Plans for fans to hear an unreleased Soundgarden album have reportedly stalled, with the band unable to access vocals from late frontman Chris Cornell.
Back in May of 2017, the music world was undoubtedly shocked to learn of the untimely passing of Soundgarden frontman Chris Cornell.
While this was a massive loss by any measure, fans were devastated to learn that this would mean that this would mean that no further studio albums from Soundgarden would be released.
As it turned out though, the band were actually in the process of recording a new album when Cornell passed. However, any attempts to finish off the record have stalled, with the group reportedly unable to get their hands on the vocals from the late singer.
“It was demos,” guitarist Kim Thayil explained of the record in a new interview with Music Radar, “but the demo quality was pretty good, because both Chris [Cornell] and Matt [Cameron, drummer] had become very interested in their home recording technique, so they might demo a song, and then Ben and I would add our guitars or bass.
“Maybe Matt might play drums to a riff that Chris had recorded. And that would be recorded by one of our engineers or techs.”
Check out Soundgarden’s ‘Rusty Cage’:
“Right now, that’s all kind of stalled,” Thayil continued. “We tried to get this going two years ago, but we’re not in possession of any of the demos that Chris was working on with them.
“We have copies of them, but what we need are the files, so that we’d be able to overdub and finish the record. We are not in possession of those.
“We’ve asked nicely, we’ve suggested that this will benefit all parties, if the band could just have these files, and we could finish the songs we were working on.
“But there seems to be some confusion amongst various parties as to what that would entail and how that works, and who that would benefit. And it’s been tiring, you know. And we can’t move on until some future date when someone realizes the value of allowing the creative partners to have access to the material.”
While it remains to be seen when and if the members of Soundgarden will obtain these files in order to complete the record, there are other projects on the way for dedicated fans.
In addition to a standalone release for Live At The Paramount, the group are hoping to release material recorded during the Screaming Life period, while “slowly putting together” an anniversary package for Louder Than Love, which turns 30 on September 5th.
Check out ‘Fell On Black Days’ by Soundgarden:
