See Soundgarden Reveal 5 Unknown Facts About ‘Superunknown’
Soundgarden‘s fourth full-length, Superunknown, made it to Number One on the charts and eventually went five-times platinum, and its singles “Spoonman” and “Black Hole Sun” earned the group two Grammys. But despite its successes, it’s still an intriguing record with a long backstory, which the group is commemorating with a lavish, super-deluxe edition. So while the group was in New York City to celebrate the album’s 20th anniversary with a run-through of the whole record, Rolling Stone met up with frontman Chris Cornell and drummer Matt Cameron to dig deep and find five behind-the-scenes stories about the making of their biggest record.
In the video, Cornell and Cameron discuss how a TV clown inspired the title Superunknown, how “Spoonman” came from a fake mixtape Pearl Jam bassist Jeff Ament had made for the movie Singles, some of the lost sonic treats Cornell found when re-listening to the 5.1 surround sound mix of the album in the super-deluxe edition and more.
The band will be hitting the road this summer with another band that had a big album come out in 1994, Nine Inch Nails. Although the group has not yet committed to playing Superunknown in full on the tour, as they did in New York and at the iTunes Festival at South by Southwest, Cornell said the group has not ruled out the possibility. “We’re still considering it,” he told Rolling Stone. “There are a couple more shows where we will play the whole thing. Really, we could choose to do that at any one of these Nine Inch Nails dates at any time – or the whole thing. You never know.”