play it. Could you? No. We want to do Soundgarden shows, not festival things. I don't think we're that easy to figure out.

Chris20:20 I don't think you can take one look at us or listen to one

Neil20:23 song and kind of get what we're about. We've never painted ourselves in a corner stylistically, so, you know, I would. I'd start to think maybe people would

Chris20:33 stop being surprised when we do something,

Neil20:36 you know, that we didn't do on the last record. You know, you got to kind of figure that's gonna happen. It's something to be experienced, end to end.

Chris20:42 It really is. Yeah.

Neil20:43 It's not something that you. You. Well, I don't know. I suppose you can just dip into. I mean, the singles are massive.

Chris20:48 I mean, that was. That was my. My initial exploration of the album came through just dipping into the singles. So. So, you know, I. I didn't really get into the deep cuts originally. Like, I loved Black Hole Sun, I loved Super Unknown. I loved, you know, Spoon Man. And they were the songs that initially. They're the easy ones, you know, like, with the stuff I was listening to at the time, they're the easier ones to understand because they're in straight time signatures. Although Black Hole Sun's got some quite complex sort of progressions in the chords. It's linear and it makes sense. Whereas some of the other songs, they're jumping around tonality with keys, jumping around with time signatures. But. But it was going back into it later where I. You know, if I listen to it now, I'll probably skip Black Hole Sun.

Neil21:37 Because you've heard it.

Chris21:38 Because I've heard it so many times and any. But. But then saying that in. In the context of the rest of the album.

Neil21:45 Yeah.

Chris21:45 Black Hole sun feels differently when you listen to it.

Neil21:48 Yeah, it does.

Chris21:49 It doesn't feel like this kind of big, you know, huge monster song. It feels like it's a part of the story.

Neil21:54 I mean, it's worth talking about the singles and those. Those kind of big. Big hooks in this. Because there are five.

Chris22:00 Yeah.

Neil22:01 I think there's probably six or seven.

Chris22:02 Yeah.

Neil22:03 It could have been rough off this record, which is bizarre.

Chris22:07 Which ones did they put out then? So there's.

Neil22:08 So Spoon man was the first single. It's worth talking about this. The Spoon man was the first single. It came out three weeks before the album and it reached number three on the mainstream.

Chris22:18 And it's got a spoon solo.

Neil22:22 It's the beginning. The video. Yeah, the video at the beginning with the spoons. It's like. Yeah, this is. This is. I mean, you know, you're in the 90s when that stuff's going on. You can imagine that today, can't you? Like some A R guy and like, you know, some YouTuber saying, you know what? I'm gonna, like, play the spoons at the beginning. You know what?

Chris22:39 Yeah.

Neil22:41 Then you had the Day I Tried to Live, which was in May. May 94.

Chris22:48 It's a great song ever.

Neil22:49 That peaked at 25. Then you have Black Hole Sun. That was number one. Yeah, but they were. These were all in media. It was number 12 in the UK. Yeah. I mean, but it was pretty immediate. It wasn't you. We talked about albums in the past we did a few albums recently actually on the show where the albums were released and nobody noticed and it took like they did the first two or three and then. And then there would be like one of the big hit.

Chris23:19 Yeah, yeah.

Neil23:19 Singles came through and then that kind of lifted the rest of the record. Yeah, this was, this was absolutely immediate.

Chris23:24 Yeah.

Neil23:25 And then after that there was a single called My Wave that was at the end of nine.

Chris23:31 Strange choice of a single it, isn't it? Yeah.

Neil23:34 That was top 15. It was number 40 in the UK. Yeah. Which was really. That's again a wacky video of like live. Live. I'm gonna, I'm gonna go off piece in a second, so just prepare. That went a little. So that was like live footage of the band playing and then. And then like surfing off the California coast.

Chris23:56 Yeah.

Neil23:57 And the reason I'm going to go off piece today is because I have a whoop which tells me whether I've slept well or not, whether I should. Whether I should go running or lifting weights or whether I should chill out for the day. And I washed and cleaned my car today and it congratulated me on my surfing.

Chris24:18 That's great.

Neil24:20 It was just mad. I. I mean just to be clear, I was not surfing. I just, I just washed the car and it. It's convinced that I was surfing. I don't know. I don't know what the similarity is between the two, but amused me a little so. And then finally There was a fifth single Fell on Black Days that was released in 95.

Chris24:41 Yeah. It's a great song.

Neil24:42 Four on mainstream rock. The video was directed by Jake Scott. Oh, who is the son of Ridley Scott.

Chris24:51 Yes.

Neil24:51 Who directed the best franchise of anything on earth ever. And that's Aliens. I just, I was really scared they were going to ruin that with the Aliens TV series. But it's not. I quite like it. It's quite d dark and it's like. It's not dark enough yet for me. It's still a little bit.

Chris25:08 Yeah.

Neil25:08 Disney.

Chris25:09 I don't think I caught. I think I got bored.

Neil25:10 Did you? It's still a little bit Disney esque and that one that needs to get. That needs to get like.

Chris25:15 Yeah.

Neil25:15 I don't know. Did you. With if it's got aliens in. If it's Aliens, I. I want to be waking up at 3 o' clock in the morning in cold sweats, scared to death three days after I watched it. Right. I don't want to be like in this.

Chris25:28 Well, it's the original Darth Vader effect, isn't it?

Neil25:30 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Chris25:31 You know, he was sanitized a bit as well. If that guy comes in. Into the room.

Neil25:37 Yeah.

Chris25:37 And that music starts.

Neil25:38 Yeah, yeah.

Chris25:39 You're cowering behind the sofa.

Neil25:40 Yeah, yeah.

Chris25:41 And that's what. And that's what that should feel like.

Neil25:42 Should be. Yeah. And so I. I think I. I like the story for the aliens.

Chris25:46 Yeah.

Neil25:46 The TV show. And I liked, like. I like the look of it that they went for and I liked the, like the aesthetic and I. I like that. And I kind of like the storyline. But it didn't. I. I wasn't scared.

Chris25:59 No.

Neil25:59 And I should be. I should be absolutely there. There was no baddie, if that makes. Well, there was a baddie, but it was like too Disney ish. It was a bit like comical.

Chris26:08 Yeah, sure.

Neil26:09 To me. And I like. I don't know. Baddies, genuinely. Baddies should. Look, when you watch that and you go to bed at night, you should be waking up and you and your tiny mortal brain should be like absolutely crapping itself. Yeah. Anyway, yeah, it was done by. It was done by Jake Scott and it was shot in black and white and it was all done in slow motion. Yeah, it's super cool.

Chris26:33 Yeah.

Neil26:34 But, yeah, it was a very, very cool stuff. I thought. Lots of cool videos from them.

Chris26:38 I. I thought they're trying to live is.

Neil26:41 You said that was the best song that's ever been made earlier ever. I like that. Until next week.

Chris26:48 No, it is, though. No, because. Because I used. Because I used to love singing and playing Black Hole Sun. Yeah, right. It was one of. It was one that. I thought you've got the voice for it, though.

Neil27:00 You've got. Your voice is a bit corner. You've got that. You've got that like Pacific Northwest.

Chris27:05 Yeah.

Neil27:06 When you sing, I think.

Chris27:07 Yeah. And I liked it. I like. I like learning that song.

Neil27:10 Yeah.

Chris27:10 And see, because it was always one that felt would be out of reach. It was one that was like that. He's a bit good. I'm not sure where I can do it. He is a bit good learning Jeff Bulkley and stuff. It's a bit. Yeah, yeah. I'm not quite. I'm all right, but I'm not. Not quite that.

Neil27:23 But.

Chris27:24 Yeah, but learning it and singing it. I've had a good time doing that, but now I want to learn that one because I think. I think it's a better song. Yeah, I think. I think.

Neil27:32 Yeah.

Chris27:33 Yeah. You know, and that's not saying Black Ops is a bad song. It's One of the greatest ones ever written. But that one's even better.

Neil27:40 I think it's.

Chris27:41 That thing is absolutely outstanding.

