Soundgarden's surviving members Kim Thayil, Ben Shepherd and Matt Cameron reunited to play a charity show in Seattle last month as Nudedragons, an anagram of Soundgarden, with R&B/Soul singer and community organiser Shaina Shepherd fronting the band.
The performance at the city's 1100-capacity Showbox venue saw the four musicians play Soundgarden's Hunted Down, Outshined and Flower, before Guns N’ Roses bassist Duff McKagan, another Seattle music legend, joined them onstage for Kickstand and a cover of MC5‘s proto-punk classic Kick Out The Jams.
Given former Soundgarden frontman Chris Cornell's iconic status, reactions to the show were understandably mixed, though a significant number of commentators appeared less concerned about the quality of the show than about the fact that Shepherd is a black woman.
Shepherd herself has let it be known that she couldn't give a flying fuck about the opinions of outsiders.
Responding to negative feedback on a Facebook post by Australian rock/metal publication Hot Metal which invited debate about whether or not the 'alliance' between the singer and Thayil, Shepherd and Cameron should be placed on a more permanent footing, the singer wrote, "Haters gonna hate while I live my dream."
She followed up by responding to one commentator, “bro….Soundgarden is a revolutionary band that changed my life, your life, the world. I could never front Soundgarden. But I love making music with those guys. I did it for me, for them like any other music endeavor. I don’t care what any of you think – never did. I care what they think – always will. This whole article is meaningless.”
Watch excellent fan-filmed footage of the Nudedragons show, a benefit for SMooCH, a charity created to help raise funds for uncompensated care at Seattle Children’s Hospital, below.
