Everybody Loves Our Town_ An Oral History of Grunge - Mark Yarm [29]
SCOTT MCCULLUM I remember heading down to Bumbershoot with Eric Garcia and another friend to see George Thorogood play. We were in Chris’s car, and he’s driving, and he’s like, “Guys, you know what? I’m gonna try singing.” He starts singing “Bad to the Bone” at the top of his lungs, and we all just fuckin’ cracked up. Because we were just bullshitting with each other, and he was so serious about it. It sounded pretty good, but we were like, “Yeah, whatever.”
MATT DENTINO He was 18 years old and he had very short hair, as I recall. He was a cook. And he just blew my backside away when he started singin’, you know? He just was a very mellow, deep-thinking dude all the time. I’m a mouth-runner. I just speak, speak, speak. But he was just kind of sitting there, collecting everything.
Suddenly I had what I believed was one of the best singers on the planet. The first song I did with Chris was “White Wedding” by Billy Idol. And I was like, “Man! You know, dude, you’re hired.” And he could be Morrison-like, he could blow it out of the water.
I’ve read stuff like the Shemps was a “cheesy cover band.” But we weren’t doin’, like, Foreigner hits. We were doin’ Jimi Hendrix and Doors and Allman Brothers and good blues.
KIM THAYIL The Shemps was a bunch of nonsense. And I don’t mean nonsense in an endearing way, but nonsense, like nothing. It has nothing to do with the lineage of the Seattle scene. It was influenced by nothing in the Seattle scene and influenced nothing in the Seattle scene. The only claim it has to the Seattle scene was that I played in the band and Hiro played in the band. I never thought I was even in the band—I thought I was helping out my friend, who had some gigs lined up. And I forgot what might be Matt’s biggest claim to fame: He introduced Chris to me.
MARK ARM Kim was in my philosophy class at the University of Washington. He would always come into class five or 10 minutes late, and then proceed to monopolize the class. He would just take the class on tangents. You could almost see the professor roll his eyes every time Kim came in. Kim came up to me at a TSOL show at the Showbox and was like, “Hey, I think you’re in my philosophy class,” and we struck up a friendship. He had long hair and a scrub mustache. He looked like a hesher—I wouldn’t have guessed for a minute that he was into punk rock.
I saw them before they were Soundgarden. That cover band. I don’t even know exactly what songs they played, but my impression of it was that whatever they played, Chris sounded exactly like the singer of the original song. If they did a Doors song, he sounded exactly like Jim Morrison. It was like, “Wow, this kid can really sing.”
MATT DENTINO Chris moved in with Hiro, and upstairs was an A-frame, and we’d jam up there. Hiro was also in a band called the Altered, where they did a lot of original stuff, and it was New Wavy and jangly. He wanted me to not play with distortion and not play lead—he saw what I was doing as old-school, dinosaur. Well, I might as well cut off my testicles!
But being broke and not wanting to lose this thing, I complied. We played till the end of the year, and I was just hatin’ life, and doin’ a lot of drugs—almost died. And finally, I was so hurt I cried out to God. And his name is Jesus. I got touched by God and I’m like, I need to get out of here. And I told those guys, “I’ve gotta go. I’m leavin’ you for Jesus, so to speak.”
HIRO YAMAMOTO Chris was living with me, so me and Chris would play together, just us two, bass and drums. That was right around the time Kim was in his senior year of college. Me and Kim, we would sit around and drink beer and talk all night. Chris would do it a little bit, but then he’d just head off into his room and disappear.
KIM THAYIL So Hiro’s playing with Chris. They audition and jam with various guitarists. Hiro called me up and asked me to come