When Matt Cameron and Kim Thayil sat down with The Seattle Times to talk about the material Soundgarden were working on before Chris Cornell died in May 2017, they weren’t really talking about studio logistics. They were talking about how you carry a band on your back when the voice that defined it is gone, how long legal delays shape the way grief lands, and how finishing music eight years late somehow still matters.
Cameron didn’t sugarcoat it. He said (transcribed by Blabbermouth): “It’s a massive emotional roller coaster. A lot of highs, a lot of lows. The highs are based on the fact that the music is seeing its light of day, it’s coming to life. Some of it feels like it could have been a new chapter in songwriting for the group, so that’s super bittersweet. But it’s been challenging to work on some of this music, soloing up Chris‘s vocals and hearing that beautiful voice come through the speakers all on its own.”
That last line is the hinge for the whole project. Every time they open those old sessions, they’re confronted not just with a singer, but with Chris Cornell in full command, and with the reality that he’s not there to change a melody, swap a line, or tell them it’s done. You can hear in Cameron’s description that the “new chapter” he mentions is one the band never actually got to write together.
The gap between the recordings and now wasn’t just time. It was lawyers. Referring to the years-long dispute with Vicky Cornell — Chris’s widow and the representative of his estate — over how and when these final recordings could come out, Kim Thayil said: “The delay in the process was damaging in some ways to the emotive nature of the experience. Certainly, it’s great that we’re doing it now. I’m wondering — because you can’t help but wonder — how that emotive and creative journey might have been undertaken six, seven, eight years ago. You will never know that, and there’s something unfortunate (and) damaging about that. But there’s something also beneficial about that because we’re doing it now, and it’s beautiful. It’s a way to pay tribute to our beloved brother. All of it just has that much more weight emotionally and creatively, and we don’t take that lightly.”
That’s a very Soundgarden way of framing it: yes, the delay blunted the original spark, but the distance also gives the songs a sharper purpose. For the surviving members, this is not about “the next record” anymore: this is a posthumous bridge back to someone they loved.
We are, obviously, already wondering what happens when this music is finally out there. Will we ever hear it live? Cameron didn’t rule it out, but he was cautious: “We haven’t really gotten there yet. We’re just trying to get the music together. But I think there might be some situations where it would be really cool to do that. It’s just a matter of getting the right people together, and we’ve got some amazing people that we’ve been working with, some singers that have expressed interest. So, we’re really, really excited about what that could potentially look like.”
That line tells you a couple of things. First, they’re not interested in doing a tribute-by-committee. Second, they’re open to guest voices — and there are clearly singers who understand the weight of stepping into Chris Cornell’s lines and have already put their hands up. That’s a good sign for anyone hoping these songs eventually get a stage, even if it’s in a special setting rather than a full tour.
Only a month ago, Cameron told Lyndsey Parker (via Gold Derby and Lyndsanity! with Lyndsey Parker) that the band was “in the process of finishing” the final album written with Cornell. He expanded on that: “We don’t have a release date yet, but I’d say we’re about — I don’t know — maybe 70 percent finished with all the tracking and stuff. So, yeah, it sounds killer. It’s been a really amazing and bittersweet process as well. So, yeah, we are hard at work on completing that album.”
Seventy percent is close enough to taste it, far enough away that you can still rethink arrangements — which matters, because the way this material was created was pretty piecemeal. When he was asked when the upcoming Soundgarden album was actually written with Chris, Cameron explained the timeline: “Well, gosh, we started songwriting together, trading demos back and forth around 2015, ’16, something like that. And then we had some sessions in 2017 before we went out on tour, just rough rehearsals. We recorded some rehearsals. But the vocals that we’re using are from the demos that we all recorded together. And so we’re just sort of building our tracks around those vocal parts. But yeah, it sounds killer, and we’re really excited to finish it.”
So what we’re getting is not a fully live-in-a-room Soundgarden record from 2017; it’s a reconstruction built lovingly around Chris’s guide vocals and ideas. That’s a tricky thing to make feel organic, and Cameron admits it hits hard emotionally. After Lyndsey Parker observed that it “must be emotional and bittersweet to hear” Cornell’s voice after a decade, Cameron said: “It really is. But I think we’re trying to stay focused on the overall sound of it and all the reasons for us doing it. But, yeah, it’s been tough to solo up that voice and hear him loud and clear. But I think the fans will like it and it’s gonna be a really nice way to finish the creative chapter in Soundgarden.”
One of the songs we will hear is one Cameron brought in himself, “The Road Less Traveled.” He confirmed: “I wrote this music that I didn’t really know if it would fit for Soundgarden, but I just sent Chris all these musical ideas around 2016 or so, ’16, ’15. And that’s one that he really liked. He made an arrangement from my demo, and then he added vocals to it, and it came out really, really good. The lyrics are mesmerizing, as always. But, yeah, that’s gonna be a really great one for people to hear. It has all the trademark elements that Soundgarden fans might be familiar with, as well as a little bit of new territory. And there are two or three other songs that do sound like the band, but I think we were able to sort of stretch out a little bit creatively, and hopefully, when people hear that song, they’ll notice that as well. But, yeah, I guess it’s hard rock. It’s sort of bluesy, sort of psychedelic, sort of folky, I guess, all the things that we were known for. So, I hope people like that one when they finally do hear it.”
That description could sit next to a lot of the band’s mid-period work — heavy, odd, blues-shadowed, slightly psychedelic — but the part that jumps out is “a little bit of new territory.” You can imagine Chris Cornell hearing Cameron’s demo in 2016 and immediately spotting the emotional lane in it. That’s the kind of internal chemistry we are hoping still lives in these files.
What’s striking, reading all of this together, is how careful they’re being. There’s no triumphal “lost classic” talk, no attempt to frame it as a full-band rebirth. It’s more modest, more human. They’re acknowledging the delay with Vicky Cornell. They’re acknowledging the pain of hearing Chris isolated. They’re acknowledging the gaps in the process. And they’re still finishing it.
That’s the real story here: a band doing the slow, unglamorous work of closing its own loop.
