Everybody Loves Our Town_ An Oral History of Grunge - Mark Yarm [149]
In ’91, I got Alice in Chains to play a bunch of Northwest dates with us. All I knew was they were starting to break out big. I had a little studio at my house in Malibu, and in probably ’93, Jerry and those guys came out and we sang, wrote music, partied, had a good time. I was talkin’ to Jerry, and we both addressed how now there was supposed to be this anger and hatred between us. I said, “We don’t hate each other, right?” We both laughed, and he goes, “I grew up on Sabbath and Kiss.” And I said, “Me, too.”
And he said, “I know we’re supposed to not like each other, but you’re a cool dude.” We were laughing about the media portraying us as such enemies. If you like somebody, you like somebody.
CHRIS CORNELL In 1990, RIP magazine comes out and there’s an article on Soundgarden and you turn the page and it’s Poison. We were confronted with: Now, does that make us Poison? If we go on tour with Skid Row, are we Skid Row? We’re not playing Skid Row songs. We’re not changing our clothes. All we could really do is just stay who we were. Touring with Skid Row turned out to be a good thing, because we took all their fans, and they went away.
AARON JACOVES I’ll tell you what kicked Soundgarden into gear. It was when Axl, at the height of Guns N’ Roses’ career, started speaking about the group in interviews.
SUSAN SILVER After I got the call about the Guns N’ Roses tour, I went to where they were, at Stuart Hallerman’s studio, Avast! I remember walking in, I had a box of T-shirts, some new designs. And I was so excited. Oh, my God, I was so excited: “Hey, guys! I have something to tell you! We got an offer today … to go … on tour … WITH GUNS N’ ROSES!”
They didn’t say a word. After about 30 seconds—it felt like an eternity—one of them said, “What’s in the box?”
BEN SHEPHERD Our tour with Guns N’ Roses? Yeah, not my fault. I don’t like that kind of music—and don’t fuckin’ make something out of nothing by me saying that. They’re all really nice guys, don’t get me wrong. But still, let me finish. I’m a punk rocker, man. I like Black Flag and way more hardcore stuff. That kind of butt rock, I don’t like. I want nothing to do with that kind of world. I’m not a rock star, I don’t like rock stars, and I don’t want to be around them. That word rock star is really derogatory to me. There seems to be a malicious factor in calling someone that. It’s a put-down.
The Guns N’ Roses tour was a full-on metal-circus extravaganza. It was insane. I never wanted to play stadiums. It’s so far removed from your fans and the feeling, and the sound is like crap. So there we are, getting exposed to all these butt rockers, the same kind of people who would try to beat me up when I was a punk rocker. So I had a massive animosity towards those fans.
MATT CAMERON We were metal. We definitely had a metal edge. I’m proud of that fact. I always thought it was funny that all the P.C. punkers were completely dismissing us because we did one tour with Guns N’ Roses.
The Guns N’ Roses tour was kind of a nightmare backstage, but it was sort of fun to be a part of it. It was an eye-opening lesson as far as how not to tour if you become successful. Like each guy had a bodyguard, and they were just completely wasted all the time. Axl would make the band wait an hour or two before they went on, so they always had to pay out these exorbitant late fees at the venues. One gig I remember, Axl was threatening to go out and actually break up the band onstage. There were a couple of occasions like that where we had to clear the fuck out because people were predicting a riot was going to happen.
CHRIS CORNELL [Axl] was always hidden somewhere having a personal crisis—always. One time I was in the room when he was talking to his manager, Doug Goldstein, about wanting the Goodyear blimp for the show. I said this as a joke—even though it was true—that