Neil27:57 I hope to save the sine of the d Accept A voice was in my head they said the seize the

Chris28:11 day

Neil28:14 Pull the trigger Drop the blade and watch the rolling hills Then I

Chris28:25 tried to live a spare time Was a mega STR. Yeah

Neil28:51 say it one more time One

Chris28:55 more time My maker One more time.

Neil29:20 Never seem to live up to the ones inside your head. The lives we make Never seem to ever again. Try to live. With all the other. Say it one more time

Chris30:00 One more time One more time.

Neil30:12 I try.

Chris30:26 Sa.

Neil30:58 World.

Chris31:30 One more time One more time

Neil31:37 One more time.

Chris31:54 Just like you.

Neil32:00 Just like you. It was a confusing time, I think, in, like, commercial music and. And we actually had a lot to do with helping create that confusion. But it was. It was a surprise, I think, that.

Chris32:40 That it was as big as it was.

Neil32:41 It was actually on the heels of

Chris32:44 Nirvana and Pearl Jam having records that were even bigger. So in a sense, it wasn't like.

Neil32:51 Like, we knew it was possible. Right. But still, for Soundgarden and a world that even then, you know, at radio and MTV was kind of hit song driven. And we didn't necessarily have those. And, you know, Black Hole sun, for example, was a surprise when I think about it, lyrically especially that that became a hit song. So it was. I think we were fortunate in that we made this.

Chris33:20 This album that was kind of redefining

Neil33:23 the band and pushing the boundaries right at the time when people were. Were. We had everyone's attention. Black Hole sun is. Is quite immediate. And I think it crossed boundaries, didn't it, that Black Hole Sun's one of those songs that, like, that didn't matter whether you were into, like, you know, Snoop Dogg or whatever. That was a song that you would have listened to and turned up in the car kind of thing.

Chris33:44 Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's a bit on the interview where they talk about the. In the intro to Black Hole Sun.

Neil33:50 Yeah.

Chris33:50 Because none of them could play slide.

Neil33:52 Yeah.

Chris33:52 I took all the strings off so they didn't get the tone of the other strings, like, chiming through.

Neil33:57 Also the total cheating.

Chris33:58 Yeah, Absolutely cheated to get that. That or that. That stuff at the start.

Neil34:03 It'd all be done with, I don't know, probably done in. In Pro Tools today. Just. Just mangle it. Do you know what? While we're talking about that, actually, you know, the album cover, it. It was shot on analog film, right. So it was analog. Like, it was literally four 35 millimeter film camera and then it was digitized and then mangled from there.

Chris34:27 Right, right.

Neil34:27 Which is weird for the like for that period of time that would. That would have been. That would have been a bit, I think, a little bit weird. And the other thing I want to talk about actually.

Chris34:37 Well, what, what.

Neil34:38 While we're talking about the singles and all the bits and pieces. When this was released, the. The number one spot in the charts was Pink Floyd. And this is. This is the album that knocked them off the top spot.

Chris34:55 Really.

Neil34:56 And I think it. I don't know. This.

Chris34:57 What would that have been then? Was that division belt?

Neil34:59 Yeah, division belt.

Chris35:00 Yeah.

Neil35:00 And then. But the bit that I think is interesting about it is it's almost. That's for me this, that switch, I suppose, you know, in, in like 92 in the. Nevermind.

Chris35:11 Yeah. Yeah.

Neil35:12 But by the time we got here.

Chris35:13 Yeah.

Neil35:14 I think like the, the. The old guard, if you like.

Chris35:18 Yeah.

Neil35:19 Is kind. It's almost. It's like handing over this.

Chris35:23 Yeah, yeah.

Neil35:23 You know, the baton to the, the no band. And I think it was this era for me where it started to. I think it started to happen where you know, those bands, you know, we had some huge acts that were, you know, being replaced by bands like Soundgarden and you know, know all of the stuff that was kind of happening around.

Chris35:42 Yeah.

Neil35:42 Around that time. So. Yeah, I think it's almost. I don't know, I thought it was interesting that it. It knocked it off. I mean to knock Pink Floyd off the charts is. Is. Is some going. But. Yeah, yeah, it's that point, isn't it, where you know, mid. Mid. Mid 90s onwards, like pink Floyd have now there it's passage like. I think it's come back into fashion again.

Chris36:02 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That was, that. That was.

Neil36:04 That was 30.

Chris36:05 Yeah.

Neil36:06 30 years ago.

Chris36:07 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Neil36:08 And 30 years ago it wasn't. I think. I think. You know, I mean, I remember people talking about Pink Floyd in the mid-90s and you just like what? Whatever. Yeah, you know.

Chris36:18 Yeah, that's that old band. That's the band my dad likes.

Neil36:20 Yeah, yeah. Don't. Don't care. There were a few bands I think that got away like Iron Maiden seemed to like. They kind of always kind of maintained an amount of. I don't know, love, I guess from the, the community. But. But yeah, it's. It's. This is definitely like a period of change where.

Chris36:35 Yeah. You know, something else was coming through.

Neil36:37 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Chris36:39 Hearing that, thinking I can't Play that.

Neil36:41 That's too delicate.

Chris36:43 It's like the. It's the right hand of the piano.

Neil36:45 It's like, you know,

Chris36:48 it was too

Neil36:49 tinkly, and I was like. And Chris played. Played it apart on this demo. So I'm learning it and I'm like, I do. I love arpeggios. And all our early stuff is writing arpeggios. And these are like little arpeggio triplets.

Chris37:03 And I'm like, I can't do it like this.

Neil37:05 With the Leslie and really clean sound.

Chris37:08 Sound.

Neil37:08 It was too. Just too delicate, you know, I'm gonna break this.

Chris37:12 I can't do this. And I. I.

Neil37:14 To this day, I can't remember. According to Adam Casper. I'm on that. I'm on the intro of the tracking.

Chris37:21 But I think Chris.

Neil37:22 I think I said, why don't you play this? And I'll play the distorted guitar and

Chris37:26 come in on the.

Neil37:27 On the verses so I can hear me on the. On the.

Chris37:31 On the choruses and the bridges and stuff. Because I changed a few things that Chris had written. I. I moved some of the chords

Neil37:39 around to make them sound a little

Chris37:40 bit more sunset, like.

Neil37:42 And then the weird solo and.

Chris37:44 And. And part of.

Neil37:45 Yeah, and then there's the second solo, but it's not really a solo.

Chris37:48 It's me sort of accenting the. The vocals. So I know this for a fact, though. That slide at the beginning, that's Chris.

Neil37:57 Neither of us knew how to play slide. And.

Chris38:00 And

Neil38:02 I was able to mute the

Chris38:03 strings other than the ones that I'm sliding on. I could just.

Neil38:06 I can mute them with my right hand.

Chris38:07 Chris couldn't do either. So he took all the strings off

Neil38:10 except for the one string. So it's just.

Chris38:12 This is one string. And he just went. Because that's one of the difficulties of

Neil38:18 playing slide is to make sure that you're not sounding the whole damn thing.

Chris38:22 I was able to do that with my right hand and not the left. And so I know that.

Neil38:27 I remember that.

Chris38:28 I remember watching him would just take

Neil38:30 one string on the guitar and just play that.

Chris38:33 Almost exact same response for.

Neil38:36 For that we had with Smells Like Teen Spirit. We played that and Matt just. Matt heard it and he said, oh, yeah, that. That's. That's a hit.

Chris38:46 And it was obvious to everyone that this.

Neil38:50 This thing that's.

Chris38:51 It was obvious.

Neil38:52 Obvious to me.

Chris38:53 And still there's that resistance. It's like loud guitars or distortion craziness, you know?

Neil38:59 And you hear that in my eyes in disguises no one knows. Boiling Heat, summer stench neath the black the sky looks dead Call my name through the cream and I'll hear you

Chris39:34 scream again

Neil39:39 Black hole sun, won't you come? Wash away the rain Black all the sun won't you come? Won't you come? Won't you come? Stood a rain cold and damp still the warm winds I had friends are gone for honest men Sometimes try to l the snakes in my shoes Walking sleep in my youth I pray to keep Heaven send hell away no one seems like you anymore oh, black hole sun, won't you come? Wash away the rain like all the sun won't you come? Won't you come home? Black holy sun, won't you come and wash away?

