Kim Thayil says working on Soundgarden’s box set reissue of 1991 album Badmotorfinger has helped him get over the general discomfort he has always felt towards the record.
The 25th anniversary edition of Soundgarden’s third album Badmotorfinger was released this month and guitarist Thayil says the process of trawling through old audio recordings and video footage gave him a better appreciation of the album, which he says he previously thought of as being tainted by the “MTV, commercial-radio thing.”
Thayil tells Rolling Stone: “It’s not a glowing, sunshine-y memory. I always think of how we shot two videos for Outshined.
“I developed this understanding of the song as being commercial and pedestrian and how it was in MTV’s Buzz Bin.
“I thought it was a great album but I characterised it by this MTV, commercial-radio thing and the attention and fawning that comes with that.”
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Looking through the archive in preparation for new box set release, Thayil says he changed his attitude towards the album.
He says: “I sincerely started falling in love with the album. For years, my favourite Soundgarden albums were Superunknown and Screaming Life, and this jumped ahead of them.
“You’d think I’d be sick of it, but I started becoming more and more proud, especially after I saw the live material, the outtakes, some of the treatments visual artist Josh Graham did for the Blu-ray audiovisuals.
“I don’t have to think of MTV’s Buzz Bin playing the crappy Outshined video anymore. It just gave me a different insight and appreciation.”
Soundgarden are working on the follow-up to 2012 comeback King Animal and it’s expected to arrive in 2017.