Chris41:03 See the rain like all sun won't you come?

Neil41:10 Won't you come?

Chris41:17 Won't you come?

Neil41:23 Won't you come?

Chris41:30 Won't you come? Sam,

Neil42:11 Hang my head, drown my fear Till you all just disappear Black old sun, won't you come? Wash away the rain Like a sun, won't you come? Won't you turn around? Black on the sun, won't you come Wash away the rain? Black old sun, won't you come? Won't you come? Won't you come? Won't you come? Won't you come? Won't you come? Ultimately, that's great. Ultimately, this record is for you. This has to be for you. This has to be your expression. You can't think of what someone else you don't know is going to want. Forget that they're listening to you. You know, the tail does not wag the dog. Here. You have to be the person who creates what people want to listen to. You already have a bill. You already have an audience. Give them something that you do that comes from you. And somehow I made sense of it to him and I said, what do you like? And he said, the Beatles and Cream. I just said to him, okay, we'll write a song that sounds like the Beatles and Cream. So. So three weeks later, I get this demo with four songs on it. The first one is Fell on Black Days. From the first moment I heard, I was like, oh, yeah, this is so good. It didn't occur to me for the longest time that a lot of what Chris wrote were essentially blues songs. It never really occurred to me. But he was able to transpose it into a whole different thing that was so personal and so heavy him that you didn't really think of where it might have originated. Right. There are two other songs on the. On. On the demo, one of which was Jerry Cantrell. Was playing like a did a lead. It sounded great. It was kind of hendrixy, wasn't appropriate, but it was great. The third song was called Tighter, and Tighter wound up on their next record. I really wanted to do it on Super Unknown, but fine. The last song, I started playing it from the very first note.

Chris45:31 Notes.

Neil45:31 I was like, what the fuck is this? And I kept listening to it. And as a music producer, my job, I feel, is to listen not for the things that are good, but for the things that aren't working. So from that vantage point, you can imagine what kind of state of stress I was in at that point, because I'm just waiting for the other shooter to drop and for this song to go way off the rails. Because so far, what I'm hearing is one of the best songs I've ever heard in my life. Right, Right. So this thing, it's going on and on, you know, into the verse, it's like, this is immaculate. He's gonna fuck the chorus so bad, though. He's gonna destroy it. I know it. I just have to prepare myself for this. He hits the chorus and it's beautiful. And I'm like. I'm getting, like, these sensations in my body I've never felt before. Like. Like, you know, it's taking me to all these, like, crazy places. I feel like I'm hallucinating. And all of a sudden, I've listened to this song for 15 times in a row, and I'm like. I call him up. Like, I just. I kept calling all his numbers until finally I reach him. He's like, yeah. And I'm like, you're a fucking genius. He's like, really?

Chris46:48 Why?

Neil46:49 I like that song? He's like, what song? Like Black Hole sun.

Chris46:53 The thing. I remember watching the Bad Motor Finger. Yeah, it was like a concert film video thing. It was on. It was a video. And I remember watching that go. Because it was always. Soundgarden was always about, like, always Chris Cornell. Because it's his voice and his. Yeah, maybe his songs and his writing and all that. And it wasn't until I watched the video that I went, oh, no, they're a band.

Neil47:16 Yeah.

Chris47:17 It's not Chris Cornell and his mates who he plays music with. It's like, no, this is a proper thing. Thing. Sa.

Neil49:27 When Soundgarden formed, I didn't play instruments

Chris49:31 other than the drums.

Neil49:32 I was the original drummer. And it was this kind of post punk indie world of anything goes, which. Which meant to me, well, I can pick up a guitar, even though I don't know how to play it, and anything that comes out of it is valid.

Chris49:49 So my.

Neil49:50 I never actually learned to play. I just sort of picked it up to contribute to songwriting. And the atmosphere in the band was very supportive of stuff that I wrote right away. Away, you know, while still kind of being a chimpanzee on the guitar.

Chris50:04 Didn't know what I was doing.

Neil50:06 And. And that's sort of where it came from.

Chris50:09 So. So, you know, it was always this

Neil50:13 experimental mood and this experimental feeling in terms of approaching songwriting and even making records that include, you know, each individual member has an idea or an attitude

Chris50:27 about what a Soundgarden song should sound like.

Neil50:30 And I'm sure that's similar with any other band. And those are all different opinions, really. They're all different visions. And. And what makes what Soundgarden sounds like is the collection of those things. And I think us, for example, making an album after 15 years, starting to write it.

Chris50:51 I realized that more then than I'd

Neil50:54 ever realized it before, because I think the first song I wrote lyrics to and a melody to was to a demo that Matt brought in. And as I started writing lyrics and singing to it, it occurred to me that he's the only guy I write like that with. Not even close to anything else.

Chris51:13 And then that happened with.

Neil51:14 With Ben's ideas and Kim's. And then writing my own songs by myself for Soundgarden. I'm writing in a different way. I'm writing. Writing specifically for that mood. And. And what I imagine this band is always sounding like or pushing the boundaries of what this band sounds like in a way that's appropriate for this band. And then it occurred to me that that chemistry aspect is. Is the most important thing, I think, for this album particularly, that they all wrote as well.

Chris51:43 Yeah.

Neil51:43 I think that there's a. I was reading this afternoon this is one of the first times that, like, everybody was bringing complete songs.

Chris51:53 Yeah. Yeah.

Neil51:54 Like, and. And they were kind of ended up on the. On the record. Which, again, maybe that's what contributes to the, like, the dynamics of the. Of the songs that, like, you don't get, like, if you listen to, like, a Metallica record.

Chris52:10 Yeah.

Neil52:12 The. You know, the. The. All of that rhythm stuff is done by James Hetfield.

Chris52:17 Yeah.

Neil52:17 Right from beginning to end, just out there. And, you know, and. And the songs. James is writing the vast majority of the. Of the. Of the songs.

Chris52:25 Yeah.

Neil52:26 And so there's a certain, like, similarity to it. Like a tonality, like a flavor, if you like, to it.

Chris52:33 Yeah.

Neil52:34 And. And A lot of albums. You get that, right? A lot of albums. You. You absolutely. You get that. And I think that's quite. Quite nice. I think it kind of makes like.

Chris52:40 Like.

Neil52:40 Like if you look at Ride the Lightning and Master Of Puppets, you get this kind of quite even.

Chris52:45 Yeah. Yeah.

Neil52:46 Flow across them.

Chris52:47 It's a recognizable.

Neil52:49 Yeah, you. Like, the tone stays the same.

Chris52:53 Yeah.

Neil52:53 And the production stays the same and the vocals are kind of similar as you go through, but like. Like the timing and the tuning.

Chris53:04 Yeah.

Neil53:04 And the. It's up and down. It's this. It's this, like.

Chris53:09 Well, there's even one track where it's not. It's not. Not even Chris Cornell singing on it, is it?

Neil53:13 No, but it's like. It's. It's more like. And I might get this. This wrong, the classical movement terms and things, but it feels like a. Like a movement feels like, you know, like a body of work.

Chris53:25 Yeah.

Neil53:26 Like a big collection of stuff that. That takes you on this. On this journey. Because it's quite a long. Like you said, It's 70 minutes. It's quite a long, beautiful, proper. Quite a long bit of. Bit of. Bit of music, this. And it's. It's. Yeah. I don't know. You know, before we came over, I was listening to Appetite for Destruction in the car on the way over and. And it hit me, like, the. The. The difference between these two records.

Chris53:51 And they weren't like a dissimilar point in time where they came out.

Neil53:54 No.

Chris53:54 They were a few years of each other, weren't they?

Neil53:57 I. But it's just. I don't know, I think it's interesting. I think it's like.

Chris54:00 Like.

Neil54:01 Like Appetite is just banger after banger after banger. You know what I mean? They're like. They're. They're just, you know.

Chris54:07 Yeah.

Neil54:08 On fire as they come out. This is. This is like this. I don't know, like, curated kind of experience, if. If that makes sense.

Chris54:19 But I think that creates the longevity. I think that's why.

Neil54:22 Yeah.

Chris54:23 The way that you listen to Appetite Destruction.

Neil54:25 Yeah.

Chris54:26 Appetite. Oh, my God. Appetite for Destruction is a similar way to what you'd listen to any kind of, you know, banger, if you like.

Neil54:34 Yeah.

Chris54:34 It's how you listen to Black Hole sun is like, you know, the Teen Spirit. It's like. Like there's a way you listen to that, which is. It is what it is.

Neil54:41 Yeah.

Chris54:42 Whereas I think you could probably dip into this in another 10 years from now and you'd still be digging. You'd still be digging Finding new.

Neil54:50 New things. It. Yeah, it's. It is a. Yeah, it's a deep pool, this one is. There's a lot of stuff going on, I think. But, yeah, it's. It's. It's funny. It just. It. It did absolutely occurred to me while we're kind of preparing for this, that this is a. I don't know, like, it mean, it came out of the grunge era, but it's got, like, nothing to. I don't know, like, it's got nothing in similar. I. I don't know. There was some flannel involved, I'm sure, but it doesn't feel. This doesn't feel like a grunge record to me in the slightest. You know, like, you can see the connection. You know, when we did bushes 16 stone. Yeah.

Chris55:31 Yeah.

Neil55:32 I love. That's one of my favorite records. I really love that record. And you can hear. You can trace where that came from. You can see why I see there where that. That kind of came from. This came from a different place to me. This. This has got more in common with. With Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath than Nirvana and the. The grunge theme, in my view, if this. This has got a. I mean, quite clearly it was influenced and it was part of that scene.

Chris56:01 Yeah.

Neil56:01 And I think the production, to some degree.

Chris56:04 Yeah.

Neil56:04 Maybe

Chris56:07 the other part is. Is where time went from here. Because I think the Audio Slaves first album.

Neil56:14 Yeah.

Chris56:14 It's almost like the sequel to this one.

Neil56:16 Yeah. Yeah, I would agree. I would.

Chris56:18 It's not like, you know, it's got a similar fire to it. It's got a similar. You know, it's got a similar thing going on. And it's more than. It's. It's the songs. It's the. It's the color of the tone of the songs, the energy of it, but also the way that the. I think the creative processes and the band were. The way that those sort of things were approached and the way they were administered and the way it's produced and all that. It was very much a rock thing, wasn't it?

Neil56:43 I think so. It almost. It almost got into post grunge.

Chris56:46 Yeah.

Neil56:47 Production.

Chris56:48 Yeah.

Neil56:48 I think. And there is definitely a production difference between, you know, between this and Audio Slave. I think there is very definitely a. Like a.

Chris57:01 But musically or Tony, there's like an essence that's similar.

Neil57:04 Oh, yeah. I think I. You're in no Doubt.

Chris57:06 And it's more than the voice. It's more than his voice. It's.

Neil57:09 Yeah.

Chris57:09 Something about the overall construct of it.

Neil57:11 It is. Yeah, definitely, it is. I don't know. I, I, I'm just thinking which, like, what, which do I prefer? Is it the Audio Slave stuff or is it the, the Sound Garden stuff? Do you know what I mean? It's like, which, which do you prefer? It's, it's, it's quite hard to, I think, like, you say there's the similarity there, there's absolutely similarity. And you can kind of, you can kind of hear it's like the evolution of where this, like you mentioned where this would go next. You know, where we would go, where we would go after this. Um, but there's enough difference there that makes it sound fresher. Yeah, I, I, I do. You know, without going back and, and listening to the Audio Slave stuff, I don't know whether that is just all about the production or whether it's the vocal change or whether it's, yeah, like you say something in the, the, the, the music as well. Cause I think the thing, the thing that I absolutely love about this record is just how dark it sounds. It's, it's not a happy record. It's like, you know, know, like the Alice and Chains stuff is the same.

Chris58:16 Absolutely.

Neil58:17 Alison Chains is kind of dark and thick and, you know, there's nothing, you don't, you don't finish listening to an Alice in Chains record and like, you're not beaming with. Do you know what I mean? You're not like, you're not like running into the garden and planting daisies, are you, like, you know, you just contemplating life, the universe and everything kind of thing. And this is a similar one for me. It's, it's, and, and like there are bits and Black Hole Sun's a brilliant example. I think, like, the lyrics are meaningless. Doesn't mean anything. Chris Cornell's been so clear. He was so clear all the way

Chris58:51 through this song fell out.

Neil58:52 Just made it up. Like, literally just made it up. Sounded all right, made it up. But then everybody kind of has built meaning into that and the, but if you look at what people think the meanings are, again, no one's talking about it. Meaning. Oh, you know, know, it's, it's like a positive thing, but it's all it's about, about nuclear destruction. You know what I mean? End of the World or whatever is quite a dark, dark sounding record, but it's come, it's, for me, it's got a lot of, it's got to do with those thick, the, the Black Sabbathy bits in There that kind of. That kind of really dark, sludgy. And it's not just the tone, it's not just the production. It's. It's. It's the chord. Is that kind of. I don't know, the. Like, the. The chord progressions and stuff are very. I don't know, they would not be. Would not be out of place on a Black Sabbath record.

Chris59:49 No, very, very.

Neil59:50 But then there's these. There's the bits on this record that were like totally not nothing like Black Sabbath.

Chris59:57 No.

Neil59:57 At all. So they've got like these bits in there that kind of. Kind of have this proper dark down tone. And then there are bits. There's kind of the Lead zeppelini bits and then there's the. Kind of. Then there's the hooks as well. It's almost like Beatlesy bits in there. I think, you know, for like some of the chorus work on. On Black Hole Sun. I think on Spoon man to some degree as well. Like the, The. The vocal work. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And. And I think. I think on a lot of the biggest. The bigger bits of the biggest singles work is kind of. Kind of more Beatlesy than. Than anything grungy.

Chris1:00:30 Yeah.

Neil1:00:31 But yeah, I don't know. It's. I think like you said at the beginning, you nailed it. Really was like, you can't place this. It's still really hard to kind of put it in a. In a box or. Certainly the. The whole album.

Chris1:00:44 Yeah.

Neil1:00:45 Like, you can pick bits of songs.

Chris1:00:46 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Neil1:00:49 But when you look at the whole record, it just.

Chris1:00:52 It's a masterpiece. I. I just think it's an absolute masterpiece. They were. They were all in the pocket.

Neil1:00:56 Have you. Have you bought a copy on vinyl?

Chris1:00:58 Y. No. No. I must do that. That. Yeah. It's what it is. It's an important record.

Neil1:01:04 I. I looked on the Discogs and the represses are like 30 quid.

Chris1:01:09 Yeah.

Neil1:01:09 Which is good. I quite. I like it when there's a repressed available because you can get it and you can. You gotta, you know.

Chris1:01:14 Yeah.

Neil1:01:14 If you. If you want it there. Because it's a mid-90s record.

Chris1:01:18 Yeah.

Neil1:01:19 If you want an actual copy from the 90s.

Chris1:01:21 Yeah.

Neil1:01:23 I got 300 quid.

Chris1:01:24 Yeah. Yeah. Well, vinyl wasn't a thing then, was it? It.

Neil1:01:27 No.

Chris1:01:28 Like, it was cd. It was.

Neil1:01:30 That's why I can't get hold of the bloody Bush album. Like the Goo Goo doll stuff is impossible to get hold anything. All this, this. This period from. I don't know, like. I don't know, like mid. Early early 90s to mid 2000s.

Chris1:01:47 Yeah. It's just not a vinyl thing.

Neil1:01:49 They're pressed so few, and they would have often only been pressed for the native market. So this would have come out in the us, I would imagine. It didn't get. I don't know whether it got a European release.

Chris1:02:02 Do you think that the. The lack of vinyl had an impact on the decision. Decision around compression and mastering for loudness? Because you can't really master vinyl in that way.

Neil1:02:14 No, I think. I think vinyl wasn't even. I think that. I think the numbers were so small.

Chris1:02:19 Yeah.

Neil1:02:19 That they were not. And I think actually at this point in time, my gut feeling is the. The. The production crew and the record companies were imagining that no one was actually listening to it. They would buy. To go in a frame or to, you know, they were not playing it. So I. I don't imagine anything that was pressed in the 90s would have been any good. I mean. I mean, in the nicest way. But it's. You know what I mean? I think they would have been mastered for cd.

Chris1:02:44 Yeah.

Neil1:02:45 They would have been slapped, jammed. That. I mean, I don't know whether this was. I've not.

Chris1:02:49 You know, there's a point where it dances out of the grooves, isn't it?

Neil1:02:51 Yeah. What's it. You. You can see on your screen? What does it look. What. What does it look like? Is it pretty brick like this?

Chris1:02:56 Yeah. Yeah.

Neil1:02:58 It's that era where. Where it would have been whether.

Chris1:03:00 Yeah.

Neil1:03:01 You know, you'd have had compressors on everything and then they'd have been wound up, you know, I think that's why

Chris1:03:08 it sounds so good. It's also, when I mix things, everyone goes. There's always a little bit compressed best.

Neil1:03:13 A little bit.

Chris1:03:14 It gives us a slam. Everything a little bit.

Neil1:03:16 You're like. Everything's up to 11. Yes. The thing.

Chris1:03:20 There's some, like, dynamic shape to this. No, it's just all loud.

Neil1:03:25 Just, just. No. What was I gonna say? Oh, one of the things that always. Every time I hear anything off this album, for some reason, always shocks me. And I think it's this. This tendency for me to kind of compare it back to Black Sabbath. The drums on here sound exquisite.

Chris1:03:47 Yeah.

Neil1:03:47 It's just.

Chris1:03:49 And you create a great kit in a great room.

Neil1:03:51 You don't get that on Black Sabbath records, typically. I mean, harsh. People are probably screaming at their radio set.

Chris1:03:59 But. Well, they didn't have that. They didn't have the technology.

Neil1:04:01 Yeah. I don't think you know, even on some of the newer Black Sabbath records they sound great. They sound really. For me, I really like the sound of Black Sabbath records. Records. But there is something happening here. Where the almost Sepultura esque.

Chris1:04:16 Yeah.

Neil1:04:17 You know, whether you've got this texture.

Chris1:04:20 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Neil1:04:22 It's got like. It's not just a drum kit, is it? It's got. It's. It's got like some kind of.

Chris1:04:28 Wasn't the studio somebody from Heart Studio?

Neil1:04:31 Yeah, it was. I will tell you. That's in my.

Chris1:04:34 On the blog on Riffology.com co.

Neil1:04:36 It's in my facts.

Chris1:04:37 On the facts. Oh no, save it for the facts then.

Neil1:04:40 I'm just.

Chris1:04:41 In a minute. Shall we do a tune? We'll do a tune.

Neil1:04:45 I'm just checking. It is. I'm just checking. I'm just checking. Just checking. Just checking. Do you know? It's not.

Chris1:04:50 It's not.

Neil1:04:52 It's definitely. You are correct though. It was. It was recorded at Bad Animals studio and I'm just gonna find. But it's the two sisters from Heart that own it and. And I am just looking. Where did this. Oh, I can't see. Oh, Anna. Nancy Wilson.

Chris1:05:14 That's it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Neil1:05:17 It was recorded in July to September 93@ Bad Animal Studio in Seattle. It's co owned by Anne and Nancy Wilson of Heart who are dead.

Chris1:05:25 Call

Neil1:05:27 on a neve desk.

Chris1:05:29 Yes, of course. It was a neve desk.

Neil1:05:31 Interesting, isn't it? I think at that point in time to be done. That would have been done almost entirely analog then. Yeah. At that point.

Chris1:05:39 Yeah.

Neil1:05:41 I wonder if it was done to click. I bet it was done to clicks. There's some weird timing.

Chris1:05:44 I don't know. I'm not sure. Don't know. Maybe.

Neil1:05:49 I think it would be hard. It would be. I bet it would be hard to do. To do this.

Chris1:05:53 Yeah.

Neil1:05:57 Yeah. I don't know. Do you think? I think that would be quite difficult.

Chris1:06:00 Yeah.

Neil1:06:00 To do. To do this album without click.

Chris1:06:02 Yeah.

Neil1:06:02 Because there was some album. There were some albums that you think. I wish. Like my Guns and Roses.

Chris1:06:07 Yeah.

Neil1:06:07 The vast majority of it. I think. I wish. I wish there was no click involved here. I'd like this to. I'd like this to be organic and. And sound raucous and rock and roll. You know there are other. But like Radio Head.

Chris1:06:20 Yeah.

Neil1:06:21 I really want that to be raucous and rock and roll and a bit out of time. I kind of like that to be nice and smooth and. Do you know what I mean? And. And done to clear. Like. I don't want Pink Floyd to be raucous and a little bit wild, like. But the Donners, I want that to be like. Do you know what I mean? A bit what. So it's funny to me though. There are some. There are some. There are some things where I think perhaps I'd like it to have some click and sometimes not. This is one where I think. If. I don't know. Because I think the changes, like, change the tone, whether it's kind of. Do you mean some of the timing changes in this, like in Black Holster Sun.

Chris1:07:00 Yeah.

Neil1:07:01 Is it the chorus? The change kind of changes a little bit. Yeah. It. Like. I think it's a bit faster, but. But it feels. Yeah. And it, like lift it. It's kind of like, oh, that's kind of a bit. You know what I mean? And then it drops again and I don't know. I think they're using the timing changes and stuff.

Chris1:07:17 And that's an interesting bit actually in Black Holon, because in the. In the context of the song Black Olson.

Neil1:07:23 Yeah.

Chris1:07:23 It sounds a bit out of place. You have that kind of riffy bit. But then placed within the confines of the rest of the album.

Neil1:07:32 Yeah.

Chris1:07:32 Makes loads of sense.

Neil1:07:33 Yeah.

Chris1:07:33 Cuz there's loads more of those kind of moments. Or it does.

Neil1:07:37 You know, it's. It's. It's making me think, actually. It's. It's a record that. If somebody said to me now, actually, it's, you know, it. It. There's a story about. There's a story woven through all of the songs.

Chris1:07:51 Yeah.

Neil1:07:52 I'd believe it.

Chris1:07:52 Yeah. Mean. Yeah.

Neil1:07:56 And I'm pretty.

Chris1:07:57 Does it just feel like.

Neil1:07:58 I'm pretty confident there isn't. But if it wouldn't, like, sonically, I think it would. It would fit if. If there was.

Chris1:08:05 Yeah.

Neil1:08:05 I'm sure somebody in the Internet has woven something together.

Chris1:08:08 Yeah.

Neil1:08:09 Like that time we did Dark side of the Moon.

Chris1:08:11 Yeah.

Neil1:08:11 And then. And then somebody on the Internet had woven it in with the wizard of Oz. Yeah, that's the one, isn't it? Dark side of Oz or whatever it's called.

Chris1:08:21 Yeah.

Neil1:08:22 Yeah. And if you start. If you start Dark. Dark side of the Moon at the right point in the movie, all the songs match what's happening on screen.

Chris1:08:29 Yeah.

Neil1:08:30 The Internet's a really weird place. It's best for cat videos.

Chris1:08:34 Yeah. I think that's the one to do.

Neil1:08:36 It is.

Chris1:08:36 Yeah. Right. Should we do a tune and then facts.

Neil1:08:40 Yeah.

Chris1:08:40 All right. Spiderman. Come together with your Hands Save me

Neil1:09:32 I'm together with your plan Save me

Chris1:09:38 save. All my friends are in the air. Come together with your hands Save me

Neil1:10:17 I'm together with your to Save me.

Chris1:10:28 Save me save me save.

Neil1:10:44 Come through.

Chris1:11:15 There's sam. Come on. Come together with your hands Save me

Neil1:12:18 Come together with your hands Save me.

Chris1:12:30 Beside me with you.

Neil1:12:46 Spoon Man. What is that about?

Chris1:12:50 What? What?

Neil1:12:51 Who is a Spoon man?

Chris1:12:52 Oh, it's. It's a person.

Neil1:12:54 Spoon Man. Yeah. He's the man who just spoons.

Chris1:12:56 Yeah. No, it was a. It was a.

Neil1:12:58 It was Urigala.

Chris1:13:02 No, I'm sure it's in the blog.

Neil1:13:03 Isn't the blog. It's. It's a ma. It's a man. It's. It's. Yeah, yeah.

Chris1:13:07 So you go to a follower. Co. You can too. You can to read the blog and find out about who the Spoon man is. But also I think, is it time for facts now?

Neil1:13:17 We can do that if you want Spoon Man. I'll start there.

Chris1:13:23 Yeah.

Neil1:13:24 So do you remember the.

Chris1:13:26 So this is in your fact Facts?

Neil1:13:28 Well, kind of, yeah. I'm going a bit off piece with the Facts, but there's a. There was a movie in 1992 called Singles that Lindsay keeps telling us to watch.

Chris1:13:36 All right.

Neil1:13:37 And I've watched it. It's got Matt Dillon in it and

Chris1:13:40 I think I know the one.

Neil1:13:41 Yeah. And so if in there, way before this album, there's an acoustic version of Spoon Man. Oh, is that what it was? That's what it was written for. That's what he did it for. And it was written around a real life Seattle street perform, former artist, the Spoon man, who was in Pike Place market, who genuinely plays metal spoons percussively.

Chris1:14:06 Yeah.

Neil1:14:07 Now there are a couple of things that I want to talk about before. Before I kind of dig in. So I've been at the Same company for 20 years and they're based in Seattle. So I spent a huge amount of time in Seattle and Pike's Place and blah, blah, blah. So there's a lot of stuff around here that I find fascinating and interesting. You connect with the movie singles particularly.

Chris1:14:30 Yeah.

Neil1:14:31 Of it was. Was shot in and around there, which was. Which was pretty cool. However, one of the things I did not know was the band name Sound Garden was. It came from a garden in Seattle where we once had. So we used to go there and have these big, big conferences and trainings and stuff. And we once had a summer party there where they were like loads of, you know, street performers and other bits and Pieces. And I remember being in a particular part of this garden when it's like trying to describe it, but like. Like when the wind blows, it kind of makes different sounds. Like a whistly kind of things. And it's called the Sound Garden.

Chris1:15:15 Yeah. Yeah.

Neil1:15:16 And that's where they were. Yeah. I do know what's really bizarre. I never connected the two together until. Until we did this. The prep for this show.

Chris1:15:26 I think it's a great band name. I think it's actually probably one of the best band names ever. I think that song that I said about the name of this. It is. What is it? Nearly Midnight now.

Neil1:15:40 I don't know what. I don't know what day it is. It is 23:16 on Sunday 26th April, according to my table. So I. But I'm with you. Soundgarden and Audio Slave. I think they're both great names.

Chris1:15:52 Both good names.

Neil1:15:53 Yeah, both good names. This album was released on March 8, 1994. Fascinatingly got. They got lumped in with everybody. They were classed as metal, they were classed as grunge, they were classed as alt rock. They were all over the place. I don't think anyone really know where to stick them. It sold nearly 10 million copies, which is a lot for, I think an album that is so dark.

Chris1:16:21 Yeah.

Neil1:16:21 And cool. I. I really like this. But it's not a Mainstream Friends. Well, we.

Chris1:16:26 Black Hole sun saying that though mainstream friends would wear the T shirt.

Neil1:16:33 They wear. Nirvana. They wear like In Utero and bleach, don't they? And you're like. You don't like.

Chris1:16:38 You might like Teen Spirit.

Neil1:16:39 Yeah, you're a Teen Spirit. Kind of. Kind of mainstream Friend. You're not. You accidentally bought that, you dicko. Right. Yeah. Let's go for it. So. So this album, 8th March 19, 1994. The band had been around for a decade before. Before this album. When it was released, it knocked Pink Floyd off the top spot, which I think is really interesting. I mean, for anything to do that is just. Just absolutely bonkers. It was five weeks. Released five weeks before Kurt Cobain died.

Chris1:17:21 Yeah.

Neil1:17:22 Which, you know, that's kind of where. Where. I guess where it puts you in the. In the. In the timeline. It was on A M Records. Now, Soundgarden were the first. I think, unless anyone's going to correct me, I think Soundgarden were the first of those Seattle bands to sign to a major label.

Chris1:17:41 Yeah. Yeah.

Neil1:17:41 I think they were the first to. To do that. Produced by Michael Bainhorn. Now, fascinating. The band didn't go on with him very well. He was a bit of a slave driver and they were. Were. I think all of them were pretty chilled. And he wasn't. He was a bit mutlang. You know, he's a bit kind of. No, no. You're going to do like 500 takes of this until it's perfect. And then, you know. And I'm not sure they thrived on that. There was a lot of. There a lot of quotes and things from the band. Like it, you know, doing the same vocal take 20 times in a day wasn't.

Chris1:18:20 Yeah. Not creative.

Neil1:18:21 Wasn't thrilling for them. Recorded at Bad Animal Studio. From the Heart Sisters. We already spoken about that. A lot of stuff was recorded at Bad Animal Studios. Worth checking out that place. It's cool. 15 tracks, 70 minutes long. So it's too long, but it's quite good. It's. It's one of those records that is. It doesn't feel the length that it is. Like some albums at 70 minutes would. Would push me over the edge.

Chris1:18:49 Yeah.

Neil1:18:50 This doesn't. It doesn't feel like. It doesn't feel like that. Like long of a record picked at number one on the charts. The 20. Yeah. On. And the debut week 26th of March 1994. It. It debuted at number one. So it was a suit. It was an immediate. Yeah. Massive, massive, massive, massive hit single. Spoon Man. The Day I Tried to Live Black Hole Sun My Wave and Fell on Black Days which we've. Which we've talked about. One of the first bands from the Seattle scene to do anything and get signed like even before like Mud Honey and all that. They were really, really early on in that. In that space. Let me go through some of the other bits and pieces. So stuff that was released around the same time. So you had Snoop Dogg's Doggy style.

Chris1:19:47 Right. Okay.

Neil1:19:48 I like Snoop Doggy Dog. I think he's really funny.

Chris1:19:51 Yeah.

Neil1:19:51 And I like that about him. I. I like. I like the fact that he's kind of leaned into. Do you know. I mean, his character. He kind of. I don't. I'm not sure he knows where he begins in his character. Begin. I Just a bit bizarre. Mariah Carey's music box.

Chris1:20:06 Wow. Wow.

Neil1:20:07 The Lion King soundtrack. Apparently that's. I. This is not. I'm totally, really reading off Wikipedia. But this. Apparently the Lion King soundtrack, like sold more than like everything else. Wow.

Chris1:20:23 Cuz Elton John.

Neil1:20:25 Cuz Elton John. Yeah, it's. Who was it that said, oh, I'm gonna. I'm gonna go. I'M gonna go off piece and I'm doing this totally from memory. But didn't, didn't, didn't President Trump say that, like, the AIDS was Elton John's fault? Oh, God. Do you remember? He bought him. He did this, like, benefit dinner and just this benefit dinner, dinner. And he's got Elton John there. Yeah, Elton John's organized it all, Everybody there. And it's about, you know, kind of getting, getting like, investments and stuff. And President Trump said it's kind of, it's all, it's all your fault we're here. Like, like in a, in a positive. I mean, he's meaning it in a positive way, but obviously the universe and the Internet takes it as it's, you know, it's the gay's fault. And I like that. I just think it's. I don't know. And the other thing I love about it is just, he just shrugs it off. It's just kind of like, yes. So. And, and that made me, that made me tick. I love the way that Elton John, he says, proper, nice guy. Elton John's just like, you know, quite clearly just been offended by the President of the United States. It's just like, yeah, all right, whatever. Look at my nice suit. And he's very good. He has some lovely suits. Elton John. Can you. I, I don't, I don't wear suits.

Chris1:21:46 I did for a bit.

Neil1:21:48 Did you?

Chris1:21:48 Yeah, for work when I was supposed to be professional.

Neil1:21:51 I don't do that. And because I work in I T. If you wear a suit, you. I look like a bit of a. Yeah, so I don't do it, but I had to wear a jacket this week.

Chris1:22:02 Oh, did you?

Neil1:22:02 And I quite liked it.

Chris1:22:03 Did you?

Neil1:22:04 Yeah, I did. Not. A jacket. What? I don't know what the word is for it. Like a, a, A blazer. Is it blazer?

Chris1:22:11 Yeah.

Neil1:22:11 And I did. I quite liked it. Do you know the thing I've really liked about it, and this is going to make you giggle. The thing I loved about is I could do this with my glass. I could take my glasses off like this.

Chris1:22:19 Yeah.

Neil1:22:20 And I could pop them in your inside pocket.

Chris1:22:22 Oh.

Neil1:22:22 So when people were giving me things, I could just pop them out and put them on. Yeah, it was brilliant. And like, hoodies don't have anywhere to put you.

Chris1:22:32 No, they don't, do they?

Neil1:22:33 So if you, if you, if you want to, if you want to. Like, like, unless you've got a pouch. Yeah, but you can't put your glasses in your pouch.

Chris1:22:39 Your keys are in those.

Neil1:22:41 A kangaroo. Don't you? But if, yeah, if you want to, if you want to, like, be a billionaire. Right. Build a hoodie with a glasses pocket at the top. Oh, God, where am I?

Chris1:22:56 This is a long one again.

Neil1:22:58 Sorry.

Chris1:22:59 No, it's not your fault.

Neil1:23:00 Is it not?

Chris1:23:01 No. This is gonna be an hour and a half.

Neil1:23:02 Oh, good. Very good.

Chris1:23:04 I thought, you know, that this. Start the night again.

Neil1:23:06 Yeah.

Chris1:23:06 When we start these, you know, I'll be quite quick one tonight.

Neil1:23:09 It's never quick, is it?

Chris1:23:10 No.

Neil1:23:11 Just gabbing on, aren't we? Interesting tidbit. So the Terry Date produced the previous record.

Chris1:23:18 Yeah.

Neil1:23:19 And they decided they didn't want that. Now, where is Michael B. Bane Horn from, do you know?

Chris1:23:27 No.

Neil1:23:27 New York.

Chris1:23:29 The east coast sound. I was talking about the East Coast.

Neil1:23:31 Yeah. And he had just made Soul Asylum, Grave Dancers Union. Yeah. He, he was not part of the Seattle scene.

Chris1:23:42 Well, there we go then.

Neil1:23:44 So maybe like part of your theory there that he's got that bit of a. Definitely has a different tone this, this record. Yeah, yeah. Really interesting, I think, yeah. And, and spoke about this before, but Binh Horn really pushed them. He pushed particularly Cornell hard on the vocals and Cameron on, on drum sounds. They were mucking about with unusual, like, drum mics and things and placements and, and all of, all of that stuff.

Chris1:24:21 Yeah.

Neil1:24:23 And, and interestingly, there was, uh, an article. I'm gonna pronounce his name. Or is it Tate Tail? Um, he, he basically said the album only took as long as it did. Like that everything was written pretty much. But it took as long as it did because. Because Beinhorn was absolutely, you know, crushing them with, you know, with take after take after take, which. Yeah, I don't know, I think is interesting. Famously, Black Hole sun, which was the massive single, was written about absolutely nothing. And everyone thinks it was written about nuclear war and a bunch of other things and it wasn't at all. Which I think is interesting. I think it's interesting that humans attach.

Chris1:25:08 Yeah.

Neil1:25:09 Meaning to stuff you could put humans in like a, in a black room and they would find.

Chris1:25:13 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Neil1:25:14 You know, find, find some, some, some meaning to it. The Day I Tried to Live. Chris Cornell quotes it as being autobiographical, which I think is really interesting. Bizarre riff. I don't know. I, I, the tuning, yeah, is bizarre.

Chris1:25:37 Yeah. It's all bendy in that.

Neil1:25:39 Bendy. And that Fourth of July. I think that might be one of the heaviest songs.

Chris1:25:47 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Neil1:25:48 Like, it's certainly for Sound Garden. It's. I don't think Audio Slave ever got that heavy. No, it is definitely.

Chris1:25:54 What's the downtown nature of it, isn't it?

Neil1:25:56 It's bloody drop C, but it's just. Oh, I don't know. Like that is. I mean that could come straight off a Black Sabbath record. It's got like such a. Such a bonkers vibe. That is incredible.

Chris1:26:13 Look would have it.

Neil1:26:14 Yeah.

Chris1:26:14 That's gonna be the last one that we play.

Neil1:26:15 Oh, it's one of my. I just love that. For anybody that says I don't like this album, that's where I would.

Chris1:26:24 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Neil1:26:26 That's. That's always the one that kind of. I really like. Album cover was by Kevin Westenberg, Seattle photographer, longtime collaborator of the band. And nearly all of the profile and portrait shots on the inside of the album cover. Back when they used to do those things, he did all of that kind of stuff shot on film and then digitally manipulated, which I thought was quite, quite cool. They did a bunch more in the 2014 re reissue. There's more of his stuff in there as well, which I think is really cool.

Chris1:27:03 Yeah, yeah.

Neil1:27:04 Release and reception, everyone really liked it, which is interesting, I think is interesting at the time because a lot of them were kind of. At this point in time time, the grunge scene was kind of a bit over. I think the critics were a little bit, you know, I say bored of it, but do you know what I mean? It's. Oh, you're not Nirvana, are you? So. But, but I think. Yeah, I don't know. Everybody absolutely gushed over this. Absolutely loved it. And you can kind of understand why. It's hooky, it's complicated, it's technical, it's dark, it's. You know what I mean?

Chris1:27:41 It's plenty of ingredients, plenty to chew on.

Neil1:27:43 Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Touring. They did all kinds of bizarre touring. And they actually went out and toured with Guns N Roses. They did. On the Use your Illusion. No, I was thinking similar. It would. I think it would be quite interesting actually that like. Because this would have been when Guns N Roses were dysfunctional. This is on the Use your Illusion tour. This was Axel turning up two hours late and.

Chris1:28:09 Yeah.

Neil1:28:09 Bit bizarre. Other places they were on which I thought they would have gone down were with Therapy, Rollins band, Helmet, the headline Lollapalooza. They were invited to do all kinds of festivals and stuff and apparently turned them down. They did a bunch of. They would often do the run ups to festivals, you know. You know, when there's a big festival and there's like the you know you've got a lot of bands in. In town. Yeah. So you have these kind of like almost like mini shows. They would do those, but then not do the first. The main festivals. Which I think is interesting. At the 37th annual Grammy Awards in March 95, Super Unknown was nominated for the Best rock album. So it lost in that category. But the band took home two awards on the night. Black Hole sun won Best Hard Rock performance. Spoon man won Best Metal Performance to let that sink in. So it. It was the best metal performance. And it beat nominations from Anthrax, Megadeth, Pantera.

Chris1:29:19 That went down well.

Neil1:29:21 The renowned metal band so Bizarre.

Chris1:29:24 Yeah.

Neil1:29:26 Cornell asked backstage how it felt to win Best Metal in the same year as Best Hard rock, reportedly shrugged and said the band had stopped paying attention to the categories is years ago. And I think it's quite right. They just didn't. Didn't really fit, did they? Facts that you might not know. So I'm gonna go and cover some of this stuff. We've covered some of it already. And Black Hole sun was written in 15 minutes with the title coming first and the lyrics added afterwards as deliberately dreamlike nonsense.

Chris1:29:56 It is dreamlike.

Neil1:30:00 We've talked about Spoo man already. Half is the only Soundgarden studio track of Super Unknown era to feature lead vocals from someone other than Chris Cornell, with bassist Ben Sheppard singing his own composition only after the rest of the band insisted. Limo Wreck is written in 15.8Time, a signature so unusual for mainstream rock in 1994 that several reviewers at the time misidentified it as 7 for or simply called it Weird. Producer Michael Beinhorn famously made Chris Cornell sing the lead vocal for Fell on Black days more than 50 times across multiple sessions before approving a take. Wow. A process that Chris Cornell said almost broke the relationship. Mad, isn't it? They'll push that far. Brendan o', Brien, who mixed the album.

Chris1:31:01 Yes. There he is.

Neil1:31:02 You know what else he was mixing at the same time?

Chris1:31:04 Pearl Jam.

Neil1:31:05 Vitalogy from Pearl Jam. Yeah. Making him arguably the most important engineering grunge during the winter of 93 to 94.

Chris1:31:13 Yeah.

Neil1:31:16 Super known. And we talked about this before we started to record because I I this. I think this came from the Beatles thing. But Supernatural Known. The lead vocal is Cornell singing in unison with himself. But it's a fifth apart. And it gives this kind of Beatles like chorus effect. Like thick chorus effect which I I, you I can hear. Something's not like normal with it. But I didn't connect the dots with that.

Chris1:31:43 You tend to harmonize with thirds.

Neil1:31:46 Ah, okay.

Chris1:31:46 Then we like the major or the minor note within the chord.

Neil1:31:49 Yeah.

Chris1:31:49 And a fifth is always the, is the dominant.

Neil1:31:52 Right.

Chris1:31:52 So you don't tend to use fifths because if you use, if you use fifths it's got almost like a sort of, like a, a sort of eastern sound. Like a far Eastern sound. If you use the kind of.

Neil1:32:03 Yeah.

Chris1:32:03 Trip fifths and make them travel. They were used all the time in, in pop.

Neil1:32:09 Like the 60s pop. Yeah, yeah. Interesting kickstand. The 94 second punk blast at track 11 was originally recorded as a beat side and only made it onto the album because the band needed a deliberate pace change. Between the Day I Tried to Live and fresh tendrils and that.

Chris1:32:29 Yeah, yeah.

Neil1:32:30 Talked about that before.

Chris1:32:30 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So very purposeful.

Neil1:32:32 As you said, the album was deliberately sequenced so that the sprawling seven minute closer like Suicide ended on a single sustained guitar note that fades to silence, intended according to Cornell to mirror the way the COVID image fades from face to background.

Chris1:32:49 Yeah.

Neil1:32:50 So you get the feeling this, with this, our whole album is agonized. All of it.

Chris1:32:54 Yeah, yeah.

Neil1:32:57 They recorded a version of the Beatles Come together during the Super Unknown sessions, but it was not to appear on the album and was finally released years later on a soundtrack and reissue. Oh, I didn't know that.

Chris1:33:08 No, I didn't know that either.

Neil1:33:09 I've already talked about this. But then they knocked division bell off the Billboard 200 putting Seattle grunge at number number one in the same week as the most legendary of rock bands released a combat record. Very cool.

Chris1:33:21 Yeah.

Neil1:33:22 And that is like it. I mean there's, there's, there's tons of stuff about this, this band I think, but that's it for facts.

Chris1:33:29 Yeah, yeah. So Reforger Co is where that blog

Neil1:33:33 list, if you want to go and do that, do, do Riffology co. There's all, there's all kinds of crap on there.

Chris1:33:37 Yeah, yeah. And it's good work. Yeah. There's loads of people looking at it.

Neil1:33:40 Yes. They're busy.

Chris1:33:41 Yeah.

Neil1:33:41 The Google quite likes it. So it's funny. I like when, when you imagine that literally it's just the show notes. I mean we just do a structured blogs and stuff. I mean it's, it's, it's written in, in more of a bloggy way now. But the site literally is just, it's

Chris1:33:58 just show the show notes.

Neil1:33:59 Yeah. Basically. And it's gone from there. And like PR companies send us albums to review and stuff now. So I do those occasionally, but not too much. It's mostly old stuff from the 90s is.

Chris1:34:10 Yeah. Very good. Right, should we put 4th of July?

Neil1:34:14 I love, absolutely love this. Shower in the dark. Like fire I thought I was the only one that was just alike. I thought it was the end I thought it was the fourth of July.

Chris1:35:26 Fear

Neil1:35:28 never no one cares

Chris1:35:35 no one

Neil1:35:36 wants to speak about it

Chris1:35:41 down in

Neil1:35:42 the Jesus tries to crack. Ram.

Chris1:37:08 Sam.

Neil1:37:36 Now I'm in control now in the fallout.

Chris1:37:59 And.

Neil1:38:00 And hold it in your hand Cuz I heard it in the wind

Chris1:38:06 and

Neil1:38:06 I saw it in the sky I thought it was the end

Chris1:38:13 I thought it was the.

Neil1:38:21 Sky.

Chris1:38:52 There we go. This may be our longest one yet.

Neil1:38:56 Longest show ever.

Chris1:38:57 We are just getting towards 100 minutes

Neil1:39:00 and it is getting close to midnight.

Chris1:39:02 Yeah.

Neil1:39:02 So we better go to bed.

Chris1:39:03 Yeah.

Neil1:39:05 So what should we do next?

Chris1:39:07 Rolling Stones.

Neil1:39:08 Should we do that or should we do Physical Graffiti? Should we do.

Chris1:39:11 Oh, yeah, no, yeah. Sorry, you did.

Neil1:39:12 So shall we do. I was thinking we could do. Because we talked about Led Zeppelin. I. I think there's a very, very Black sabbathy Led zeppelini vibe today in the show.

Chris1:39:21 Yeah.

Neil1:39:22 And I'd love to do Black Sabbath, but. Yeah, Black Sabbath is one that I would really like to hold back. It's our hundredth show in. In a few months. In a couple of months.

Chris1:39:32 Yeah.

Neil1:39:33 So there's a couple of albums that I'm like. I'm not. I think they might be good. Yeah. For that. So the Black SAP. I don't know which one we do maybe. Anyway, so. But I thought we could do Led Zep. If we do Physical Graffiti, you'll look, that's a double album.

Chris1:39:48 Y forever.

Neil1:39:49 It's like. It's beautiful. Proper massive. Do you know the fun thing about it? Over seven minutes started out as eight tracks. So it was eight tracks. And then. Then they realized they'd got a little bit more than that and then decided to nudge it to a double album.

Chris1:40:05 Bosch.

Neil1:40:07 So that's good that then. So we can do that, which is good. I don't know much about Physical Graffiti in the way I know it was.

Chris1:40:14 It was Dan Baker's favorite.

Neil1:40:16 Is it Headley? It was recorded at the Headley Grange. Yeah, yeah.

Chris1:40:19 That drum kit under the stairs.

Neil1:40:21 Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's got. It's got a proper drum kit sound, doesn't it? It's proper. Proper lovely sound. Produced by Jimmy Page. I know that as well. Which is going to be quite cool. So let's do that.

Chris1:40:33 Yeah.

Neil1:40:35 And then do you know, we'll do Rolling Stones after that.

Chris1:40:37 Yeah, great.

Neil1:40:37 Beggars Banquet or something like that. Yeah, probably do. Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, probably Beggars Banquet. Anyway, we'll figure that out next week. And that's it. Yeah. Thank you.

Chris1:40:50 Done. Sorry.

RIFF086 - Soundgarden - Superunknown

Show Notes

When the Seattle Elder Statesmen Finally Get Their Due

Episode Description

What You'll Hear:

Featured Tracks and Analysis:

Tangential Gold:

Why This Matters:

Transcript

Comments